See How Easily You Can Brand Yourself with Social Networks

MySpace, Bebo, and Facebook are just a few of the popular social networks out there that are visited by millions of people daily. They are some of the most popular sites on the web, which is why you should use them to help brand yourself. The majority of these sites are filled with young teens, but this doesn’t mean you should not use them because these young teens are going to be adults soon. Also, social network usage is growing amongst adults.

The image above is of John Edwards MySpace profile. Currently John Edwards has over 30,000 friends and if you browse through his friends you’ll notice that many of them are adults that probably have a full time jobs and are of voting age. Granted his profile is reaching out to anyone because he is looking to be the next President, but chances are thousands of individuals in your industry are also on these social sites. If you are looking to brand yourself through social networks, here’s how:

Profiles
The first thing you need to do is create a profile on all of the main social sites. This could be as simple as adding a picture of yourself and a paragraph about yourself. Ideally you want to create an in-depth profile with tons of information on yourself as well as unique information about the industry you are currently involved in. The key to setting up a successful profile is to make sure it is personal and some what interesting so that people will want to get to know you.

Networking
Once you have your profile setup you need to start networking with other members within that social network. Some easy ways you can network with others is by:

• Adding members as your friends
• Leaving comments on member’s profiles
• Private messaging other members through email or instant messaging.

Stickiness
The way branding works is that people usually need to see a brand over and over before it becomes memorable. If you want to brand yourself visitors need to keep coming back to your profile, so you need to constantly update your profile. Make it sticky by adding interesting content, new pictures and even videos of yourself. You could do other things such as add music but if you are trying to brand yourself try and mainly add stuff that is about yourself and not others. There are exceptions to this rule, especially on social networks where you can attract other members who have similar interests as you, but try and stick with stuff that will brand you as an expert in your industry.

What are you waiting for? Get out there and start creating your profiles!