This guest post is by Crissie Fuller of Independent Fashion Bloggers.
Think about your resume. You stress over making it perfect, sweat every little detail—from the wording, to the layout, all the way down to your “Special Skills.” It’s your ticket to your dream job and you know it needs to be good. But hold on! Your resume might not be the be-all-end all of potential employer wooing anymore. We heard it over and over again: The Blog is the New Resume.
It makes sense when you think about it. When you’re applying for a job in the digital world, your new boss is going to want to know what your digital life looks like. How do you stand out from the crowed of others scrambling for an open position?
Brand yourself.
It’s not as scary as it sounds. You don’t need billboards or even crazy design skills! Let’s start small.
- Choose a color scheme you love and few fonts you can’t get enough of, and use them across the board: on your blog posts, your Twitter profile, business cards, letterhead—even your traditional resume (the list goes on and on!). That wasn’t hard, right?
- Streamline your profile pictures. You want your Google + page, Linkedin profile, Twitter profile, and Pinterest account to all have the same image, so that people who don’t really know you still know they are looking at the same person across all digital channels. When your future employer see this, they’ll spot your attention to detail, dedication to your craft, and above all, your understanding of the digital space. It’s a simple technique, and yet very, very effective. For example, when I applied for my current job, I sent in my resume and cover letter, both of which linked to my web page. The font on my web page matches the font on my resume, and I use the same background image across all my spaces (my blog, Tumblr, Twitter, even my Facebook page, which might be a little over the top, I admit…).
- Standardize your user names. This is an area in which I am seriously lacking. In some places I’m Crissie Fuller, in others Fuller.Cris and sometimes just the name of my blog, Chicasaurus-Rex. Ideally you want to use the same name across all platforms, but whether you choose your name or the name of your blog is really up to you. However, Erica Domesek of PS – I Made This suggested using your blog name during IFB’s semi-annual blogging conference (and really, if you want to see great branding, check out her blog, Twitter account, book, etc.!) But whichever you choose, keep it consistent. And don’t forget: you want to have exactly the same handle on Twitter and Instagram (if you can)!
- Besides the look of your brand, you want your voice to be consistent as well. You should always sound like you. It’s fine (good even!) if you are slightly more formal on LinkedIn and in cover letters, but you should never use big words and fancy phrases just to sound smart; your employer (and especially one hiring in the digital space) wants to hear your voice, not some regurgitated version of “the ideal cover letter” you found on Google.
To summarize, there are four easy steps to creating your personal brand:
- Use uniform fonts and colors for all your online and offline collateral (blog, Twitter, business cards, etc.)
- Streamline your profile pictures. Use the same one for all your online accounts.
- Make sure your user names all match!
- Find your voice and always write in it. Alter the tone to fit the audience that you are speaking to, but be sure you always sound like you!
What other tips can you add?
A University of California Santa Cruz and Fashion Institute of Technology graduate, Crissie Fuller is the Digital Strategist at Independent Fashion Blogger (IFB), a collective mentorship dedicated to enabling bloggers reach their social media goals. When she isn’t busy writing and developing digital content for IFB, Crissie spends her time exploring New York and documenting her personal style adventures on her blog, Chicasaurus-Rex.
Great tips Crissie. These are so relevant now that Google is giving some more weight to authorship ranking. Colors and images are good ways to be remember like the big M of McDonalds or the apple for the iphone.
Even if Google do not care about it than however these are quite important tips and we all knows that these things do wonder if you apply them with consistency.
I agree Rob these are great tips and colors and images play a big role in branding.
I agree too with this tips..
great..
:D
Keep a consistent voice makes a world of difference Crissie. Readers become familiar with you, and begin to know, like and trust a consistent voice. As for tips, videos, videos, videos. Shoot a ton of them to strengthen your brand, increase trust and grow your business. Thanks for sharing.
Great advice! I have kept my pictures the same and do not change the voice no matter what. Even if it means I will not make everyone happy. At least people know I keep it real…lol :)
All of those are so simple, yet I am sure that if you follow them, they will have a great positive effect on your business in the long run.
I do not have any tips of my own to share, but I will share this with you (I think you will like it a lot): http://www.smartpassiveincome.com/how-to-be-everywhere/
Victoralexon
Great advice. I read where every sales person should have a blog to promote themselves as the expert in their field. I think this is excellent. No reason anyone should not have a blog these days.
Great tips Darren. I think its important to brand yourself so you can become recognizable. It can take you some time to brand yourself but your tips definitely help start the process.
It’s not simple but also is powerful steps to make a brand for any blogger, thanks for your great advice, Crissie.
Amazing tips. Now i am interested to implementing these tips.
Thanks for posting a awesome topic.
Good tips! I’ve been doing 2-4 for some time, but it’s taking a redesign to correct #1. This is definitely the most difficult step for the non-designer types!
I have lost the branding of my blog and since has not made enough efforts. need to buck up hard for my new blog if it needs a solid platform.
Well, Branding Plays a very important and significant role in case of businesses and blogs.
Identity is important to everyone. So make it strong will make others to listen to you as what you want to convey others..
I love your tips on glance. I try to standardize my web assets as well, but my name is so hard to pronounce and read so I’ve chosen a short nickname. I hope I’ll able to succeed!
I’m off to standardise my profile colors/fonts – and also make it easier for myself to do so.
One thing I have done is to put the profile photo of myself that I use everywhere in a few different sizes in 1 easily accessible folder on my desktop, so uploading one while setting up a profile is never that difficult any more :)
Nice tips Crissie.
Another great way to brand yourself I feel is if you are a regular YouTuber that you add a branded introduction into your videos. Perhaps a unique song the points is to be consistent across all of your videos.
Good tips. We accidentally chose a very bold colour palette but I’m glad we did. As craft and food bloggers we’re using Pinterest a lot. To help with branding we’ve been creating pinable title pictures with our colours.
Good stuff! I’ve tried to be consistent since I started the blog on all the points you made.
I’d suggest adding the logo to your list also. It took me awhile to come up with my cute little owl, and I’m sure t-shirt sales are in my future.
While these are good tips, this is only how to brand yourself ONLINE – which is only part of your “branding” as whole. Before this you might consider pushing yourself away from the computer, sitting down with a piece of paper and a pencil, and working on your brand. The things above are things you might do after you have decided your brand.
Another great article. I will try to implement these tips on my blog.
I was on a summit yesterday wherer Rand Fishkin (seomoz) spoke. And there was one clear message: Google goes for brands. So make your own brand and this what you’re saying in this post. Great.
I think these ideas translate well for small businesses that are trying to build their own brands too. Shared.
Love the summary at the end. Haven’t used summaries in a while but I think I’ll take it out and dust it off. Summaries are great!
My Linked In was so poorly done that I removed myself for a while. I will go back eventually but better to not be there than be so-so.
Consistency is truly important and I will have to settle on one profile picture and stick with it. Right now I have three out there and my blog name doesn’t really identify me at all. Time to rope things in.
I read this kind of rolling my eyes a little bit because this is about as basic as it gets. It’s the same as if you said you wanted to learn how to play piano and step 1 is “get a piano.” Of course.
(hear me out…I’m not trying to be mean)
Yet, as I troll around the Internet, there are so many people out there that do not follow this advice. At all! 10 different logos and fonts, 6 different color blues depending on where you are, the company or personal name is never the same, etc. So, although this is kindergarten, there are a lot of people out there in nursery school that need these basics, so hopefully this will help them!!!
As for any other tips? The best way to build your brand is to constantly (and consistently) add value…give your clients and visitors more than they were hoping for every chance you get in front of them.
Great advice, I think consistent usernames and photos are extremely important as it makes it a lot easier for people to recognize you and follow connect with you across the web.
I think all the suggestions are good except the standard picture across all platforms. My linkedin photo is significantly stuffier then my facebook photo. Those are different communities and should be treated differently. Other elements, my name and image are fairly standard, but not the image.
These tips all lead back to the ever-important theme of consistency. For effective business branding that is recognized by Google bots and potential clients alike as authentic, consistency is key. And with this in mind, professionals who are new to the game better act fast. Domains, Twitter handles, and blog accounts that match beautifully will only become harder and harder to attain.
Thanks for the great tips!
Cheers,
Sarah Bauer
Navigator Multimedia
Enjoyed reading the article. Really nicely written.
And of course nice tips!
Thank you
Great blog! It was interesting to hear how the blog is the new resume. I can relate in terms of stressing over my resume to make sure it is perfect before sending it in for a job position. I have not related my blog to a resume; however, I now see the similarities. I need to put the same amount of time into my blog as a would for my resume. The tips are extremely beneficial and I will definitely use them. Thanks!
YEARH .. Great with simple tips as this .. often we forget that even the small steps make a huge difference!
I think add your keywords or products name in url of the website.
thanks Crissie,this post is so useful for my future,our future:)
Such a great message. I’ve taken the time to standardize my profile image and it has made a huge difference. I didn’t think branding was necessary for bloggers, but then I started reading up on the subject and decided to give it a shot. It does make quite the difference.
Kimberly