Making connections is what social media is all about. When it comes to personal branding however, the quality of those connections is important.
For example, imagine a recruiter looking through your Twitter Followers and finding a spammy “Buy 5,000 Twitter followers” account or, worse, a porn account. What does that say about you that didn't block such accounts?
Once you’ve completed the audit what can you do in the future to ensure you have quality connections that will enhance your online personal brand?
Start by having a thoughtful approach to who you’ll follow.
How to decide who to follow on social media for personal branding success
When someone asks to connect with you, ask yourself:
- Are they in your industry or a related industry? (Related question: Are they in any Linkedin groups you belong to?)
- Are they active on Linkedin and other social media?
- What do they talk about and what do they share on SM?
If you are seeking new connections, first ask yourself:
- Who do you want to connect to? Why?
- How will you find these people? Using advanced search in Twitter and Linkedin, and Facebook’s graph search are good places to start – search for people mentioning the terms relevant to your interests.
- Are they active on Linkedin and other social media?
- What do they talk about and what do they share on SM?
In some respects Twitter is a better starting place to find industry-relevant people. It is a place where you can connect with anyone (unlike Linkedin where you need to be connected or pay a premium to contact people you aren’t connected to).
Basic tips to assess whether to follow someone on Twitter include:
- Does their bio indicate relevance to your purposes on social media?
- What kind of content have they shared in the past few days?
- Is their Following-Follower ratio in balance – in other words are there either more Followers or are they about the same. If there is a much higher Following number they are either new to Twitter or desperate for followers.
- Twitteraudit: It seeks to answer the question: "How many of your followers are real?" But it also evaluates the Twitter accounts of others. Anything higher than 10 percent fake followers indicates someone who indiscriminately connects or does not block spammy followers… i.e. they’re not very careful on Twitter.
- Status People: It sorts any Twitter accounts followers into Fake, Inactive and Good. A high number in Fake (more than 10 percent) or Inactive (more than 20 percent) should also be a warning sign.
First, decide if Facebook is a place you want to open up to people beyond friends and family. Some people draw that line at Facebook.
But if you are OK with connecting professionally on Facebook you can use FB’s own search engine to find people who may be worth connecting to.
Start by using search terms such as keywords related to your industry and move on to search on relevant hashtags. And, although its focus is marketing the tips here can be applied to personal connections too: How to Use Facebook Graph Search to Improve Your Marketing
Google+
Any discussion on personal branding has to include Google+. Whether you’re a fan or not is somewhat irrelevant – it’s a Google product so you better believe being there helps in Google search results.
Using the Google+ search or a regular Google search use keywords and the usual Google search operators.
For more on doing better Google searches see How to Use Google Search More Effectively.
Was this helpful? Wil you invest some time in social media and ensuring your connections are worthwhile? It is the only way social media can help with personal branding.
Related link:
Blogging for personal branding
Personal branding – don’t leave it to chance
Posts
Your ideas, to use social media for personal branding success is quite informative as well as help full to make strategy for the user engagement
ReplyDeletedecide if Facebook is a place you want to open up to people beyond friends and family. Some people draw that line at Facebook.
ReplyDelete