Personal Branding in Ten Easy Steps

Personal branding can be a dilemma for organizations. It's a risk to let individuals "loose", but it's a calculated risk if you educate yourself and your co-workers. Here is a simple checklist we use to coach individuals for personal branding success.
1. Branding required

• Who do you represent? Visitors should know who you are connected to.

• Colors, backgrounds, logos, etc. on your sites should be branded with the company's and should be used across the board.

2. Proper identification

• You avatar should represent who you are. Don't use organizational logos if you are representing yourself. Make it informal, but not out of character. (No pics from you and your buddies at the local pub.)

• Page and account titles should be your name, not covert or nickname-related.

3. Fill out your profiles

• Make sure all profiles are filled out w/proper identification of who you work for and what your position is. Don’t forget the personal stuff (hobbies, favorites movies, etc.) Sharing email addresses is optional, but let people know who you are and that you are a human.

4. Be present

• Frequent the accounts you set-up—be available. Sync with your mobile phone, if necessary.

• Don’t be a troll—don’t tweet or post so much that people “unfollow” you. Make use of direct messaging if you want to have a personal conversation.

• If you can’t be present and active, don’t try personal branding. It will be a poor PR piece for you if you aren’t regular and connecting with followers.

• If you write a blog, post a minimum of once per week. Any less and you will lose followers.

5. Be a good sport

• Never criticize the employer, peers, other schools, conferences, etc. Read what you write before you click the button to post and ask, “would I say this in public at a press conference? Does it reflect well on me and my program/school?” Remember this is a public forum—anything you say can and will be used against you.

6. Be a good friend

• Refer to other people’s posts and tweets that will be of interest to your followers.

• Comment on other people’s blogs and answer legitimate questions you get on blogs, Facebook and Twitter—this is a commitment.

• You don’t need to follow everyone that follows you. Just follow those accounts that add something to you.

• Gaining endorsements from your followers will equate to social capital for you and your program.

7. Learn from the experts

• Read information that will help you become a better social connector. Start with sites like http://www.socialmediatoday.com/ . They will send updates of topics to your inbox daily, if you subscribe (free).

• Follow other people in your field—coaches should follow other coaches that are good at what they do. A couple of my favorite coaches to follow are Kelly Graves from Gonzaga (kgzag@twitter.com), Shimmy Gray-Miller (shimmy33@twitter.com) at St. Louis University, and Montana State’s Justin Scanson (jscanson@twitter.com). All are women’s hoops coaches. You can follow people like John Calipari, but remember he does practically none of his own tweeting and posting. There is an authenticity gap when personal branding sites are not run by the “persons”  they claim to be. There are many others --ask around.

8. Get help if you need it but be authentic:

• If you are going to have a staffer blog, tweet and post for you, it might be better to develop an account for your program or department rather than for you personally. Followers will see through your lack of authenticity eventually.

• Get help setting up your accounts and maintaining them from people in the department that know what they’re doing. There are efficient ways to use social media—find out about them so you make the best of your time.
9. Do I have to get personal?

• You may be uncomfortable with writing about your personal life, but you don’t have to talk about personal things to personally brand. Share your thoughts on your sport, your program…talk about your kids’ ball games (don’t tweet every play or score). You will find your comfort zone, but again—see what others are doing first. Do some listening.

10. Have fun

• If you can’t have fun doing it, don’t “just do it” because everyone else is. There are options, as I mentioned before. Consider branding your program instead of yourself. In that case, I would not use a personal avatar, but maybe a school logo or player action shot. Make sure the title of the account reflects the program and not you personally. Social media can be addicting, so don’t let it rule your life. Have fun!