As personal branding continues to become increasingly important, so does the need to use new strategies and techniques such as leveraging social media tools to build your brand.

A social recruiting survey report published in July 2012 by jobvite, which is said to have become an industry benchmark, found that:

• 92% of recruiters use social media for recruiting
• 66% of recruiters are now using Facebook for their talent hunt
• 55% of recruiters are now using Twitter for their talent search (watch what you tweet!)
• 43% of recruiters who use social recruiting saw an increase in candidate quality
• 73% have hired a candidate through social
• 31% of recruiters using social have seen a sustained increase in employee referrals (reflective of the sharability of information via social channels – employees get to tell their friends when their company is hiring)

Ignoring social media as an extension of your personal brand is likely to limit the opportunities available to you. So, how do you create an impressionable personal brand that will put you in favour with those who may be poking around your social profiles validating if you are the right one for the job?

Branding Your Social Media Presence

In a recent interview on blogtalk radio entitled ”Polishing Your Personal Brand”, Joellyn Sargent pointed out that to create an engaging personal brand, the following should be considered:

1. Who you are
2. What you want to be
3. How you see yourself
4. What you want people to see
5. What others perceive (how they receive your message)
6. What they believe (what resonates, or sticks from your message.

What this really boils down to is two very important questions – What you are passionate about? and What makes you unique?

Tips to Build A Healthy Personal Brand in Social

At Social Media Group, part of the work we do is help to create social media guidelines for companies and their employees so that they can avoid or manage the reputational risk that comes with social media blunders. Your personal brand is not immune to this risk; here are some tips that can help you build a healthy personal social media brand presence:

1. Create a strong tag line that represents your passion and what makes you unique
2. Share interesting and engaging content that largely aligns with your audience
3. Be careful with your language and tone and refrain from sharing your personal business (e.g., negative information about your employer—the internet does not forget, so keep it clean!)
4. Pay attention to other people in your social community and engage with them on their profiles, this way they are likely to reciprocate and engage with you on yours
5. Connect with groups, companies, people that  align with your passion and interests
6. Keep your social profiles updated: your resume should match your LinkedIn profile as much as possible, the additional recommendations from teams you have worked with and managers that you worked for are a good edge
7. Share your personality and not your privacy – keep personal details to a minimum to avoid identification theft

How has personal branding in social media impacted your career?