Personal Branding as a Corporate Communication Function

I've been contemplating recently on the concept of 'personal branding.'

In particular, the concept of ‘social media personal branding as a method of enhancing ones corporate brand reputation.’

Every company has a public-anyone who has an interest in a company. Since the dawn of commercialism, a company would try to influence their public, whether that’s through advertising, pr marketing, etc. The essential function of these communication channels was to influence the overall impression, or reputation that a company has with its public. Traditional communication campaigns attempted to ‘blast’ a message to its public with the hopes of influencing their opinion.

This information is nothing new. But, social media is revolutionizing how companies communicate with their publics. Constituencies are requiring a higher level of interaction and personalization in their transactions with companies. 

In particular, constituencies want to connect with the people in a company, not just the company itself. As such, CEOs are finding themselves as active members on Twitter and other social networks.  And every day, new strategies are evolving on the best way for companies to establish their brand without being too self-serving or revealing too much information.

I’ve been working with my clients on communicating their personal brand on their individual social network presences. Here are some of the key-takeaways I’ve made over these past few weeks:

1.       Being Authentic: Note that I don’t work with clients on ‘developing’ a personal brand. Their brand is already there. I work with my clients on communicating their personal brand, or taking their personal brand public.

2.       Consistency is Key: Different social networks serve different purposes. However, it is important that the same narrative is communicated across platforms.

3.       Develop the Network: Just building your presence on Web sites is not enough. One must learn how to use each site and spend time building their network and building genuine, authentic communication with their pertinent networks.

       

    Image via driven leaders

Comments

[Jeff paul news]

Personal branding through different social network channels is based on different levels of interaction and active communication strategies .

[James Beyer]

I recently wrote a post about a strategy used by Tim Schmidt to market his latest product. Tim is a highly regarded social media marketer and he is a "name your price" feature for his latest product. Not only is Tim marketing his product but by creating a buzz he is building his personal brand as an innovator. I think it is a brilliant strategy. Read the full post here http://www.social-media-marketing-resource.blogspot.com/