5 ways personal online branding can increase your digital footprint

In our everyday digital lifestyles, competition is fierce, especially online. If you don’t work really hard to impress your boss and prove that you are really worth your job, you will never get a chance to climb in the corporate world. Do you really want to impress and make sure you get noticed as an excellent worker? If you do, consider seeing yourself as a “brand” and start with a personal branding strategy.

Having a brand online and increasing your online reputation is really not just for big organisations. Did you know that everyone can have their own personal brand? A personal branding campaign together with an online reputation management strategy is a way of controlling and managing the way others perceive you online.

In the hectic digital workplace, it is crucial for career advancement. This might sound easy, but developing your reputation and brand is not an easy task. Most often, you will have to assess yourself and be very clear on your goals, weaknesses, and strengths before you can start branding yourself online, and to make sure others notice you. Here are a couple of tips that can help you build a positive reputation and a good personal brand.

1. It’s about more than your image

Personal branding is so much more than improving your appearance, building your image, and getting famous online. It is also totally different from being selfish and egocentric. If you don’t want to be perceived as thinking you are the best and very obsessed with yourself, stay away from marketing yourself too much online.

2. Be authentic

The online world is public so it is very important that your reputation and brand is authentic. During the process of developing your own personal brand, make sure that your image and message is genuine. If you are not authentic, it is going to be hard to maintain and keep up with your personal brand. As a rule of thumb, stick to your principles and values by always reminding yourself of what you want to achieve.

3. Invest in yourself

Make a list of your skills, knowledge, and talents then spot the areas where you need improvement. I found that by attending leadership seminars regularly, I have learned many new things and I have also enhanced my communication skills.

4. Relationship building

Develop good relationships online and offline. Your reputation and personal brand is boosted every time someone mentions something positive about you. You can expect the exact opposite to happen when someone says anything negative about you. Watch your manners online and be kind to people. Even if you are not a celebrity, you have your own name to protect.

5. Maintain your personal brand online

Maintaining your reputation and personal brand is much harder than developing it. This is because there might be some people who will want to destroy your reputation and brand online. One negative comment or blog post can affect your reputation on Google (your digital CV), and can cause other people to have a negative perception of you. If this has happen to you, don’t stress because you can fix it and there are many online reputation management professionals who can help you with this.