Guest Post by Dr. Novadean Watson-Stone
Program Director, Information Technology Management, American Public University System
Back in the day when newspapers, magazines, radio, and network television were the primary media and publicity was limited to movie stars, musicians, athletes, and politicians, building a personal brand beyond your local community was impossible. Dr. Novadean Watson-Stone writes this week’s guest blog post about the many ways individuals can build a brand on the Internet.
Today’s industries require college graduates to market their skills well beyond a career resource center. Soft skills such as communication, collaboration, critical thinking, problem solving, leadership, followership, negotiation and specialized training are in high demand. However, graduates possessing these skills must find ways to distinguish themselves from their competitors.
Distinguishing Yourself from Other Graduates
How do graduates set themselves apart from their classmates and other competing individuals? More and more, today’s graduates are establishing a personal brand on the internet. They use logos, brochures, flyers, posters, advertisements, and videos. These products are developed with software such as Adobe Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, and Adobe Premiere Pro CC; Pixlr; Capture One Pro and Final Cut Pro X; Corel AfterShot Pro and Corel VideoStudio Ultimate 2019; PhotoDirector; KineMaster; and GIMP.
According to Salary.com, there are several key ways to brand yourself to include determining what makes you unique, discovering how others perceive your exemplary attributes, establishing your goals, focusing on a target audience, becoming a social networker, building your own website, and blogging. Salary.com notes that if you are a graduate, you might find that “[setting up] accounts at social networking sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, [asking] those in your target audience to subscribe to your pages, and [updating it] on a daily basis” to be a very valuable investment of your time. Additionally, using your website as a type of electronic portfolio for prospective employers to view and capture the essence of your work will yield an even more favorable digital footprint.
Using Social Media to Create a Personal Brand
Most internet users own several social media accounts and use them to interact with family and friends, share experiences, and make announcements. According to Chase Buckle, Trends Manager at GlobalWebIndex, “digital consumers are now spending an average of almost 2 hours per day on networking and messaging…That’s a substantial chunk of daily media activities, with networking/messaging capturing almost 1 in every 3 minutes spent online.”
Since about 86% of internet users use social media at least once per day and 72% use it several times per day via PCs, laptops, smartphones and tablets, it makes sense to take your credentials, expertise, and your brand, to where your audience is—the internet.
Additionally, organizations are using social media monitoring tools such as Keyhole, Hootsuite, Twitter Counter, Digimind, TweetReach, Sprout Social, Klout, and Buzzlogix to capture a vast amount of information on potential candidates. Recruiterbox further notes, “Sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and a handful of others offer recruiters a tremendous opportunity to connect with candidates – many of whom would never be found through traditional sources.”
Even companies are encouraged to develop recruiting strategies that include elements of branding. The concept of branding is becoming a universal approach to marketing and making yourself noticeable online. The good news is you get the opportunity to define who you are and not a “system.” Brand yourself using social media and other related internet tools and make the phrase “your reputation precedes you” a reality!
About the Author
Dr. Watson-Stone is currently the Program Director for the undergraduate programs in Information Technology Management and Computer Technology at American Public University System (APUS); she serves an aggressively growing department. She has over 20 years of experience in the information technology field.
Recently, Dr. Watson-Stone presented webinars on Negotiation and Entrepreneurship (Oct 29-30, 2019) for the CompTIA Association of Information Technology Professionals. Previously, she published several blog articles on topics such as collective intelligence and soft skills. She further co-published several other articles to include “RFID with Real Implications,” “Artificial Intelligence in Information Security,” and the “Evolution of Information Security.”
