Using Social Media to Build Your Personal Brand
Business Week looks at how employees can use social media not just to benefit their employer, but to also build their own personal brand:
Smart employees understand the power of social media in creating real business value and relationships with customers, the press, analysts, and all other stakeholders. But many employees haven’t realized that they’ve also been marketing their personal brand at the same time they’ve been pushing their company’s. By participating in social networks, employees have already cultivated a network that can help serve them today, six months from now, and throughout the rest of their lives.
Building personal brands and strong networks is critical right now. The economy has made the job market so cutthroat that there are 5.4 candidates for every open job, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. If you aren’t meeting and exceeding corporate expectations, you may turn into a job seeker before you know it. To stay competitive in this environment, the two most important words for employees are “value” and “visibility.”
My advice is take advantage of the fact that branding has been transitioned solely from the grasp of companies and their “official” brand messengers. Regardless of your job title, social media allows you to assist your company like never before, while also garnering some career protection for yourself.
Excellent advice. Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal explores the flip side of social media for business – the potential for leaks, in a story headlined Leaks Grow in World of Blogs; Companies Search for New Ways to Stop Disclosures of Sensitive Information.
Employers have long sought to keep sensitive information private, and used a variety of techniques to plug leaks. But the emergence of blogs and Web sites, many targeted to a single industry or niche, combined with an abundance of recession-related bad news, has given the issue new urgency.
Is your company ready for these challenges?
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