I just finished Gary Vaynerchuk's Crush It!: Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion and came away with a clearer idea of using social media to build a personal brand. Sure, it can be used extensively to build a business brand, too, but why not leverage it for building a personal one?
Most of the book is focused on how you can use social media tools to create a personal brand that is also a business - or can become one by way of creating such a strong personal brand.
What if creating a business is not what you are looking for?
Social media may still be the way to go. Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn may hold the resumes of the future (although it is hard to say how quickly that may be depending on your industry). Your goal with a resume is to give someone in the hiring process enough information to want to interview
you. After that, you get to wade through the sea of interviews, educating everyone on that path about who you are and why all of that is good for their company.
What if you create a strong presence virtually instead? You can use social media to build your own platform which in turn becomes your virtual resume. One of the great benefits of this is that you get to tell your own story over time, and you get to connect with others who are interested in what you have to say. Eventually, one of those others may be the next career move for you.
Even if changing jobs is not on your horizon according to your plans now, situations in business can change quickly. Your company gets bought. The new management team (and your new boss) have such a different view than you that it is suddenly time to go. You need to move for family reasons. The lives of professional and executive women can change so quickly for so many reasons that taking firm control of your own destiny and personal brand is becoming more and more necessary.
Social media can help you be better prepared for all of these. Not on does it showcase your talents, it also shows that you are social media savvy and in tune with the trends in how information flows. This is yet another skillset in your professional toolbox that will appeal to future employers. Others vying for the same positions are using these tools to help them get the edge - and to get hired for opportunities that you may not even know about until it is too late.
As a professional or executive woman, aren't you looking for the tools that give you the edge? Ones that not only make your professional life better and more complete, but that also give you options and flexibility for whatever future direction you may take?
Jennifer Peek, MBA, CPA is a career and life strategist. She specializes in helping professional and executive women create career and life plans to reach that next level of personal and professional success without adding to their Blackberry guilt or sacrificing their other priorities. You can find even more information about building a personal brand and issues for professional and executive women at her blog at http://peeklifestylecoaching.com/lifestylecoaching/blog-3/ - and be sure to get your complimentary "Having It All Without Compromise" Success Kit for professional and executive women at http://www.PeekLifestyleCoaching.com