Personal branding is all the rage at the moment, working hard to make sure that everything that shows up online - social media and everything else - reflects well on you and paints an accurate picture of who you are.
But even with that focus, there are still a few things that often get overlooked when people look to establish their own personal branding practices.
Here are some notes to consider.
6 Personal Branding Must-Dos
1. Updating
Stay on top of your various online presences and what they say about you. If you have a job title change, be sure to update it in all of your bios. If that profile photo more than 10 years old its time to update it - everywhere.
2. Social media and SM connections
Re-evaluate all of you social media presences. Do they all still make sense to tell your story? Are there others you should be on? Evaluate your connections for quality - be sure that anyone looking at who you're connected to is not going to be less than impressed.
To read more on this topic, see Quality SM connections for personal branding
3. Blogging
Writing and regularly posting to a blog is viewed by some as a bit of a vanity pastime. They couldn't be more wrong. To claim extra internet real estate, show off your expertise - or to simply get found in Google search results - it's hard to beat the power of a blog.
To read more on this topic, see Blogging for personal branding
4. Your focus
Yes, you're focused on things you can do to your personal brand stand out, but ultimately your success in social media is mostly about how social you are and how others perceive you. To that end, make your time on social mostly about others. Be helpful: help others connect, help others learn and most of all notice, and comment on, the hard work of others. It's the No. 1 commandment here: 10 Commandments for Social Media
5. Get uncomfortable
It's easy to stick to connecting to people we know; to interact with people like us. But the real secret sauce of social media is the opportunity to meet people all over the world who have interesting stories to share.
Make a point of connecting to at least one intriguing Twitter or other social network account per week and look for ways to interact with the account-holder.
You'll be surprised where this might lead in terms of connections down the road.
6. Get Real
Finally, but most importantly, you need to turn all this online activity in something in the real world (or IRL as the kids say). Massive effort on social media is not worth a hill of beans if you don't make new connections in the real world.
How to do this? Look for opportunities to attend meet-ups. Suggest your own meet-up. If you're visiting a different city, or even a different country, let your connections know and offer to buy them a coffee so you can meet. It truly is a very gratifying and fun experience to meet, in person, someone you've been connected to on social media for years.
There you have it: Six often overlooked keys to stronger personal branding wit social media and other online presences. Do you have other suggestions? I'd love to hear them.
This post originally appeared on the Fixitology blog. Main image via Shutterstock.