The Importance of Personal Branding in Social Media: Educating Students to Create and Manage their Personal Brand
Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to discuss the importance of developing, maintaining and promoting one’s personal brand. Personal branding is the process by which an individual actively tries to manage others’ impressions of their skills, abilities and experiences. Self-awareness and understanding one’s strengths and weaknesses in order to effectively present the self is essential to building a personal brand. Students need to understand the concept of personal branding and how actions they engage today, especially in social media, can affect their future. Making students aware of the process of personal branding assists them in regulating their postings and disclosures on social media. Many tools are available on social media to convey one’s personal brand such as LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, Vimeo, YouTube and blogs. Providing students with tips on how to best convey their image on social media will help them be successful in building their careers. Examples of class assignments from students use of blogs, Pinterest and LinkedIn will be discussed.