Jessica Knobbe

For me the first step in establishing my personal brand was LinkedIn. If you are not familiar it’s a site that falls under the social media category but specifically focuses on building professional relationships and connections. Think of your profile as a giant expanded resume that anyone can search and see. Filling out the basics are standard and easy to follow- current and past employment, education and a summary of what you are all about so I will assume that you can get through that portion. I will just give you some additional tips on extras that you can do to make your profile stand out.

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  • Basic SEO principles- use keywords whenever possible in your content. Words like SEO, Internet Marketing, Targeting and Social Media are included in my content to really help my profile pop in the LinkedIn search directory.
  • Public Profile – Change the URL to your name instead of gibberish- http://www.linkedin.com/in/jessicaknobbe is so much cleaner than http://www.linkedin.com/3sc29/knob3/23ksn3/profile
  • Additional Information: Websites- Instead of letting them default choose “other” for each one type in the name of your website, your twitter handle and any other specific sites you want to include. I have “My Website” direct to my resume page of JessicaKnobbe.com, and I have “My Blog- Marketing On Target” direct to the blog section of JessicaKnobbe.com. My third option I typed in “Follow Me on Twitter“ that leads right to my Twitter profile.
  • Additional Information: Groups – Join groups to participate in the networking aspect of LinkedIn. This area could warrant an entire blog post on its own so I will just keep it at that for now.
  • Add Applications- this allows you to insert a feed of your blog directly onto your profile. There are many applications to choose from that range from what you are reading, where you are traveling to polls.
  • Recommendations- Try to get some really good, solid recommendations on your profile. Most jobs that are posted on LinkedIn boards require that the applicant have recommendations and if a potential employer is looking at your profile, it never hurts to show them how much you rock.
  • Network Updates- similar to Facebooks status update I keep my contacts abreast of my professional happenings. It is a great way to keep your profile appearing on their main log in page and it lets them know what you are up to. Think less “Man, the 151 bus smells funky today” and more “Just bought my pass to South By Southwest Interactive Fest in Austin” or “Who was surprised that Family Guy is not a great brand spokesperson” with a link to a blog post included.

I know that there are tons of other great things on LinkedIn that you can explore- Q&A, job boards, event searches, but I want you to remember one of the most important- creating a network. Connect with everyone you know and make a solid base group of connections. If you see a person that you want to know and they are a 2nd or 3rd degree connection don’t be afraid to ask for an introduction. You have access to people that you might not otherwise so take advantage of this opportunity. If someone is not an open networker then they can relay that message to you but I have found that most people are very willing to help out whenever they can.

Think about it this way- I have 133 direct connections which puts me 2nd degree to 30,900 professionals and 3rd degree to over 2 million people. That’s 2 million people that have the opportunity to see what I’m all about- why not build a brand that makes you stand out in the crowd.

Added Bonus: Mashable just had a post today about some sprucing up that LinkedIn plans on implimenting!

Throughout my education in Internet Marketing one of the first things I embraced was the potential strength of the personal brand. Brand reputation management is a hot button topic right now with companies and businesses but what have you done to make sure that you as a brand are being portrayed in the best light? I started out my self optimization with the old standby- I Googled myself. What came up was pretty sad. First of all, I didn’t even know there was another Jessica Knobbe (from the St. Louis Knobbe branch I assume) so that was a bit of a shock. She runs marathons. Definitely not me. I also got results of a friends wedding I was in, my senior art exhibit from college and the obligatory classmates.com result “We found Jessica Knobbe!” None of those results are necessarily bad or damaging but they are not really very compelling for a personal brand.

So, in the next few blog posts I will lay out what I did to own page one (and two!) of my Google results and create not only a personal online brand but one that moves with me in the real world at networking events, educational opportunities and even on a Friday night out with my friends.