How to Use Social Media to Build a Great Personal Brand

How to Use Social Media to Build a Great Personal Brand Want to be highly successful in your career and stand out within your industry? Well its time to focus on building a great personal brand! Social media plays a key role in this, as it will often be the first point of call for people who want to learn a little more about you.  Everything you do online will become part of your personal brand, so its important to consider what you post on social media and ensure it represents you in the way that you want to be viewed. Here are a few ways that you can nail your personal brand on social media and differentiate yourself from other professionals. 1) Clean up your accounts A lot of potential employers, business prospects may wish to check you out on social media ahead of doing business with you, so its important that you are behaving professionally online. If your accounts are full of photographs of alcohol fuelled nights and foul language, you may want to open a new account or remove all previous posts that could  portray you in a negative light. If you would like to keep an account for personal use, make sure that you have set your profile to private and are selective about who you connect with. 2) Identify an objective for your personal brand Different networks are good for achieving various  objectives, so you want to focus your time and effort on building a presence where it will be the most effective. For example, if you are seeking a new job or business prospects you may want to focus on optimising your LinkedIn profile and becoming a vocal member in LinkedIn groups where you can establish new professional contacts. If on the other hand you work in a creative industry and would like to exhibit your work for possible sales/work opportunities a visual network such as Instagram or Pinterest may be more suitable. Thought these may be where you focus your most attention, maintaining a presence on multiple platforms will help you to reach different audiences and build a name for yourself in the industry. 3) Decide how you want to be portrayed Before you can go about building your personal brand, its a good idea to pinpoint an area of expertise or a quality that you want to be known for. The more specific you are, the better; as it will help you to stand out from the crowd if you have a niche that you can share your knowledge on. Make sure it is something that you are genuinely passionate about and feel you are qualified to share your thoughts on. 4) Make sure your profiles are consistent To make sure your personal brand is memorable and identifiable, you should try to maintain a consistent theme across your social media accounts. Use the same profile photograph, name and headline so that your profiles all look the same. Where possible, you may also want to adopt a colour scheme or theme for everything that you share, so that your content looks smart and on brand. For example, if you are using Instagram, using the same filter and captioning will keep it looking sleek. Its also important to make sure that you have filled out all of your profiles and there is no missing information, so people know who you are, what you do and how they can contact you. 5) Start sharing content Once you have identified your niche, begin sharing relevant content. This can be blog posts, news and insights; visuals such as infographics, photographs and videos; or your own personal thoughts (keep it  professional!) A combination of your own original content and that curated from other sources, shared on a regular basis, will keep your following engaged.  Tools such as Buffer and Hootsuite can be used to schedule updates when you are not able to do it manually. It should also be added that you should share with care. Double check that information is accurate and there are no grammatical errors before you post, as sloppiness can appear unprofessional. 6) Join a community Networking is a central part of developing your personal brand and LinkedIn groups, Facebook groups and Twitter communities are a great place for establishing new connections with people in your target industry. Share quality content that will get people and get involved in discussions to get to know people and make sure you are on their radar. 7) Monitor your reputation Keep an eye on who is sharing your content or mentioning your name online, as this will give you a good idea about what kind of reputation you have built for yourself. This also gives you the opportunity to interact with these individuals, strike up a relationship and thank them for sharing your content. [Image Credit: Shutterstock]

Book Review Get A Life, Not A Job - VocationVillage

Book Review Get A Life, Not A Job - VocationVillage Recently I read Dr. Paula Caligiuris Get A Life, Not A Job: Do What You Love and Let Your Talents Work For You. Dr. Caligiuri is a work psychologist, CNN career expert, professor in human resource management at Rutgers University, and career counselor. Here are my favorite parts about this book: Dr. Caligiuri provides evidence that the old psychological contract between organizations and employees is gone forever. Companies now show very little or no loyalty toward employees, which means employees are on their own to create any type of employment security.Because job security has become something that workers have to build themselves rather than expect if from employers, Dr. Caligiuri views it as extremely risky to put all your employment eggs in one basket by putting all your energy into one job. For instance, she notes that 80% of the recently unemployed received less than three weeks advance warning, and among them, 60% received no advance warning that they were about to be unemployed. Rather than have faith in ongoing employment from one organization, she recommends instead multiple career acts, income producing activities chosen based on activities that you enjoy.Dr. Caligiuri says that great careers share five fundamental elements: (1) Self-awareness of talents, intere sts, hobbies, needs, motivators, and how you like to work, (2) Continuous self-development of knowledge, skills, and abilities, (3) Unique and critical roles to increase your value to employers, clients, or customers, (4) Well-managed time, money, and human resources, and (5) Harmony among work, family, and personal life. She believes you are more likely to attain these elements if you pursue several career acts rather than one.She gives several suggestions for how to choose and build career acts: (1) Leverage existing expertise or talents; (2) Expand a hobby, interest, or passion; (3) Pursue an occupation (but preferably not focusing solely on this); and/or (4) Generate sources of passive income such as royalties, affiliate marketing, and rent.I like her inclusion of a discussion of career anchors: Values or drivers that motivate people to seek and ultimately find satisfaction with work. She uses the model developed by Dr. Edgar Schein. The eight career anchors are: (1) Technical o r Functional Expertise, (2) Leadership / Management of People, (3) Autonomy / Independence, (4) Security / Job Stability, (5) Entrepreneurial Creativity, (6) Service / Dedication To A Cause (7) Competitive Challenge, and (8) Work/Life Balance. Align your work with your most important career anchors and career satisfaction is more likely to occur.If you are going to take the gamble of limiting yourself to one job, Dr. Caligiuri says, Please be amazing, make it a career you love, and have a safety net. The safety net is your uniqueness to your business and your centrality to your employer, customers, or clients.Some additional thoughts about the book:Get a life is sometimes used as a phrase to demean someone. If a person is feeling emotionally fragile because of difficult employment circumstances, this title might cause them to pass up this otherwise excellent book.While Dr. Caligiuri cautions against over-working because of multiple career acts, anyone who keeps a full-time job while creating a side gig or who is juggling several part-time jobs will tell you that doing this can be exhausting. Multitasking is not the preferred state for most human brains. Other than mentioning sufficient sleep, exercise, good nutrition, and vacation time, I wish the book had expanded on more practical strategies to maintain psychological and physical health while simultaneously achieving across more than one domain. I plan to interview Dr. Caligiuri to find out more of her ideas about this.Many of the ideas in this book require an entrepreneurial mindset and business savvy to succeed. However, a majority of families not only fail to teach entrepreneurship, they actively discourage it because they are stuck in old school thinking that the only good career is a linear one where you study something in school that directly leads to a practical job. Think engineering, accounting, and medicine. For people interested in something different, family and educational systems have a long wa y to go to teach the necessary functional skills and the psychological perspective needed to succeed.As unemployment rates are high and job stability is low, creative approaches such as those offered by Dr. Caligiuri are useful. Overall, I think this book is well-worth the small investment of purchase as it will likely spark ideas and for many readers, help them to weather economic storms. Check it out and see if you could be one of the people it helps.

Studying On The Internet Making The Most Of It

Studying On The Internet Making The Most Of It The internet isn’t just for social media and gaming. It can, in fact, be an extremely useful tool for studying! As long as you aren’t distracted by all the fun stuff on there, that is! If you aren’t using the internet as part of your studies, you are certainly missing out. Here are five great ways to make the most of it. Do An Online Course One of the best things about the internet is all the online courses that are now available. You can study a wide variety of subjects and topics online from the comfort of your very own home. And as there are no fixed classes, that means you can juggle the course around your work and home life. If you are interested in furthering your education without even leaving the house, check some online courses: https://online.scu.edu.au/mba/ Restrict Procrastination If you are busy studying online, you shouldn’t be checking your Facebook or emails. If you find that you have a browser open with these, you are definitely doing something wrong! Designate an hour of your study time to online study. But make sure you restrict your procrastination during this time. After that hour, you can scroll through Facebook as much as you like! Only Use Reliable Sources Thanks to the internet, research is a whole lot easier these days. You no longer have to spend ages flicking through books and journals. The internet is rich in research sources. However, you need to be careful which ones you use. Some, such as Wikipedia, are known for being highly unreliable. Rather than using these, stick to online journals and official encyclopedia websites such as https://www.britannica.com/. Use Your Bookmarks Found a useful site packed with relevant information? Then be sure to bookmark it! It is easy to forget web addresses as there are just so many. The bookmark tool on your browser can help you save a site for later so you won’t have to do loads of Google searches to try and find it. That way, you won’t forget it and can return to it whenever you need to. Ask Others Internet forums are a big deal these days. There seems to be one for every topic that exists! So if you need to research something very niche or specialized, have a look to see if you can find a relevant online forum. Most regular forum users will be happy to help you out with any questions and queries. If you don’t want to chat to anyone online, you should still use forums. You will be able to access old threads and conversations so just search for some keywords relating to your topic. You never know what will come up. Hopefully, an answer to your question! One of the main things when it comes to studying online is to be proactive with your time. Sitting on social media isn’t helping you; save it for your free time! And then, you’ll find your online study will become super productive! Image Source; Image Source

Twitter Your Way to a College Internship

Twitter Your Way to a College Internship Since I’m being interviewed for a book written on career advice for recent college graduates, I called my sister Ashley this morning to see what she had to say. My sister is a junior at the University of Missouri where she is double majoring in Women’s/Gender Studies and Journalism. We talked about outdated career advice and what advice is more realistic for the college graduates of 2009. We also talked about Ashley’s upcoming internship search and how she could get started. Talking to her made me realize how much has changed since I graduated only a few years ago in 2006. Here is some of the advice my career center gave me: 1. Take yourself off all social networking sites and never blog because it is unprofessional and could ruin your chances of getting a job and hurt your reputation. 2. Work at a very large company right out of school so that you have a big name on your resume. “You will be able to work anywhere once your next employer sees that name on your resume.” 3. You should stay at your first job for at least 3 years. 4. You will start out in your first job as being a just a number, your individualism, personal strengths and ideas do not matter so keep them to yourself. This advice is total garbage for the graduates of 2009 and I completely disagree with all four points! For this post, I am going to focus on correcting point #1: You MUST use social networking sites and the Internet to let others know about your skills, talents and passions. If you aren’t positioning yourself for others to see online, you are really missing out on great opportunities. How could someone offer you a great job or internship if they don’t know you exist? I bought my sister her own domain name, ashleycrimaldi.com, for Christmas this morning and suggested that she put a bio, professional picture, resume, sites she likes, a blog and a portfolio of work she has done on her site. I also urged her to start using Twitter to connect with people who shared her interests and career goals. It is amazing how much Twitter “friends” are willing to help each other out in any way they can. When joining first joining Twitter, use search.twitter.com to search for people who are “tweeting” about things that you care about and then “follow” them so you can read what they have to say on a daily basis. It is also important to send out valuable tweets regularly on your area of interest or expertise and post interesting links so others can read them and share information. Also, if you like someone’s blog, website, or tweets TELL THEM! Compliments go a long way in making connections and mentors. Long gone are the days of finding an internship through the classified section of your local paper or even scoring a great opportunity through a huge career site. If you are looking to pursue an internship or job that is in line with your individual strengths, ideas and talents you will have to go get it on your own by reaching out to people like you online. P.S.- Follow me on Twitter: ExecutiveVision and let me know what you think about this post!

What Format Do I Use?

What Format Do I Use?While it is possible to have a great resume without Microsoft Word, there are certain things that make a resume formatted in Word an ideal choice. People who do not know how to format a resume, or simply do not want to use Microsoft Word, may be left wondering what they should use.The best option for people who would like to format a resume is to buy Microsoft Word. There are hundreds of templates that come with Word that will help you create a professional looking resume that other people will recognize. Also, you can buy templates for Microsoft Word online and save your time.You can even use Microsoft Word to make a resume. While the majority of resumes are formatted in Word, many corporations will make a resume in Word and have employees to submit their resumes using Microsoft Word. The advantage of using Word is that you can edit and make any changes that you want, but if you are unsure of formatting you can always hire a professional.If you prefer not to use Microsoft Word, you can also use other formats. Most resume makers now have tools to format your resume according to the needs of the employer. Many companies have strict rules for resumes, so it is very important to format the resume in accordance with the company requirements.As the job search continues, most companies will begin to change the way they prefer their job applicants to format their resumes. People who know how to format a resume can rest assured that their resume will still look professional to the hiring managers.If you do not want to use Microsoft Word, you can use a professional resume creator. You can save a lot of time by using a professional, because the free versions often do not offer everything that the professional versions offer. You can also learn about the templates that the professional programs offer, so that you can use one instead of the free programs. Another option for formatting a resume in Word is to use the Resume Express program. This is a pro gram that can be downloaded from their website. The most helpful feature about this program is that it can format your resume according to the needs of the company, and it can do all of the formatting for you.It is very important to learn how to format a resume in Word if you want to make sure that your resume looks professional. The more professional your resume looks, the more likely it is that it will be accepted by the hiring manager.

Guru meditation - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

Guru meditation - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog Following my tradition of taking weird courses, I took a meditation course last weekend, and for the first time ever I actually had a feeling that I was meditating rather than just sitting with my eyes closed. So Im going to meditate twice daily for a time, just to see how it works for me. Pop quiz: Which popular home computer signalled system crashes with the error message Guru meditation? Thanks for visiting my blog. If you're new here, you should check out this list of my 10 most popular articles. And if you want more great tips and ideas you should check out our newsletter about happiness at work. It's great and it's free :-)Share this:LinkedInFacebookTwitterRedditPinterest Related Guru meditation - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog Full marks to Tveskov for knowing the answer to a previous question, and for the additional explanation. Ive heard a different legend of the origin of guru meditation: It is said that the developers were playing with a new input device which was a balancing board that you stood on, and by leaning over you could control for example a game. And one of the uses was to try and stand still on the board, as if you were meditating. Hence guru meditation. But I like Bjarnes version better. Thanks for visiting my blog. If you're new here, you should check out this list of my 10 most popular articles. And if you want more great tips and ideas you should check out our newsletter about happiness at work. It's great and it's free :-)Share this:LinkedInFacebookTwitterRedditPinterest Related

Book review Flow - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

Book review Flow - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog Everybody knows the state of Flow. Flow is when youre engrossed in doing something. You may forget time and place. You may forget to eat or sleep. Youre doing what youre doing, and your entire attention is focused on that. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi wrote a book about it back in 1990, based on many years of research into happiness. And the book is excellent. No other book Ive read discusses human happiness (and unhappiness) so clearly and fluidly. So what is it that makes us happy? According to Csikszentmihalyi, happiness is available to all of us, regardless of our external circumstances. The main key to happiness is internal, namely the ability to control your consciousness. You need, among other things, to be able to focus on the positive things in life. Another important thing is meaning. To discover (or make) for yourself a purpose in your life, which then gives meaning and structure to everything else that happens. There are chapters on work as flow and the body in flow, and a fascinating chapter on Cheating Chaos. The latter is the art of improving the quality of your life, when things are not going your way. This chapter cites an interesting study in Italy, which examined the lives of people who had extreme handicaps, such as paraplegics, as a result of accidents at some point in their lives. The author puts it like this: The unexpected finding of this study was that a large proportion of the victims mentioned the accident that caused paraplegia as both one of the most negative and one of the most positive events in their lives. The reason tragic events were seen as positive was that they presented the victim with very clear goals while reducing contradictory and inessential choices. The patients who learned to master the new challengens of their impaired situation felt a clarity of purpose that they had lacked before. The book is full of thoughts on these subjects, and many more. There are few concrete tips that you can apply immediately to your own life; this is not a self-help book. But if you want to know more about what makes people happy, this is the best book I know of. It is easily accessible, extremely interesting and well structured. Read it! Thanks for visiting my blog. If you're new here, you should check out this list of my 10 most popular articles. And if you want more great tips and ideas you should check out our newsletter about happiness at work. It's great and it's free :-)Share this:LinkedInFacebookTwitterRedditPinterest Related