F5.5G Leap-forward Development of Broadband in Africa The Africa Broadband Forum 2024 (BBAF 2024) was successfully held in Cape Town, South Africa recently, under…
Personal branding and reputation management: what you need to know
Personal branding working hand in hand with online reputation management not only supports your online marketing strategy, but it can also strengthen your overall digital footprint online. Whether you are marketing your business online or simply looking for a new job, the fact is that you should build your name online so that you can be seen as the leader in your market.
Social media is a vehicle for communication online and using top social media channels is an excellent method for personal branding. Find below a couple of resources you can use to start building your own personal brand online.
If you are registered on LinkedIn, but haven’t updated your profile to be 100% completed, now is the time to optimize your profile so that it can be seen by other like-minded professionals. If you don’t have a LinkedIn profile, register and create one. Make sure that you update your profile to be 100% complete and that it directly reflects your business. Use the keywords you are targeting in the titles and descriptions you use on your profile. This is great way to get personal rankings on the search engines.
You must have heard this a thousand times before – a Facebook profile is a must. Facebook profiles can rank well on the search engines so update your profile that it is relevant to your business. Add as many fields as you can to make it clear on what type of business you have and the services that you offer. If you are using Facebook to communicate personally with your friends and family, create another account that focuses only on your business. Always be careful on what you post on your profile – it is public.
Twitter is a great social media channel to build brand authority and to share interesting and relevant content to your followers. The exact same rules apply where you need to complete your profile and then start following people who are currently following your competition. This can help you get on the map where others can follow you and so that you can start building your own network.
Blog
If you don’t have a blog, launch one and start writing blog posts about your industry and your area of expertise. Use your blog as the central part of your content marketing strategy. Once you publish a new blog post, share and publish your new post to your social media profiles explained above. Over time you will build a strong readership of readers if you regularly post relevant and interesting content.
Profile image
On all the social media channels you will be targeting, make sure you are using the same profile image. This way you can brand yourself and keep your image across your profiles consistent. Your face can be the logo of your business on the web. Include links to your website and blog on all your profiles so people can visit your business if they are interesting in finding more information about you.
