Personal Brand 3/4: Be known, digitally

In our previous post, we spoke about using our fashion styles as a way to portray your personal brand and other ways of elevating your style for a professional setting.

But how do we communicate our brand in 2020, when most initial conversations take place digitally?

Today, there are multiple avenues which you can make your first impression – phone, email or even social media. And you should take advantage of these technologies and tools to communicate likewise. That being said, before that phone call even reaches you, be it through a physical phone or through virtual applications, your Digital Presence is going to make a difference.

Managing your Digital Presence

Previously, we had discussed searching yourself on the internet to see what appears, and how you can curate and craft your online image. In this section, we will delve a little deeper into actively projecting the digital presence you want.

The first thing that you should consider is your brand voice and tone; what type of personality and emotions do you want to inject into your personal brand online?

Remember, the Voice should be consistent and should be in line with how you present yourself in person.

Once you have selected the Voice of your brand, focus on the tone of your digital presence. Compare the tones of other brands; Nike, for example, may use shorter, powerful sentences to convey an active brand, while Aesop, who is looking to project the Spa experience, tend to aim for slightly longer, softer sentences, with a very welcoming feel behind it.

Consider the needs of your role when selecting your brand’s tone.

Consider this when writing any public profiles, especially for a professional network. Consider curating each social media account for a specific purpose and tailoring your content (and friends list) to that purpose!

Most social media platforms have the feature which will enable you to select your audience to gain access to your feeds.

If you choose to have a public profile, it is wise to set different audience groups to have different levels of access to your profile. This can help to prevent posts from “That Party” being seen by your parents or your employer (even though it is generally seen as unethical to judge an employee by their weekend activities on the proviso since it does not impact the company or their performance).

A few good reminders to ensure that your digital presence is attuned to your Personal Brand are:

• To ensure you have a clear and professional photo for your public profiles. It does not have to be taken by a photographer, but no holiday snaps, please.
• Make sure you have a photo. Animals and children might be cute to use on your personal pages or profile photos, but professionally, it can look a little messy (unless, of course, your industry is relevant to pets or children!)
• Smile! It does not hurt to leave a friendly impression.

Emails are more tricky than you think!

As a communication tool, the ways we send an email are often put at the back of our mind. Yet, it is one of the most used tools for professional conversations, which may start off formally, and can switch to informal in an instant. How can you navigate multiple conversations whilst still representing your brand and communicating effectively?

Crafting an easily read email can be difficult, especially if the email is in regards to a delicate situation. This is where the tone of your brand will come into play – how will you adjust your tone throughout emails whilst still representing your Voice.

Firstly, ensure you are responding to emails within an acceptable timeframe.

If you do not have a response on the get-go, it is a good idea to acknowledge the email at the very least.

Secondly, avoid rambling within an email.

Should you struggle to reply on the topic via an email, you can offer to set up a call, or walk over to their desk (if possible, and maintaining any social distancing frameworks issued by your local government).

Finally, keep Emoji at bay.

Generally, they are fine to be used during the personalised sections of an email (greetings, and inquiries after one’s wellbeing) but steer clear of using them when discussing work-related topics. Remember, emails are a form of “in writing” after all. Ask yourself if you would feel comfortable with others seeing the email.

A good trick is to utilise the Grammarly extension via your browser. Grammarly not only assists with spelling, grammar and syntax, but it also gives you an overview of the tone of your email, giving you the option to edit your tone as needed.

Of course, ensure that the Voice and Tone of the brand are unequivocally YOU.

See you in the last section of this series where we will touch on communicating your brand in person.