SOCIALMEDIA

for Personal Branding

7047QCA DIGITAL DESIGN THEORY & PRACTICEFRED 04MASTER OF DIGITAL DESIGN, GRIFFITH UNIVERSITYLECTURER: DAVID KEANE

NASTITI MAYAWULANS2822152

Women's silhouette[Image] was created by Ambrozjo, retrieved May 28, 2012, from Stock.xchng: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1361098

abstractSocial media has become a common activity in people's internet behaviour. Companies are using social media to brand and market their products and services. Branding is different from marketing. With branding, we create an image for the world to see about us, but with marketing, we offer something to the public. Branding is important for companies as well as personal. Personal branding is a process of developing a mark around one's name or career to express skills, personality and values because we need to sell our quality and skills to potential clients or employers. By having a good image, we can take advantages of it, such as asking for a higher pay or a promotion. To build a personal brand, one must discover what the brand will be, write a blog, create a website. integrate the social network, put an online resume and live the brand.

Building a personal brand requires a tool and social media network is a good one, because mainly people are visit-ing social media sites when they are online. You do not have to have account in every social media platform, but it is advised that you have an account in three largest social media platform right now, which is Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. There are various ways of using different social media platform for personal branding, but to have an updated work experience and skills, make clear of the passion and interest as well as consistency across the platforms are the things to be paid attention.

KEYWORDS

FRED REFERENCESDomain name, "profile picture", "cover photo", URL

Social media, branding, marketing, advertising, promotion, personal branding, blog, website, CV, online portfolio, privacy set-ting, microblogging, tweet, follower

Social media has become the norm of today's life. According to comScore, a global leader in measuring the digital world and the preferred source of digital marketing intelligence, social networking accounted for 21.9 per cent of Australians’ time online in De-cember 2010, leading as the top online activity. Aus-tralians visited portals for 19.7 per cent of their time, while instant messengers accounted for 11.6 per cent of time and entertainment accounted for 11.1 per cent of total online time1.

Many companies, big and small, are already make use of social media to improve their relationship with their customers, because with social media, you can get intimate with thousands of people. They can have instant feedback, discussions, questions and answers, or just throwing trivia of some random stuff that interests people. They brand and they market themselves there.

social media on the rise

1comScore, Inc. (2011, February 18). Social Networking Accounts for 1 of Every 5 Minutes Spent Online in Australia[Press Release]. Retrieved May 28, 2012, from comScore: http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2011/2/Social_Networking_Accounts_for_1_of_Every_5_Minutes_Spent_Online_in_Australia, illustration by Nastiti Mayawulan

Figure 1. Time allocation of Australia's online period

Social network21.9%

Portals19.7%

Instant Messengers11.6%

Entertainment11.1%

E-mail5.9%

Games3.2%

News/information3.0%

Search/navigation2.3%

Auctions2.4%

Community2.1%

Others16.3%

People often confuses branding with marketing. Although both are closely related, the two are different.

What a company should say, what it stands for, and what kind of value it delivers to its customers

Provides the vehicles to deliver the messages.

CREATE COMPETE

How the world sees the product/service, the image projected and the business per-sonality that people come into contact with

The way of promoting the business and the services offered through various means of advertising, promotion and publicity

what is branding?

Branding Marketingvs

Companies do branding to promote their products and services. But how about individuals? Apparently, people also need to do branding. We can see wide variety of people in the social media being known as an actor, an author, a marketer, a motivational speaker, an athlete, and so on. This is called personal branding.

Personal branding is a process of developing a mark around one's name or career to express skills, person-ality and values (Lake, 2012). People needs to brand themselves because we always have to sell ourselves to attract future possibilities such as new employer, potential client or a career promotion. We are always judged by the first impression, whereas in this modern world will appear in a simple Google Search, so it is important to keep our image in a good way.

According to Dan Schwabel, a personal branding expert, students and entrepreneur also need to do branding for themselves. It is about reputation, the size and strength of the network, and what unique value they can con-tribute to a company or a client. With those things in hand, one has a sense of being, confidence and purpose. It makes him stands out from the crowd, being visible and valuable so he can ask for a premium price (higher sa-lary), and the network he has can because of his brand can help them from uncertain working environment. If he is an entrepeneur, it allows him to grow the business.

personal branding

Building a personal brand is a timeless task. But to start on it, there are several steps that people can take as follows:

1. Discover what the brand will be. One should have a clear idea of who he is, what he wants to be known as, and the type of content he can

consistently publish. He should list his qualities, select one or two that can be the most important ones and build the brand around it. Among his peers, he would stands out if he were to build his brand around his passion and expertise.

2. Write a blog, create a website. A blog is a great medium to let people know one's knowledge, way of thinking, where the passion lies, way

of approaching things, and problem solving. By letting people know what is inside his head, one will make an impression to them.

Companies may have presence on Facebook and Twitter that reflects their brand, but their online home base is always their website. The same thing happens to personal brand. People can put anything on their social media account, but a personal website will make someone to have a complete control of his image. It is re-commended to have a domain name based on one's own name to solidify the image. Make sure the website is simple and clearly reflects the personal brand that is being created.

how to build personal branding

3. Integrate the social network. The social media accounts should be filled with information for people to know about oneself, reflecting his

passion and interest. Every time someone posts an article on his blog, he should put a link on his tweet or Facebook status to encourage people to visit and read it. Syncing the blog with LinkedIn account is also im-portant to make the recent posts appear on the profile.

4. Put a virtual resume. One can put an online resume in his blog or website. An online portfolio is more accessible than the printed

one, so it is a great idea to have the works up in the internet and put the links in the CV or LinkedIn account. Potential employers and clients can go look it up and see the demonstration of skills by themselves.

5. Live the personal brand. A person should not build a personal brand merely to present himself to the world. It should be a real life

identity as much as the projected image. An amount of time should be spent emphasising the elements of the personal brand in his life.

Building a personal brand requires a tool. One of the most useful tool is social media network, because mainly people are visiting social media sites when they are online. You do not have to have account in every social media platform, because it will be a hassle in managing them. Below is how you manage an account in three largest social media platform right now, which is Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Using different social media platforms to brand yourself

1. FacebookTo brand yourself on Facebook, choose a cover photo or a profile picture that reflects your personal-ity or interest. Make your work and education history updated and relevant. Add milestones and experience that can enrich your image. If you have any undesirable content in your account, please customise the privacy setting and hide it.

An example of it is as follows:

Cover photo of Brisbane that I took myself, exhibiting both my skill and interest on photography

Profile photo showing my face

Figure 2. Facebook account page

Updated work experience and education Important milestones

Figure 3. Facebook account page - About

2. TwitterThis is a microblogging site where you can post message (“tweet”) with maximum of 140 character, much like an SMS. Despite the limitation of the characters, Twitter can be powerful, since there is a tendency that Twitter users are choosing to consume information rather than publish it themselves2. So you can create an interesting content and share it via Twitter. However, one of the goals of having a Twitter account is to gain followers and few people want to follow an account that does not look legitimate, so set your Twitter bio to match the rest of your online branding. This is how people will find you and recognise

you now and in the future. Do brand yourself based on your passions and skill set.

I use my Twitter account as an example. My bio tells people that I am a design student who has interest in pho-tography and video shooting as well as social media. Strangely enough, I got new followers from various places in the world all of the sudden. When I checked their bios, it turned out that they are either social media practitioner or enthusiast, just like what I put on my bio. I guess the bio did help in finding people that share the same interest and has a potential for sharing the knowledge together.

Another important thing to do is to link your Twitter with your blog to publish your posts, so your followers will be aware that you are sriting something and become interested in reading it.

2Romero, D. M., Galuba, W., Asur, S., & Huberman, B. A. (n.d.). Influence and Passivity in Social Media. Retrieved May 28, 2012, from HP Labs: http://www.hpl.hp.com/research/scl/papers/influence/influence.pdf

Twitter bio that states my passion, skill and interest

Figure 4. Twitter bio

3. LinkedInLinkedIn is mostly used by business professionals for networking, so by nature it is often used by job seekers and employers. It has become an essential tool to share business expertise, find jobs, advance professional knowledge, and build personal brands. For LinkedIn, updated profile with the latest experience and skills is a must.

Have a headline that sells an experience to stand out, since this is the first part that people will read on your profile and you would want them to continue exploring it.

Visibility is important. You want to be discovered by people. One of the ways to achieve that is to edit your LinkedIn URL to include your name, since this will make your profile to show up at the top or near the top of the first page of your Google results. Write your ‘Summary’ in the first person and tell a story. By doing that, you are speaking directly to the person or organisation that is looking for you in the network.

Build your credibility and validation for your brand and experience by having people who know you well write recommendations on LinkedIn. People would appreciate what other people say about us. Even as a student you can request recommendations from your lecturers, classmates, assistants or virtually anyone with whom you have shared an academic experience.

Updated work experience and education

LinkedIn URL that contains my name

Figure 5. LinkedIn profile

"Summary" that tells a story and is written in the first-person view

Recommendations from my former colleagues and manager

Figure 6. LinkedIn profile - Summary

Figure 7. LinkedIn profile - Recommendation

Branding is different from marketing. With branding, we create an image for the world to see about us, but with marketing, we offer something to the public. Branding is important for companies as well as personal, because we need to sell our quality and skills to potential clients or employers. By having a good image, we can take ad-vantages of it, such as asking for a higher pay or a promotion. To build a personal brand, one must discover what the brand will be, write a blog, create a website. integrate the social network, put an online resume and live the brand. Building a personal brand requires a tool and social media network is a good one, because mainly people are visiting social media sites when they are online. There are various ways of using different social media platform for personal branding, but to have an updated work experience and skills, make clear of the passion and interest as well as consistency across the platforms' profile page are the things to be paid attention to.

conclusion

referencesAmbrozjo. (2011, August 15). Women's silhouette[Image]. Retrieved May 28, 2012, from Stock XCHNG: http://www.sxc.hu/pho-

to/1361098comScore, Inc. (2011, February 18). Social Networking Accounts for 1 of Every 5 Minutes Spent Online in Australia[Press Re-

lease]. Retrieved May 28, 2012, from comScore: http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2011/2/So-cial_Networking_Accounts_for_1_of_Every_5_Minutes_Spent_Online_in_Australia

ComScore, Inc. (2012, January 04). People Spent 6.7 Billion Hours on Social Networks in October. Retrieved May 8, 2012, from ComScore: http://www.comscoredatamine.com/2012/01/people-spent-6-7-billion-hours-on-social-networks-in-octo-ber/

e-Biz MBA. (2012, May). Top 15 Most Popular Social Networking Sites | May 2012. Retrieved May 12, 2012, from e-BizMBA: http://www.ebizmba.com/articles/social-networking-websites

Elmore, L. (2010, January 3). Personal Branding 2.0, Vol. 62 Issue 1, p12-14, 3p. Retrieved May 20, 2012, from EBSCO Host: http://web.ebscohost.com.libraryproxy.griffith.edu.au/ehost/detail?sid=74b06e8e-b7bd-4d38-8056-88fa0977ac47%40sessionmgr13&vid=1&hid=14&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#db=anh&AN=48949661

Lake, L. (2012, April 22). What is Personal Branding? Retrieved May 21, 2012, from About.com: http://marketing.about.com/b/2012/04/22/what-is-personal-branding.htm

Margenau, S. C. (2011, June 8). What is Branding? What's the Difference Between Marketing and Branding? A New Look at an Old Debate. Retrieved May 21, 2012, from ImageWorks Studio: http://www.imageworksstudio.com/blog/what-brand-ing-whats-difference-between-marketing-and-branding-new-look-old-debate/index.html

Nielsen. (2011, Q3). Social Media Report: Spending Time, Money and Going Mobile. Retrieved May 08, 2012, from Nielsen Wire: http://www.nielsen.com/content/dam/corporate/us/en/reports-downloads/2011-Reports/nielsen-social-media-report.pdf

Romero, D. M., Galuba, W., Asur, S., & Huberman, B. A. (n.d.). Influence and Passivity in Social Media. Retrieved May 28, 2012, from HP Labs: http://www.hpl.hp.com/research/scl/papers/influence/influence.pdf

Schmoozy Fox. (2011, August 10). Branding creates, marketing competes. Retrieved May 28, 2012, from Schmoozy Fox: http://www.schmoozyfox.com/2011/08/10/branding-versus-marketing/

Schwabel, D. (2009, February 6). Personal Branding 101: How to Discover and Create Your Brand. Retrieved May 21, 2012, from Mashable: http://mashable.com/2009/02/05/personal-branding-101/

Tabaka, M. (2010, April 6). The Succesful Soloist. Retrieved May 29, 2012, from Inc.com: http://www.inc.com/marla-tabaka/what-is-your-personal-brand.html

Voss, C. (n.d.). Personal Branding With Social Media Infographic. Retrieved May 22, 2012, from Chriss Voss Show: http://thechris-vossshow.com/personal-branding-with-social-media-infographic/

Weber, J. (n.d.). How to Create Your Personal Brand in 6 Easy Steps. Retrieved May 30, 2012, from Pick the Brain.com: http://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/how-to-create-your-personal-brand-in-6-easy-steps/

Wrappa Branding and Design. (2012, February 15). The difference between branding and marketing. Retrieved May 22, 2012, from Bizcommunity.com: http://www.bizcommunity.com/Article/196/111/70807.html

questions & answers

possible future investigations

Question 1: How about if a potential employer wants to see my Facebook page? If they see my LinkedIn profile, I don't mind. But I feel uncomfortable letting people that I don't know prying over my Facebook.

Answer: There is a Privacy setting that you can adjust on Facebook. If it is set at Public, then no matter if it is your future client, employer or a total stranger resides at the other part of the world, every one will be able to see the content of your Facebook page. If you feel it should not be displayed freely, then you can set it to Friends where only your friends can see your photos and other stuff. Don't forget to own the LinkedIn URL with your name, because it will appear at the top-most result of your Google search. By having it at the top, hopefully your future employer would go to your LinkedIn page instead of Facebook.

Social media trend in Indonesia, how the companies can take advantage of the growing Indonesian Facebook and Twitter users,

Question 2: Which one is better; using a unique Twitter name (for example: @littlegirlontheprairie) or using my real name for personal branding?

Answer: It is better to use your real name for your Twitter name (or Twitter handle, some might say). You are promoting your-self, so your real name will be best to build an image of you. If there is already a Twitter handle with the same name as yours, then you might want to modify yours a little bit. For example, your name is John Doe, but Twitter handle @JohnDoe is already claimed by somebody else who happens to have the same name as you. In this case, you can modify your Twitter handle to @JDoe, @JDoeDesign or whatever suits the brand that you want to build.

Question 3: Is it necessary to have a headshot for LinkedIn profile?

Answer: LinkedIn is a professional networking website, so it is better if you invest on having a good headshot for your profile picture. Avoid having a group of people in the picture since it would not be clear which one you are. Your credibility can be as-sessed by other people by looking at something as simple as a good profile photo.

NASTITI MAYAWULAN© 2012 - S2822152