A New Generation Marketer

There is a hot debate going on today regarding if a person’s online brand is good or bad for a company. Since I spent months developing my own unique personal brand, I am a strong believer that your online brand can only enhance a company’s image once you are hired, unless it is a negative image you have created for yourself.

I branded myself as an up-and-coming expert in the online marketing industry, interested specifically in innovation, new technology, and social media/community building. This image was demonstrated through my social media involvement, new product reviews, daily blog posts, and discussions at networking events in person.

This led to many people recognizing me for this and coming to me for expert advice. I was able to develop a large and reputable following online, which ultimately led me to an amazing job offer at Backupify.

Since I have started here, I have continued to interact with many of my same followers online and they were more than willing to spread the word about my company, and some are even beginning to profile my move to Backupify. Coming into this company with a good network of followers, a strong reputation in the industry, and a knack for interent marketing, I clearly had an advantage.

Here are 10 reasons why your online personal brand can help your company:

1. You already have great connections
2. You are able to concisely represent and demonstrate what you stand for
3. You ‘get it’ in regards to branding which is the key to success for many companies
4. People will know that there is an actual human behind a brand once you join the company.

People do business with people, not companies.

5. You bring a unique personality to the company that everyone will know about
6. You have already learned how to defend your reputation (and you can now use this skill to your company’s advantage if need be)
7. People naturally gravitate to a persona rather than a brand or logo, so you help bring people to your company and its website
8. You have proven yourself to be an expert in a niche industry which will allow you and your company to succeed
9. Personal branding helps with building business relationships and trust
10. You can help leverage credibility and information spreading for your company within your own powerful community of connections who are willing to share your posts.

Once you and your personal brand have entered a new company, here is what you can do to integrate your personal brand to help the company:

1. Personalize all conversations. For example, if you are managing the Facebook Fan Page of the company and you comment back to a wall post, sign your comment with your name so someone knows there is a person behind the brand and they may even know who you are.

2. Post blogs with your name on it so people know it is you posting and will view you as a credible source.

3. Maintain all prior contacts you made before working for this company and continue to interact with them so they can help with your transition into a new role and promote your new work.

4. Repost all original content produced by your company (i.e. blog posts, webinars, eBooks, podcasts, etc.) to help leverage the content further on the Internet and bring along credibility with it.

5. Keep yourself unique in the company. You came in as a unique individual with a unique set of skills and assets, so bring that to the table during all company meetings, brainstorming sessions, etc. to keep the workplace diverse and interesting. Knowledge sharing is one of the best things great employees can bring to a company.

How have you integrated your personal brand with the company you work for? Does your employer support this?