Dr Bex Lewis @drbexl
Senior Lecturer in Digital Marketing
12 February 2019
Building Your Personal Brand in a Digital Age
#RealisingAspirations #ASFC2019

Today’s Plan: Digital Literacy
• What do you know about each other?
• Making yourself look good
• Optimising for social media platforms
• Do your research
• Setting up an action plan

Digital Literacy
"digital literacy defines those
capabilities which fit an individual
for living, learning and working in a
digital society”
https://www.jisc.ac.uk/guides/developing-digital-literacies

Benefits of social media in your job search (Guardian, 2018)
• You can apply for advertised roles easily and quickly
• You are more visible to recruiters who are using social media to
advertise their jobs and source candidates
• You can build your network and engage with a wider audience
across multiple social channels
• You can create positive PR by presenting testimonials,
endorsements and presentations of your work onto your social
media accounts, blog and/or website
• You can speak to recruiters, head-hunters and prospective
employers throughout your job search by engaging with them
across all channels in real time

What do you know about each
other?

Some estimate that
upwards of 85% of
open positions are
filled through
networking.
Payscale.com (2017)
Social Networking?
Photo by Sara Kurfeß on Unsplash

Search Yourself…
“It is worthwhile
carrying out a search
like this at least once a
month to make sure
that there is no
information showing
that you wouldn’t want
a potential employer to
see.”
Thomas Lancaster
Photo by Benjamin Dada on Unsplash

Before you post….
Photo by Paolo Nicolello on Unsplash
• Parents
• Younger Kids
• Employers
• Newspapers
• Your worst
enemy

Deleting Data?
“When you apply for a new job, many employers will try to find and
evaluate your social media presence to ascertain if you are a
suitable candidate.
A misjudged tweet from years ago or an inappropriate Facebook
photo can destroy future job prospects or ruin a career. A Google
search that reveals an old conviction can make it more difficult to
become hired, and -- whether true or not -- allegations of criminal
conduct spread online can cause misery.”
https://zd.net/2zhbkjY

Making yourself look good

Being Visible
If someone can’t find you online,
they’re actually going to think
there’s something very strange
about that and not trust you. In
the digital sense, not having
great profiles online is the same
as not turning up to a meeting.
Natasha Courtenay-Smith (2018)
Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash

Vision & Values
• What is important to
you?
• What do you stand for?
• What do you stand
against?
See: http://bit.ly/CreateValues
Photo by Nathan Lemon on Unsplash

Providing the positive …
What words would you
associate with positive
traits when job hunting?
e.g.
•Hard-worker
•Passion for subject
•Good communicator
Photo by Ian Schneider on Unsplash

Finding the right words…
• Words are KEY – what words do you want people to associate
with you, remember about you, and find you via search?
• Some useful websites:
• https://www.thebalancecareers.com/action-verbs-and-
power-words-for-your-resume-2063179
• https://jobmob.co.il/blog/positive-personality-adjectives/
• https://owlcation.com/humanities/how-to-describe-yourself
• https://jobmob.co.il/blog/positive-resume-action-verbs/

Be Found: Keywords
• Name (s)
• Job title (s)
• Skills
• Values
• Industry jargon, acronyms,
experience
• (Dream) company name (s)
Photo by Charles Deluvio 🇵🇵🇵🇵 on

Optimising for Social Media
Platforms

• LinkedIn
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Instagram
• YouTube
• Blogs
Which platforms?

LinkedIn
• 530 million current users
• Corporate companies use
• Sharing job postings
• Look up potential hires
• Ask current staff about potential hires
• Online CV. Make sure you:
• Update profile
• Make connections
• Join groups

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yc7f41l9lu8

Facebook
• 2,271 million active users (still growing)
• Ask friends for any jobs related to your
interests, and/or refer you to people in
your field
• Like company pages
• Join groups in your interest area, join
conversations, ask for opportunities
• Search ‘Jobs on Facebook’

Twitter
• 326 million current users
• Understand more about the company
applying to from their posts
• Find jobs: common jobsearch hashtags:
• #nowhiring
• #jobs
• #joblisting
• #jobposting
• Job title keywords (#marketing
#manager #advertising #sales)
http://bit.ly/2PBzeAA

Instagram
• 1,000 million active users
• Demonstrate your passion for your job
search field by posting about it frequently -
demonstrating understanding
• Use appropriate hashtags, e.g.
#photography #marketing
#digitalmarketing #freelance
• Make the most of visual options –
especially photography students

YouTube
• 1,900 million active users
• Set up your own channel, and give
video samples of your work
• Most frequent search term ‘How Do I?’
– can you capitalise on this?
• Demonstrate your presentation and
communication skills
• Consider an ‘elevator pitch’ highlighting
your career related skills and passions

Blogs
• 400 million on Tumblr alone
• 26% of blogs are on Wordpress
• You can SHOW rather than TELL
prospective employers that you are
passionate about their field.
• Offer guest posts to blogs with bigger
followings in your field
• Comment on other people’s blogs, IF you
have something to say

Own Blog Guest Blogging
http://bit.ly/CitySharentinghttp://drbexl.co.uk/

Blog Content
• Blog about what you know, and explore content that relates to
your desired job.
• Ensure that the material is accurate and well written – and
optimised to keywords.
• Comment on press coverage and market trends relevant to your
industry/profession.
• Avoid negative rants on a blog.
• Think carefully about any mix of personal/professional
• More useful tips: http://bit.ly/CareerEnl

Other Social Media Platforms?
• Pinterest: Create appropriate boards collecting material
together, or demonstrate collections of own work
• Snapchat: Follow potential employers, learn about
companies/industries, tell a story, show your creativity
• Wakelet: Collect together tweets, insta, etc. from an event, or
content from across the web to demonstrate your knowledge
• Reddit: Look up e.g. /jobsearchhacks/

Keep producing content, join conversations, and be findable
for key terms:
“You just wrote an awesome article about the latest features of Adobe InDesign
and what that means for graphic designers everywhere. You shared it on social
media. Friends and family shared and retweeted your article. People loved it.
Your future employer will be knocking on your door any second, right? Wrong.
Establishing a consistent voice will not only help establish you as an expert in
your field, which is an attractive quality to potential employers, your content will
also be more likely to be displayed on a search engine results page. Start by
producing at least one quality piece of content a week and then try to increase
that to a daily output.”
http://bit.ly/MonsterSEOArticle

‘Being’ on Social Media
• Make connections
• Avoid broadcasting – engage instead – listen and respond
• Repeat sparingly, link to other social media
• Tone: friendly, real, genuine
• Keep ‘selling’ to only 5%
• ENJOY IT

Do your research

Research Research Research
• Learn about the industry you want to join
• Learn about the companies in that industry
• Learn about the people in those companies
• Learn about the platforms and tools those people use
• Learn about the content they are sharing on those platforms
JOIN IN ON THE RIGHT PLATFORMS

Research Tips
• Follow relevant companies and individuals in your industry or
network, learn about them (in general, and for job interviews)
• Get involved in Facebook and LinkedIn Groups related to your
industry and let people on there know the type of role you are
looking for
• Initiate conversations with individuals and companies on any
interesting topics related to your industry on other social media
platforms
• Keep up to date with the news in the field, in the industry –
develop thoughts, opinions, recommendations…

Keep things up to date

Don’t forget the paper shares…

Preparing a plan of action

Set up a social media plan of action
What are you going to do over the next month to develop your
social media presence and engagement?
•Define 10-15 keywords you want to be found by: think about the
kind of content you could produce around there.
•Define the platforms where you want to develop content.
•Define at least 5 places to look for further information and job
opportunities, or companies that you want to follow on social
media

Further Reading

What do you want people to
know about you, and where do
you want them to find you?
PRODUCE & ENGAGE THERE!