My personal brand

I have actually changed quite a few things since we originally had to do our personal brand audit. Since starting this class, we have learned just how important our social media accounts can be when it comes to making connections as well as to possible future employers. After learning a lot of information over the course of the semester, I was able to put together a plan for my personal brand. For me, consistency was key. I needed to clean up and make a few changes to the social media accounts that I had, and make accounts for sites such as LinkedIn.

Facebook

This was the profile picture that I had during the course of the semester, it’s kind of along the same lines as my previous profile pictures. I decided that I wanted to present a more professional looking profile because you never know who might see your profile and you want to make a good first impression.

 

I started by changing my profile picture to one that I was actually of me. Next I began filling out sections of my profile that had previously been empty. An example of this is in the intro, for my description I created: “College Student. Computer Science Major. Video Game Enthusiast. Aspiring Game Developer.” For me, this is kind of a quick way to tell someone where I am currently in my life, and where I hope to go in the future. I also went ahead and updated my current employment which is in the Electronics Department at Target. I then went into the education section and changed it to JCCC and then transferring to UMKC in the fall. My privacy settings are turned on so that people can see my picture as well as a few other things but they can’t see what I post, not that I post anything super exciting. As you can see in the photos section, it’s mainly pictures of my dogs. Overall, for Facebook, I stayed around the same number of friends over the course of the semester. I picked up a couple at most, and they were people from classes and work. I’m very happy with the changes I was able to make to my account though.

Twitter

I’ve had a twitter account for a long time but I never really used it, and like my Facebook account, things like the bio were left untouched. My profile picture originally was Scotty from the New Star Trek Movies. So I once again, set out to clean up my account. Here is what I ended up with:

I took the same bio as I used for Facebook. One of the things that was emphasized in the Hootsuite videos, was that you need to create an overarching voice and make it consistent over all of your accounts. That was my goal in reinventing my personal brand. Over the course of the semester, I actually went from only having a few followers to having 35, which is what it is sitting at currently. I began following entrepreneurs, such as Gary Vaynerchuk. I really liked his Hootsuite video, as well as the things that he posts.

Instagram

My Instagram was along the same lines. I once again took the same bio and placed it onto my account. My twitter and Instagram accounts now have the same username of @kmallen28 as well as the same profile picture. I also started posting more frequently over the course of the semester, which helped me pick up new followers here as well.

LinkedIn

Here is my original LinkedIn account:

Here is the finished product:

I realize that this isn’t yet perfect, but I plan on adding a lot more to it as I progress further in my education. It’s a definite improvement over what it used to be though. I’ve started making more connections and I’m getting a lot more profile views now.

Overall, I’m very glad I took this class. As someone who aspires to develop games in the future, there is a definite possibility that I would start my own company and become an indie developer. I feel like I now have the proper tools and know of resources to be able to actually market my company and know how social media should be approached when it comes to a business. My goals now are networking with people that are in my industry as well as others who may not be. I feel like having a wide network, is always a good thing. I want to thank everyone for their time and input as well as Professor B for making this class super interesting. I feel like I learned a lot.

That’s all for now,

-K