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Social Networking: You Are Your Brand

Written by: Julie Weishaar

Article Overview: How you portray yourself on the world wide web is a major contributing factor in your personal brand. For the small business owner, their personal brand is also their company's brand.

Social Networking: You Are Your Brand

If you are a small business owner, what you do on the Internet, even from a personal perspective, helps form potential customer's opinion about your brand. If you are a high school junior or senior who plans to attend college after graduation, your comments and status updates on sites like Facebook are part of your personal brand. If you are looking for employment, what you say on social networking sites is easily accessible to potential employers. How you are perceived on the web is directly correlated to how you present yourself. However, how you are perceived might not necessarily reflect your intentions. Perception is in the eye of the perceiver. No matter what your small business sells, whether it is products or services, you, as the owner of your business are also your brand. If your company sells blue eyeglass cases or healthcare software, what you say or do on the Internet affects your brand. Even if what you say on the web has nothing to do with blue eyeglass cases or healthcare software, it has a direct effect on how your potential customers perceive you. The same principle applies to college and job applicants.

The Internet offers an almost ridiculously huge array of social networking sites to engage and participate in. From Facebook to Twitter, what you "say" is read by anyone anywhere who is interested enough to "listen". When you make a comment on someone's Facebook post or status you need to remember that if it is off-colored or inflammatory in any way, you may have just left a negative impression of yourself in someone's mind. If you are a small business owner, that negative impression will be carried over to your brand and you might have just lost a potential customer. It is easy to forget that while we are using social networking sites for entertainment purposes, we are also having an impact on our reputation and our brand.

It has become common knowledge that colleges and potential employers often check out potential students or employees on the social networking sites to get an idea of who they are. An easy solution for someone looking for a job who wants to control what potential employers might see is to simply not write anything that could be perceived as controversial, insulting or inflammatory. But for some, this might take the fun out of social networking. It is a matter of personal preference on how one chooses to network. As long as you realize what the potential impact is of your style of networking, the choice is yours.

It is interesting to see the how the young people are reacting to this realization that what they write affects their reputation and could impact their chances of getting into a college. They are changing their real names, often, on sites like Facebook, so that their comments and conversations will not show up in searches as being tied to their real name. For now, this tactic might work, but it is highly possible that social site tracking tools might at some point in the future figure out a way to infiltrate this evasive technique.

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Article Tags: branding, internet marketing, personal brand, small business, social media marketing, social networking



Related Forum Posts
Re: How can a social networking site make serious money? - Hi There, It is quite interesting, that some Social Networking do produce an income. I think testimonials are always a benefit to share. See one below: This Social Network has changed my life! Every night is a Friday night and everyday is a Saturday!! Because of it, I have been able to leave the workforce 10 years early.It has given me back my life. Many of us would like to retire early. I am sure there are many more. The point is of focusing with great determination. The ongoing challenge is to stay focussed and not be sidetracked into a newer scheme or so. Also I have read, during this financial turmoil, more people turn to Social Networking for various reasons.
Re: Tactics for Blog Traffic - some more tips to drive traffic to blog or to promote a blog. Squidoo Lens Creation Hub Pages Creation Social Bookmarking (Digg, Delicious, Stumble, Reddit etc.) Be helpful in forums Social Networking (Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, LinkedIn etc.) syndication blog commenting (other blogs) Guest post
Re: UPDATES: New Campaign! New Layout! New Ideas! - GT - thanks for the FYI - I'm not sure if we'll put a link back. Something to consider though! Trent - the new category is "Social Network and Media" which was put in to compliment the Online Businesses category that currently exists. Overall the new categories are: - Looking For, Networking and Events - Review My... - Social Network and Media - Brags and Rants These came as a result of Ringo doing research on other forums and thinking about what could be improved on ours to give a better experience for everyone. I hope you enjoy them! David, I'm looking forward to reading your Brag / Rant!
Re: Simple Idea - Great Advice. - What your success stories on Social Networking for more contacts and connections? Do you have any good business books to suggest? I love the idea of connecting and sharing with other entrepreneurs. Thank you for your input!
Re: Social Networking Site Endorsements - You must be cautious in endorsing any one on Social Networking site. You must ony endorse people you are very familiar with. Endorsement people you don't know is not a good thing.


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