Digital You: Real Personal Branding in the Virtual Age

It’s your recruiter. LinkedIn not only helps others find you, it helps you find the ideal people you need for those open positions on your team.

Research job listings. Find at least five job listings on LinkedIn, Indeed, and so on for the role you have, and five for the role you seek to have (remember, personal branding is both authentic and aspirational). Then look for the keywords these listings have in common.

It’s your agent. Often delivering the first impression to a prospect, your LinkedIn profile is you when you aren’t there.

Sanders’s research has shown that the more you are liked, the happier your life will be, and he coaches readers on four specific factors:

friendliness: your ability to communicate liking and openness to others

Ask: How do I want the audience to feel about me after the meeting?

The essential congruence I’m talking about here refers to the second C in the three Cs of strong brands—consistency. With every interaction with others, you must deliver a consistent, branded experience.

Sweep it under the rug. This is what you do with content you can’t get removed. Because people spend most of their time evaluating you with the first page or two of your results, the goal is to get your name featured in lots of positive, current, high-ranking content to push the digital dirt down.

Confirmation bias is the reason real and virtual impressions can become deal breakers.

Now it’s your turn. Meetings are often the most powerful business activity for brand building—but not always. Identify the business action that sits at the center of these three elements: