Digital You: Real Personal Branding in the Virtual Age

Just as with most messes, there are two ways to clean it up.

Review your message. Go back to part 1 of this book and review the section where you defined your message or point of view. What words did you use to describe your unique message?

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

Defenders: These are your go-to people for moral and professional support and guidance, including your mentors, close family, and friends. They are often the people who can help you accelerate your growth, having an impact on the speed at which you attain your goals. They can help give you the perspective you need during challenging times.

It’s your publicist. Move over, CNN. LinkedIn lets you showcase your expertise and express your point of view. Through the way you write your summary to the content you share in your activity feed, the groups you join, and the conversations you have, you can tell people who you are and what you believe.

It’s your contact manager. It allows you to organize and manage all the people in your professional life. You can add your email and phone contacts to your LinkedIn connections—making it the only tool you need to find the key players in your community, even when they switch jobs and their email address changes.

Intriguing. Not the kind of dramatic intrigue you’d get in a John Grisham novel, but the kind that makes people want to know more about you.

Put yourself in your stakeholders’ shoes. Think about the people you are looking to influence. Who are the decision makers? Then think about the words and phrases they would use if they were looking for you or someone who does what you do.

This measure has to do with the format of your online content. Is it all text-based, or are there images, videos, presentations, and documents to help support and amplify your message? The greater the diversity of media, the greater your impact.