Guide to build your Personal Brand.

If you have ever bought anything online, do you remember making a little research online using a few Google searches and going through reviews just to make sure you are buying the right thing?

Before the advent of online media, we always checked with a few people we thought knowledgeable before making a buying decision or any important decision for that matter.

Today, when there so many same category products in saturated market, which products we prefer? Branded! Even those persons who can’t afford them wish from them. That’s the power of Branding. The point is, your reputation today, is more important than ever before. Being a student, we always keep ourselves worried about future. Will organizations hire me? Will I will be able to grab a nice job? Out there in strong competition where do I stand? Your personal image reaches your destination before you do and that is why your Personal Branding is so important today.

What Is Personal Branding?

Personal Branding is the way you market yourself. In what way you tell other people about your skills and talents. A few questions given below can make will clear the clouds of your doubt about personal branding in your case.

1) What ideas pops in others mind after hearing your name?

2) What do you represent?

3) Are you expert in what you do?

4) Are you trustworthy?

5) What do you stand for? What do you speak for?

Gone are the days when Branding was confined to celebrities. Everybody has a brand value and social media makes it so important for any student to make her/himself a brand.

How to do Your Personal Branding as a student?

This is the age of Online Media. Students must focus on benefiting from this trend and build their own brand identity and leverage social media to influence their market.Among many ways, let's keep this discussion to the social media tools and technologies and how you can use them the right way for your Personal Branding.

Here are some basic steps to start to establish your brand value online using the social media channels:

1)Facebook is not just about fun:

According to a report, the Facebook's population is as big as whole world's was in 1804. So it is one of the powerful ways to create your online presence. Set up your Facebook profile if you don't own one (even it sounds impossible).Remember that whatever you say or do online becomes a public record of your personal brand. A student who keeps posting his pictures of travelling and partying. People will think him of as someone who just want fun in his life. And indirectly person who may not be responsible. Keep a hawk eye on what you post/update/like. If you have learnt something or any special and unique skill, post its video. For example students who like to sing or can play guitar mostly updates posts about their new song covers or tunes. So idea is that use Facebook more than uploading food picture or cat videos. Show off your skills online.

2)Tweet Tweet!

Tweet on the topics that demonstrate your area of expertise and professional knowledge. Write your Twitter bio describing yourself in 160 or less characters. Follow influential people of your industry. Provide link to your online resume in the website field of your account. Social power of twitter has mushroomed like crazy. Where one tweet can become voice of millions, don’t skip your chance to speak in front of millions of audience by just typing few words. People will know that you are not just dumb nerdy grad but also speaks for the causes.

3) Meet your employer at LinkedIn:

This should be your first stop if you are a student or a professional. It is closest thing to your online resume. You should set up your LinkedIn profile with utmost care. Fill out the profile completely.

Do not skip out any experience or details. The default headline describes your current job title. You can and should change it manually if you are not happy with the look of your profile headline. Your summary should include a brief paragraph summarizing your work experience and your career aspirations. Update your LinkedIn profile by adding latest information regularly. You don’t know sometimes even the small internship you did in last summer pays off.

Facebook and LinkedIn both offer great opportunities to join groups focused on specific topics or industries. If you can find groups that line up with your area of expertise, then you’ll be able to share that experience and build authority around your personal brand.

4)Got a blog?

Time has come when people are folding their newspapers and picking up their tablets/smartphones. This is the most powerful step of all. After your social profiles on all these mainstream social networking sites is in place, it begins to create an image of a genuine person for you. That is a great beginning. However, there is more to personal branding than having a bunch of social media profiles. Your own website, your own blog starts to make that difference for you.

We all have talents, we all have unique skills and we all have some passions. These are the things that can help you get going with your blogging journey. Start writing about your cooking recipes, who knows you are the next Master Chef.

Well now I have introduced you with sense of personal branding, I hope you will think about your strategies of personal branding. Because your finals year is here and you got to think “ Where do you exist online” !