Self-Promotion: Walking a Fine Line
Whether you’re looking for a job, starting your own business, self-employed or the CEO of a Fortune 500 Company, you likely have professional aspirations beyond your current status. In order to achieve those goals, a certain level of networking and self-promotion is necessary. Social media and other digital outlets offer modern day professionals ways to expand and promote more easily than ever before. The problem, however, is the fine line between successfully marketing yourself as a personal brand and going too far, appearing arrogant and undesirable to potential employers and contacts. To help you avoid the latter, here are a few ways to get ahead of the competition and professionally market yourself without being seen as conceited.
Confidence is Key
One of the most important factors in branding yourself is being confident in yourself. There are a plethora of opportunities to exercise this all over the web. One way to demonstrate your self-confidence is through blog articles. Also, you could join in conversations in online groups such as LinkedIn and Google+. However, being confident does not come without a warning. There is a significant difference between being poise and tooting your own horn. Selling yourself in a professional and composed manner should be your goal, the same way you sell your product. Nobody enjoys the pushy used car salesmen, so it is important to make sure you don’t approach your social media posts this way. An ideal salesmen should show no fear, negativity or doubt, and neither should you when “selling yourself” to your followers. Be sure to keep this in mind when posting on your profiles, writing your blogs or participating in online discussions. It is important to be passionate and certain in your goals and thoughts in order to successfully portray yourself to those who are following you or reading your content.
Demonstrate Your True Value
Another key to communicating your personal brand is to effectively convey the true value that you have to offer. There are several ways to do this through social media and other digital outlets. Creating a branded blog where you can present and establish yourself as an expert in your field would be a fantastic place to start. Another way to do this is to share your work on LinkedIn. Sharing your skills, interests, experiences and successes on LinkedIn would be a great way to communicate your unique value with your followers. If individuals are able to separate themselves from the herd, distinguishing themselves from the masses, they will be miles ahead of the competition. The value that you can provide to your company, employer, employees, readers, team or followers should be unique and priceless. Most people just regurgitate what has already been heard or read by followers hundreds of times before from many other users. New, exciting and valuable content that catches the viewer’s eyes could be the difference that keeps potential employers and business contacts from overlooking you.
Remain Consistent
Once you have marketed yourself through your social media outlets, it is crucial to maintain and continue down the path you have paved. It is not enough to simply establish your brand and not to follow up with relevant posts and content. We are always growing and developing, and so should our brand. Communicating our growth and development will keep readers and followers genuinely interested and concerned with our personal growth. For example, if you branded yourself as a passionate writer, continue to write and share your content with others. We need to be sure to be thoroughly consistent in monitoring all outlets of social media, as well as all the posts and comments we have made. When doing so, it is important to keep a constant tone across each and every one of your outlets. Also, share the work of others that interests you. Reposting and sharing blogs and stories on LinkedIn that align with your passions can help grow your personal brand. Keep in mind that this shouldn’t just be a one-and-done accomplishment. Falling behind would be easy if your activity level begins to sag or becomes nonexistent, even if you had initially promoted yourself well in the beginning. It is important to remind people of your true value and personal interests.
Get Started!
You are a unique individual with special talents, but not everyone has utilized social media as a means of modest self-promotion in the professional world. Being confident, communicating your true value, continuing to market yourself and remaining consistent in your posts are just a few way to get ahead of the game in this modern age. Keep in mind that coming off as pushy or conceited would cause more harm than good. So get out there, establish your personal brand and distribute it through your social media and digital outlets. And don’t forget to keep your followers updated by sharing your goals, interests, experiences and accomplishments!
Branden Hawkins—Content Creator
