5 Key Elements of a Strong Online Personal Brand - Executive Career Brandâ„¢

5 Key Elements of a Strong Online Personal Brand Do you want to increase your chances to be found by executive recruiters and your target employers? What job seeker doesn’t? Most recruiters and hiring authorities source talent by searching relevant keywords on , Google, and other search engines, and then assessing the people those searches reveal by what they find about them online. If youre in a job search and have no online footprint â€" that is, a good number of positive, solid search results when your name is Googled â€" you may be invisible to the very people you need to be positioned in front of. The better your online reputation, the better you position yourself online, and the stronger your presence online, the more appealing youll be to these people. Take a look at your own online footprint right now. Type your name into a Google search, and see what you find. Do you own the first several search results? Or does it take several pages of results before you get to anything related to you? What information will people find about you when they click on those search results? Is it what you need them to know about you and your potential value to the companies or organizations you want to work for? [Note: If you are logged into your Gmail, Google, or Google+ account, Google usually personalizes your search results specifically for you, so log out first to see what the rest of the world sees.] Here are the 5 components necessary to build a strong online brand for your job search: 1. Relevance You should know, before starting your job search, which companies or which kind of companies youre targeting, and what information about you is relevant to them and will resonate with them. Without a clear target, how can you possibly differentiate your personal brand, ROI value and best-fit qualities, and create career marketing communications (online and offline) that will hit home, attract them and clearly distinguish you as a good hiring choice? Keep your brand messaging relevant to your target, detailing how you can help them solve their current problems, and position yourself on sites that are relevant to and frequented by them. 2. Quality Be careful what you post on social networks, or anywhere online. Continuously monitor your online presence. Get used to self-Googling regularly (about once a week) to see what exists on the first several pages of search results. If someone has posted something nasty about you, see about getting it taken down. Adjust what people will find, whenever possible. Are you finding any digital dirt that may disqualify you? Do you have the same name as others who have an online footprint? If so, you may easily be confused with them. That’s bad news for you, if any of them have a sordid reputation. Youll have to work on building more positive search results to outdistance those of the bad guys. 3. Diversity You need a good mix of static profiles/web pages and vibrant real-time content. A few online profiles that all contain the same content wont cut it â€" change up the information in each one. Express your opinions, showcase your expertise and add value by blogging on your own site, commenting on other sites and/or guest blogging on other sites. Get busy on social networks like Twitter, Google+,