Written by Krishna De, Managing Director, Oneocean Ltd

Continuing our journey in helping you bring your personal brand to life, this time we focus on social networking tips to help you build a distinctive personal brand online.

Did you realise that over 35 percent of the people that you plan to meet in the forthcoming months will be searching for you online BEFORE they meet you? Yes searching for you not your company. So how do you make sure that you start to build a compelling personal brand online that reflects your expertise?

Perhaps you have started to get involved in online social networks? But how do you choose which one is right for you?

Joining an online social network is no different to joining a face-to-face networking community of a professional association. In fact it’s a good time of year now to evaluate which of the associations and communities you are a member of and if you want to continue to be a member of them in the forthcoming year.

Let’s take a look at a couple of specific examples and why you might want to consider being a member.

LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com)

This is one of the first social networking sites I recommend you upload your personal profile to, especially if you are in a corporate a position as you can:

• Add your complete work history and career profile
• You can search for people through your immediate contacts
• You can make your profile visible in a Google search so people will be able to find you when searching against your name
• You can add testimonials and recommendations to your profile

LinkedIn is mainly used by people in leadership business roles and those people actively managing their career, as it’s a little more discriminating in terms of connections. Bonus tip – make sure that you include key words in your profile that potential contacts/recruiters will be searching for such as “brand manager”, “marketing manager” etc.

Facebook (www.facebook.com)

Increasingly in 2008, more and more business leaders are creating personal profiles and company pages on Facebook.

In Facebook you can:

• Directly connect to people unlike on LinkedIn where you need a paid membership to directly contact people
• Customise your Facebook page to reflect your interests and expertise, enhancing and reflecting your personal brand online
• Use Facebook purely for personal networking
• Scan information and news from your network
• Add your feeds from your blog to your Facebook profile.

Facebook is far more relaxed and is like a group of eclectic friends with perhaps business or social interests in common. I’ve found people are generally more active on Facebook, which makes it feel like a more energetic place to be.

For me, the question of which social network to join really comes down to the time you have to nurture your online network and your purpose for joining a social networking site – but it’s like any network online or offline, if you invest in it you will reap results.

Just as we choose which professional association or offline networking community we want to join based on perceived value, return on investment (be that time or money) and the ability to connect with key influencers, we can the use similar criteria to determine which online network to be a member of.

But remember that the same rule for networking online as offline is critical - it is about giving to your network, adding value and supporting them - that is what will enable you to build lasting relationships which is the platform for great career and professional success.

Copyright: Krishna De, 2007

About the author: Krishna De is an employer branding and personal branding strategist and is considered to be one of Europe’s leading personal branding and new media experts. You will find more of Krishna’s articles and podcasts at her award winning business blog Biz Growth News (http://www.bizgrowthnews.com/). You’ll also find her networking online at Linkedin and Facebook – so connect with her online today!