Social Branding: Positives and Negatives

What does "Social Branding" mean?! Well, for starters, you must understand the power of social networking and social media. Combined, these two entities are playing a vital role in the way the entire world is communicating today. You could very well be left out of some important conversations, updates and notices if you are not linkedin, twittered out, and facebook friendly. I mean, with all the up and coming ways to communicate you really have to decide what works best for the message you are trying to send and receive. Bottom line is this - whether or not you like social networking, it is a huge factor in the way companies, professionals and students are discussing relevant business matters, so it is imperative that you find which network best suits you and become apart of this whole era of indirectly communicating. Trust me when I say, you don't have a choice. On the flip side, you could keep it simple and use the phone or email as your primary source for outreach, but note, in order to maximize your "personal and social branding statement" it is much more effective to stay socially trendy in order to reach the masses and more importantly, have an outlet for the masses to reach you!

There are so many ways to bring your resumes and passions to life by displaying your skills through the various social network outlets. We can all name the stalkerish ways that social media has invaded our privacy (if we let it) but we also have the privileged opportunity to expand our reach far beyond what was feasible years ago. So, you have to ask yourself, how are you to going to take advantage of these FREE opportunities and exploit them to your best interest.That's the key!

Before you start, there are a few things you should consider: what message are you trying to convey, what audience are you trying to reach, what is your marketing elevator speech (meaning, who are you and what are your goals in 20 sec or less) and in what ways do you plan to use social media to achieve your goals? In order to truly use these social sources in a professional manner, you have to be strategic so that people don't taste the medicine in the candy you're feeding them. They only taste the sweetness, never realizing the message you have stuffed in between the caramel (Facebook) and chocolate (LinkedIn). If your plan of action is not well thought out, you and your ideas will appear to be just another junk message that will be ultimately ignored.

*****Social branding is an imperative stepping stone t0 professionals and entrepreneurs building and sustaining relevancy in today's competitive market, so before you knock social media, make sure you have fully explored the positives and negatives!*****

FAB has caught on and we're hanging tight! Catch FAB on Facebook, Myspace and Twitter!!! Even more social networking sites coming soon . . .