Want to learn how to grow your personal brand and make a great first impression before your next networking event?
Great! Because in this post we’ll explore steps you can take to enhance both your offline and online presence before a networking event so that you can grow your personal brand.
Let’s get started.
It’s important to remember that how you represent yourself online is how you will be received offline. So to help you make a good online impression, use a few personal branding resources.Personal Online Branding Resources like:
#1 About.me –
About Me makes it easy for people to find your content and learn about you. It essentially allows you to build an online presence, a public profile, a personal homepage, and it allows you to market your business. With a big picture of you, a brief bio to tell your story, many ways to interact (emailing, sharing, connecting, complimenting), and your other social media platforms linked onto your AboutMe, other online users will find it easy to find you and get to know you on the web. About me is a central point for content, which also gives you detailed stats on who visited your page, what they clicked on and where they came from. So you can fully optimize your online profile and gain the most exposure.
#2 Vizify.com –
Vizify allows you to plug in your social media sites to create a series of interactive infographics that show the best of you. It helps you transform all those interesting impressions you make online into one definitive, multidimensional, graphical biography. Vizify is the easiest, funnest, most creative and most visually appealing tool that shows the best of you (online) in one central place. Instead of having your content scattered across multiple social media platforms, you can use vizify to combine and compile all of your most important information onto one unique infographic. It’s fun and more unique than most social media platforms, like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, because instead of sharing just textual content, you can transform this info into cute illustrations, which will differentiate you and draw you in more attention.
#3 Knowem.com –
Knowem allows you to check for the use of your brand, product, personal name or username instantly on over 550 popular and emerging social media websites including: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Foursquare, Pinterest. Now you don’t have to worry about someone else having the same name as you! You can search for a name that is unused and untouched so that you can stand out and be one of a kind. So grab your name and secure your brand before someone else does!
#4 Follr.com –
Follr aggregates all digitally available information about you (your Digital Identity) making it available via one, short domain name. This kind of works like a social résumé, marketing aggregator, and an online business card because ultimately it is used to represent the “whole you” aka your personal brand! Using Follr will make it easier for you to 1) manage your digital identity by having all of your content and personal branding on one site, 2) to organize your social media by adding in your links to your social profiles, blogs and websites to dynamically display your content, and 3) to make the best first impression.
So these are just a few unique and creative things you can use online, before the event, to enhane your personal brand and to make a great first online impression. But there are also a few things you can do offline that will also help you build your personal brand to help you make the best first impression.
They are as followed:
#5 CREATE UNIQUE BUSINESS CARDS
Business cards are crucial to have during any event because this is the information, which you will be distributing, that will let others know where and how to contact you, incase they are interested in you or you services. So prep your cards before the event. Now, you could go with the standard square paper business card with your name and generic information, or you could do something out of the box that no one’s ever seen before. Something that will make someone go “Oh wow, this is different.”
For example:
- Having a calendar on the back of your card with important dates.
- Having your photo on the front of the card to make it stand out.
- Having a card that’s a different shape or size to leave others in awe.
- Or having multiple cards: “One for business and one for pleasure” as Luke Ryan from NBC likes to put it.
Which ever business card you decide to use, make sure it is different and unique. Have your cards stand out from everyone else’s so that networkers can remember your awesome business cards and ultimately you.
And the last thing (a bonus) to do before you attend your next networking event is to:
#6 BE PREPARED
It’s important to always be prepared! Know you’re stuff before you attend your networking event so that you don’t feel overwhelmed or confused when you walk in. An easy and quick way to help you prepare before a networking event is to do your research. There are a few books you can read that can help you prepare for your next event. Here are four books worth reading:
- How to Make People Like You in 90 Seconds
- How to Talk to Anyone
- Never Eat Alone
- How to Win Friends and Influence People.
It’s always important to make a good first impression. And what better way to help you than by preparing beforehand?
So think about it. What’s the next networking event you will be attending? Decide which tip(s) will help you prepare and help you make the best frist impression and then let us know by leaving your comments below.
Next week we will be reviewing 5 unique things you can do during a networking event to help grow your personal brand and leave a great impression. Stay tuned!
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