Brandweek has run my latest post discussing the role of social networks in framing and portraying your online persona.
Excerpt:
Social networks are becoming the very mechanisms for connecting with people, ideas, brands, news and information. But thinking of social networks as a personal playground will only come back to haunt you and any company you work with in the future.
Facebook is the most legitimate and productive social network for business professionals on the Web today. This isn’t a slight against LinkedIn, a service I also use to manage relationships with other business contacts. They can both co-exist seamlessly.
This is about leveraging the so-called “social graph” and “social media” to more effectively cultivate online relationships and at the same time, leverage the network to increase visibility for your expertise, reputation and activity. As a marketer, your collective “brand” can extend to also impact and bolster the brands you may represent.
More here.
Connect with me on Twitter, Jaiku, LinkedIn, Pownce, Plaxo, FriendFeed, or Facebook.
Personal brands are still in the early adopter stage but seem well on their way to becoming main stream tools for personal growth. The resume continues to be the tool of choice when one looks to chnage jobs. Why is that? I’d much rather view a person from the whole (personal brand) rather than the sliver (resume).
The personal brand is really a reflection on the process of personal growth and one’s life journey. What we need in addition to this reflection, is the guidance and tools to help us get there. I do not see that forum on the web yet.
Thanks for spreading the importance of personal brands and Facebooks role in moving this forward.
Doug Lindsay
Doug, you’re right. I hear more and more that “google” is the new resume. This is very important to remember as we produce content for the web. Almost everything we do via Social Media is indexable in traditional and new media search engines. It all adds to, or takes away from, the overall brand that naturally shapes perception when someone searches for information.