You've reached a point in your career where you have a defined and consistent personal brand. And that's awesome. But, like any brand marketer will tell you, it isn't enough to build the brand - you have to manage the brand. You need to be a steward of the brand. A brand manager is someone who consistently works to generate awareness, influence, and affinity all in an effort to continually build brand equity. In a nutshell, that is what a brand manager does. So, how can we start applying some of those principles to our personal brand? How do we become our own personal brand manager?
Related:5 Ways To Create A Consistent Brand
While this sounds like a full time endeavor, it isn't, it simply takes thought and planning and before you know it, it is second nature. Here are a few tips to maintaining and managing your personal brand:
Create Awareness
Creating awareness means putting your personal brand out there and publishing your information for people to see and experience you and your expertise. Of course, your LinkedIn profile is all dialed and detailed. But be sure you look at other tools that you can use to build your personal brand.
Check out You should be actively participating in LinkedIn Groups, Twitter Chats, and reaching out to influencers in your industry. This outreach should be personal and on brand. Your interactions within groups and chats should add value to the conversation and be uniquely you. When you focus on adding value to the conversation you will see that there is an increased awareness of your personal brand and you will begin to build your own influence. You should try to spend time every week doing this. I probably spend about an hour total a week on these activities.
Develop Influence
As your influence builds, look for opportunities to partner to create content for people you admire. You can either blog for others, or create your own blog and promote it through your social channels. Having a voice in you industry conversation is an important component of building influence and managing your brand. If you do not enjoy writing, go to a networking event. Maybe you are more visual, so you use Tumblr. The point here, is to begin creating content that is uniquely you and relevant to your industry. Be sure that you review whatever you've created and answer comments and questions. For this activity, I spend about an hour a week.
Build Affinity
Building affinity means that you are creating a personal brand that people experience “a spontaneous and natural liking to you." This might be the easiest to do, but also can take the most time. It is simple. Help people and add value to their days. When someone needs a favor from you, you do it and ask nothing in return. You mentor people. You share your experience and knowledge. You can do this by simply sharing really interesting content with people or by connecting two people with one another who might have mutual interest. You want people to like you and your personal brand; you add value to their days.
Earn Personal Brand Equity
Brand equity can be something that you build, but the best brand equity is earned. To be sure you are earning and maintaining your brand equity, spend time each quarter adding to your profiles. You should add new information to your LinkedIn profile. You should be updating your resume all the time. You should be storing your best work in a special folder on your computer in the cloud (via CredHive, Box or DropBox). You should be curating your best work somewhere so that you can continue to hone in on your brand. When you are curating your best work, you are maintaining your brand so that it isn't stale. Doing this takes me about an hour per quarter.
I'd love to hear your ideas on building and maintaining your personal brand. Hit up the comments to tell me your ideas and if you want, how much time you spend maintaining your personal brand.
This post was originally published at an earlier date.
With passion and an innate curiosity, Tracey strives to push the envelope to create great experiences for talent. Tracey has been developing digital, mobile and social solutions for nearly 20 years in the talent acquisition space. Currently CredHive's CEO, she is dedicated to changing the way hiring is done to create a more level playing field for talent. Visit CredHive to learn more.
Disclosure: This post is sponsored by a CAREEREALISM-approved expert.
Is your job search turning into a grind with no end in sight? It may be time to take a step back and reevaluate your entire approach.
In cold weather climates, the beginning of spring is a time to clean the house and get organized—a practice known as spring cleaning. Through the years, spring cleaning has taken on a larger meaning with people using the time to organize and declutter things in their lives.
For professionals on the job hunt, a little spring cleaning (metaphorically speaking) could be a great way to reinvigorate your job search. Here are a few strategies your job search spring cleaning should include.
Reevaluate Your Job Search Approach
Bigstock
Make a list of the last handful of jobs you applied for and see if you can identify any positive or negative trends. Consider things like:
How did I learn about this job?
How did I apply for the job?
Did I earn an interview?
What was the ultimate result?
A lot can be learned about your job search approach just by answering these questions and identifying patterns. For example:
Negative Trends
You discovered five jobs through job boards, applied to all of them via the job boards, and never heard back from any of them.
The common pattern here is applying through job boards. This isn't to say that job boards don't serve a purpose in the job search process, but they have their limitations, and you can't run your job search entirely off of them. When you apply through a job board, there's a good chance that your materials will never get past the applicant tracking system (ATS) and never be seen by an actual person.
One simple fix is to research who the hiring manager or recruiter is that posted the position and email your materials to them directly.
The more efficient fix would be to take a proactive approach by putting together a bucket list of companies that you want to work for and start making connections on LinkedIn with people who work at those companies. You may already know some people who work there or have connections that can refer you to some individuals.
This is a great way to network your way onto a company's radar.
Positive Trends
You applied to three jobs via referral, were invited to two job interviews, and made it through multiple rounds of interviews for one of the jobs before being passed over for someone with a little more experience.
The pattern here is that getting referred to a job by a professional acquaintance is a great way to land a job interview. This indicates that you're leveraging your network well and you should continue to focus on your networking efforts.
The next step is to review the interview process and determine what went well and what needs to be improved. Sometimes the interviewer will provide feedback, and that feedback can be valuable. However, not everyone is comfortable with giving feedback.
Chances are you probably have a good idea about areas of improvement and the skills you need to gain. Put together a plan for addressing those shortfalls.
The good news in making it deep into any interview process is that it indicates that the company likes you as a potential employee (even if the timing just wasn't right) and the experience could be a roadmap to a job with that company at a later date, or another similar opportunity elsewhere.
Give Your Resume & Cover Letter Some Much-Needed Attention
Bigstock
Are you continuously sending similar resumes and cover letters to each job opening with only minor adjustments? If so, your strategy needs some serious spring cleaning.
The reason why it's so important to tailor your resume is that throughout your career, you acquire numerous skills, but the job you're applying for may only be focusing on 6-8 of those skills. In that case, those skills must rise to the top of the resume with quantifiable examples of how you successfully used those skills at previous jobs.
Remember, recruiters go through hundreds of resumes. They need to be able to tell from a quick glance whether or not you're a potential candidate for the position.
While updating your resume, you could also spruce up your LinkedIn profile by highlighting the skill sets that you want to be noticed for by recruiters.
As for writing a good cover letter, the key to success is writing a disruptive cover letter. When you write a disruptive cover letter, you're basically telling a story. The story should focus on how you connect with the particular company and job position. The story could also focus on your personal journey, and how you got to where you currently are in your career.
If your resumes and cover letters aren't unique, now is the time to clean things up and get on track.
Build Your Personal Brand
Just because you're looking for work doesn't mean that you don't have anything to offer. Use previous career experiences and passions to build your personal brand.
Ask yourself, "How do I want other professionals to view me?"
Pick an area of expertise and start sharing your knowledge and experience with your professional network by pushing out content on your LinkedIn and social media accounts. Good content can include blogs, social media posts, and videos.
By sharing content about your experiences and passions, you slowly build your personal brand, and others will start to notice. The content could lead to good discussions with others in your network. It could also lead to reconnecting with connections that you haven't spoken to in years, or making new connections.
You never know when one of these connections could turn into a job lead or referral. The trick is to get on people's radars. So, when you're cleaning up your job search, be sure to build a plan for personal branding.
Maintain Healthy Habits During Your Job Search
Bigstock
Your job search is important, but it's even more important to know when to pull back and focus on personal health and spending time with family and friends.
There are actually things that you can do for your own enjoyment that could help your job search in the long run, such as:
Grab coffee with a friend - It's good to engage in light conversation with friends during challenging times. And if your job search does come up, remember that most people have been through it themselves and you never know when a friend may provide you with a good idea or lead on a job.
Volunteer - Volunteering is a great way to get involved in the community and help others. In addition, if you develop a little bit of a career gap while looking for a job, you can always talk about how you filled that time volunteering, if you're asked about it during a job interview.
Continue to focus on other passions - Are you a fitness nut? Blogger? Crafter? Continue to do the things that bring you happiness. And if you're in a position to profit from your passion through a freelance job or side hustle, even better!
Spring is the perfect time to clean up and improve your job search so you can land the job you want. If you're struggling to find a job, follow the tips above to reinvigorate your job search—and watch your career blossom!
Need more help with your job search?
Become a member to learn how to land a job and UNLEASH your true potential to get what you want from work!
This article was originally published at an earlier date.
Bigstock
Bigstock
Bigstock
