Your personal branding strategy should cover as many venues as possible. Use email, Skype, Twitter, and establish one professional identity. Consider setting up a personal logo, creating a slogan and spreading the word visually.
Create websites and pages using free online resources – a Wiki, a blog, a forum, a website where people can ‘ask the expert’, a Helium Zone, a Squidoo lens and Hub Page.
Where you choose to interact online conveys a message about you, so stick to websites and communities that will help most in reaching your goals. help other people in your industry such as bloggers, Twitterers, colleagues, and advice seekers.
Give people reasons to link to you and to spread the word about your brand. Join brand-related communities on social media (LinkedIn Groups, Facebook communities), and participate in discussion forums, newsgroups and mailing lists. Share links and resources that you know people will enjoy; follow others in your field and encourage reciprocity.
Register your own name as a domain name, or, if someone beat you to the punch, use your personal brand name. Syndicate your blog in brand-related sites and networks, and list it in pertinent website, blog and RSS directories. Offer to exchange blogroll placements with other bloggers in the industry.Place your personal brand information in your email signature, forum signatures, website personal profiles, software-based personal profiles, the name field in blog comments forms, website field in blog comments forms, social media resumes, and any other profiles you have online.
Be extremely selective in choosing the best social media for your purpose, and complete your personal profiles by including branding messages. Create a social bookmarking account (using del.icio.us or another well known platform) and place bios on Wikipedia, Knol, and other user-generated media.
Use FriendFeed to tie together everything and allow people to follow your online activities from one central location. Social networking is the fastest, easiest way to get your brand out there!
Tags: branding, social media