Communicating your brand

We live in a communication age. Being able to communicate effectively, especially about yourself, is one of the most important professional skills.

We have looked at various transferrable skills that add to becoming a successful individual. Let’s take a closer look at one of them – communication. It’s never too late to improve your communication skills. Being able to communicate information accurately, clearly and as intended will open many doors for you to new and better opportunities.

Networking

Many professionals use social networking sites such as Facebook to communicate with friends and family or LinkedIn to build wider professionals networks. This digitally facilitated networking is incredibly useful, but how good are we at actually networking in person?

Networking in person can be a much more difficult skill to master. Your primary goal when you are networking is to leave people with a good impression of you and a desire to know more about you and stay connected.

Maintaining and growing your network is crucial for almost every aspect of your work. Individually, it sets you up for new opportunities and advancements down the road. It gives you access to new ideas, research and perspectives that can drive change forward.

Digital profile

Most of us need a digital profile. Some of the reasons your digital profile is critical are:

1. Increasingly, prospective employers, potential business connections and new clients will go online first to find brand ‘you’.
2. Your digital profile is a reflection of who you are, what you’ve done and what you’d like to do.
3. It is an opportunity to tell your story, where you can highlight your strengths and downplay those other areas that may not be so strong.
4. Your digital profile is a dimension of your personal and professional brand. It shows not just who you are, but how you interact and connect with others.

For almost everyone LinkedIn is a good starting point. LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network with hundreds of millions of members. But your digital profile isn’t just LinkedIn. It includes other social media platforms (eg Facebook, personal websites or blogging platforms such as Medium) as we saw earlier, and these are all becoming smarter and interconnected. Make sure you are giving a consistent message about yourself on your public profiles.

Employers want to see a record of continual-learning achievement and a digital portfolio that demonstrates competence, creativity and forward thinking.

Your task

Share your ideas of how you communicate ‘your brand’ to the world in the comments.