Your Personal Brand

What does it mean to have your own personal brand? Its basically the same thing as your reputation. Only in this day and age, we have many ways of expressing it. What was once only shared in person, is now for the world to see on your social media sites.

I work as a Customer Service Call Center trainer. Over the last several years, I have trained hundreds of new hire employees to be CSR's for our company. These new employees, whether full time, temporary, or even contracted, have ranged in age from right out of school, to starting over in their 50's, but at the end of the day, they need to answer our phones and be the best they can be while providing world class customer service. So, often what we talk about right from the beginning, is "what is your brand?" Are you someone we can depend on? Are you someone who will always be engaged on every phone call? Are you someone with integrity?

Discovering your own personal brand can be challenging. We often look at others and come up with opinions and judgments about them, whether it's their communication styles, or their award winning smiles, but how often do we really look inside ourselves and ask - how do others see me? How do we want others to see us? And this goes for our personal relationships as well as our professional ones. We are in an age where anyone can google you and come up with plenty of information to form an opinion based on your posts or tweets in a matter of minutes. And what you put online, will follow you in your career. I have had a few conversations with new employees about this very thing.

This blog post was prompted by a few things - 1. I love the topic, your own personal brand. It's so important. Figure out what it is you want to be known for. When someone hears your name, what do they think? Do they want you on their team? Maybe they want you to lead the team, because they know you are trustworthy and will get the job done. and 2. I read an article that talked about how to balance your personal and professional brand on social media. It's a great article and it got me thinking - I'd like to blog about this and share with others some food for thought. Check it out- http://blog.hootsuite.com/balance-your-personal-brand-and-professional-brand-on-social-media/     

As you think about it, maybe do a quick audit on your social media sites - you never know who's looking!

Peace - Suzette