In today’s competitive job market, it’s more important than ever to stand out in the crowd. For recent graduates just entering the work force, a personal brand is a great way to show the world who you are and what valuable services or skills you have to offer. Building a personal brand online is a highly effective way to market yourself if it’s done with care, and it could end up being your ticket to a very rewarding career.

Find Your Niche

Before you can even begin to create your personal brand, you need to know what it is. Who are you? What would you like people to know about you? What is your area of expertise? Once you have answered those questions, make sure you can back them up. A personal brand will only be successful if it’s built upon honesty and trust– you need the perception that people have of you to match the perception you have of yourself. Believe in yourself and your abilities, and most of all, be real.

Create a Resume

Once you know what your goals and intentions are, you can begin the process of building your personal brand. The first thing you should do is create a resume, complete with a cover letter and references. Because you are going to be branding yourself online, you need to have a resume online in addition to a printed one. VisualCV is an excellent online tool that you can use to create your resume, and it’s an easy way for employers or clients to find you. Tools such as this one allow you to incorporate all sorts of media into your resume including audio, video, and pictures–and you can create a few different versions of your resume in order to protect some of your personal information if it will be posted on your website or a social networking site.

Build a Personal Website or Blog

Having your own personal website or blog will not only make it easier for people to find you, it will give you a chance to tell your story. In order to really connect with people, you should personalize your site in a tasteful and professional manner. Post a picture of yourself and tell your audience who you are and how you got where you are today. Let your audience know what your expertise are, and back it up with factual information. What you write should exude confidence, but not come across as boastful. Your web address should contain your name or the name of your company or business, and your website should be appealing to the eye yet simple in design. Be sure to incorporate your resume and a portfolio of your work into your website or blog so that potential employers or clients can view your background and your work. You need to make a great first impression. Because of advancements in technology, many first impressions are formed in the virtual world!

Use Business and Social Networks

Don’t be afraid to market yourself using online networks. Creating profiles on both business and social networks can help get you noticed and they are excellent word-of-mouth platforms. Happy clients or customers often tell others, and sites like Facebook and Twitter can help them spread the good word. Although online networks can serve as very valuable advertising and networking resources, be careful. Adjust privacy settings on your profiles to prevent embarrassing photos or comments from showing up unexpectedly. Using these sites for branding purposes requires you to maintain a level of professionalism that doesn’t falter.  What people think of you can change in a heartbeat if they see something on your profile that is vulgar or offensive.  If used wisely, popular networking sites will help you create a name for yourself.

Establishing business connections and relationships does take time, but if you are passionate about what you do, people will begin to notice. By creating your own unique and personal brand that you whole-heartedly believe in, you will have the opportunity to show the world that you are a true leader in your field.

Guest post from Bailey Harris. Bailey writes about identity theft prevention for IdentityTheft.net.

We can all name a few blogs that would be categorized as huge successes.  But they didn’t get that way overnight.  Each blogmaster was very deliberate when it came to the steps they took that eventually got them to where they are now.  So, what can you do to put your blog on the path to future success too?  Use these tips to begin building a successful blog today.

1. Be true to yourself
 Write posts from your heart.  Be personal.  While a lot of posts are meant to be informative or instructional, that doesn’t mean you can’t put your own touches on them and use first person language (ex. I, me, mine).  The most successful blogs are those that are both professional and personal.  Let your readers get know you through your blog and you will have a better chance of success.

2. Make it useful
 Most of the popular blogs are popular because they are useful.  Yes, there are some phenomenons, but for the most part readers subscribe to a blog because the posts are helpful and increase their knowledge on a topic that they are interested in.  Approach every post from the reader’s perspective.  How realistic is my how-to post?  Is this new information that readers haven’t heard before?  Your goal is to be the know-all, end-all blog in your particular niche and the way to do that is to post dangerously useful content.

3.  Social media-ize your blog
 Bluntly put: you can’t afford to NOT take full advantage of social media.  It’s so simple to use and can have a good return on time-investment if you regularly use it.  Use Twitter to push your posts and interact with readers, and get on Digg, delicious, and StumbleUpon.  In addition, the power of networking with other bloggers should not be underestimated.  Find the big, well-established blogs in your niche and send them a link to a post of yours (only if it’s AMAZING and their readers will find it very interesting). Keep in mind, that 99% of the time, you won’t hear back from them because they get hundreds of spam messages and emails like yours every day.  However, you may just get lucky once or twice which is all you need!

4.  Use attention catchers
 Attention getting images and titles should become best practice for your blog.  Usually your image and title is what the reader sees first.  If they aren’t compelling enough, they won’t read any further and perhaps move on to the next blog that’s similar to yours.  However, if you have a great image and title, that brings you one step closer to winning over a new reader.

5. Interact with your readers
 When a reader takes the time to read your post, digest it, and leave a comment, that’s pure gold.  You don’t want to leave them hanging out to dry!  Since a blog is really just a big conversation, take the time to read your comments and respond to them.  Whether you reply with  a quick “thanks for your input!” comment or answer any questions, this goes a long way with readers and will keep them coming back for more.  In addition, don’t forget to respond to those following you on social media channels.  If a follower replies to one of your tweets, make sure you respond.  People want to get to know the mastermind behind the blog, so show yourself through your interactions!

Now that you have these important tips under your belt, you can begin your journey to a successful blog now!  The best way to learn is to try these steps and see which ones work best for you and be ready to tweak and hone them to fit you and your blog.  You too can create a popular blog.  All it takes is a little discipline and deliberation.  Happy blogging!

About the author:  Julia is a writer passionate about health, fitness & blogging. When she’s not running her dog she can sometimes be found writing about Smartlipo, cooking and a myriad of other topics.

Social Media presence is very necessary if you are doing affiliated marketing. Relationship marketing is one of the best way to sell your products direct to your customers. Interacting with individuals, convincing them for buying your products, making them realize about the importance of a product is  all about Relationship marketing.

Social Media helps you to build a strong network and sell your products through relationship marketing. Although relationship marketing can be done without social media, however they can save you time. Instead of finding peoples, why not go to a place where you can find interested buyers for your products. However you must follow these 3 tips to make your relationship marketing effective.

1. Introduction

Starting direct from the promotion is not going to help, first introduce yourself. Interact with individuals, join different groups, post comments, give suggestions and build some reputation on the site. After that you can start promoting your product.

2. Communication

In relationship marketing communication plays very important role. No one is going to buy your product or service if your communication power is weak. So improve your communication skill and convince the user so that he can buy your product or service.

3. After Sale Services

Don’t think about one sale per one user. You will have to make long term relationship with your customers. After selling your service or product to your customer, send him/her monthly or weekly emails about the product or service. Ask him if he/she is facing any problem. In this way you will gain long term customers, and this will be your big achievement if you will gain long term customers.

Hope these tips will help you to make your relationship marketing effective and sell your products or service to your customers. Affiliated marketing is all about marketing your product or service in such way so that people can buy it. So follow the tips to earn good money from affiliated business.

This is a guest post  by Mark, who is working for Go-gulf.com, a Dubai based web design company that provides web design solution in Kuwait, Bahrain, Sharjah and Middle East. You too can do a guest post on CollegeFallOut.

Social Media is the latest buzz to create traffic to one’s blog or website and indeed, many have shown that it can be a successful model for good amount of traffic. However, what we don’t know is that which of the social media’s are those that cannot be ignored. While some social sites can be ignored or neglected. If you are a blogger who is looking for a professional way to generate traffic i.e. generate traffic for free then these social sites are a must to be updated.

List of 8 Social Media Sites That Cannot Be Ignored By Bloggers:

1) Technorati – Technorati Authority, Technorati ranking – they all matter a lot, to advertisers and also to the visitors. This can boost your reputation apart from generating huge amount of traffic. Always try to get your site voted as a Technorato Favorite – it is totally worth it.

2) Twitter – I really don’t need to tell you much about the capacity that Twitter has to improve your traffic. So don’t ever ignore Twitter. Put all your post updates on Twitter.

3) Digg – The most popular place to post all your links for webmasters, I love Digg personally. The pure ease of updating and the volume of traffic that Digg generates is awesome. Never forget this social media to promote your blog.

4) StumbleUpon – StumbleUpon is another smart way you can promote your posts, but it requires you to be a little active. If you can be an active Stumbler on StumbleUpon then it is another traffic gem.

5) Facebook – Facebook is becoming a growing presence on most blogs,with many bloggers generating fans for their site via placing the Facebook widget on their blog pages. Sharing your posts on Facebook can get you traffic, but need not always be targetted.

6) Mixx – A popular social site, where you can give in your links. It has a very interesting feature of creating your own custom page that displays only the most popular content that currently is linked by Mixx.

7) Delicious – Another social media site which is similar to Mixx, StumbleUpon and Digg.

Yahoo Buzz – It has been found to be effective by some. Although some find it not that much effective. But if you have a group/network of peers who blog then you can get updates your friends and see what they buzzed up – vice versa.

Whethere you want to use all of these social medias to promote your blog or use a few of them, make it a point not to totally ignore the potential that they have. Atleast ensure that all your blog updates are posted on at least three of the above mentioned sites.

Look Like a Dork on Twitter

Twitter is the social media craze surrounding website/blog marketing for all enthusiastic web masters. Everyone wants to leverage the power of Twitter. Unfortunately, even in a simple marketing system such as Twitter, many cool desperate guys end up looking like total jerks. They are so desperate to promote their stuff that they end up looking like total dorks. So if you also like being a total jerk, then here are your Twitter Tips To Look Like a Dork (defn.: Slang; A stupid, inept, or foolish person):

Having more than one “Follow Me on Twitter” Logo on you blog/homepage – This one is the most awesome tip if you aspire to be a Twitter Dork. Whenever a user comes in, he can find a Twitter logo on the sidebar, below the post, on the header…Hell, the webmaster might even be having one on his undies.

Following every Twitter user on the Planet – If you are the kind of guy who follows every Twitter user’s link that comes under your cursor then maybe you should consider counting yourself among the Dorks that Twitter loves to have.

Asking People the Reason They Unfollow – Whenever, someone unfollows you on Twitter, you need to be better equipped to handle the “shock”. Not go after the user and interrogate why he unfollowed you. Twitter is a free community, people can choose who they want to follow and who not to. They probably unfollowed because your a big Twitter despo.

Continuous Useless Twitter Updates – Make followers expectant of your updates and not loathe. Don’t make people groan when you update your tweet. Stop tweeting every thing you do – like when you go to the loo or wash your bike. Face it baby, Nobody cares about it. Unless your really very famous. Since you are reading this, i understand you are not a really famous person.

A Too Hot to Handle Twitter Pic – Get a decent Twitter profile pic. I have seen people put the most attractive pic of theirs which they find. More often than not, you  may be misunderstood for a tweeting porn-star or a promoter for Adult dating sites.

Calling Oneself a Guru or Expert – If you really think your a that much of a Guru then you would not have to call it yourself, others would have! Hah Dork!

So compare yourself to the checklist above and see if you are a dork or not. Leave your comments – I value it, it makes me happy.

It is an interesting trend to watch on the internet these days – there are so many internet startups that are mushrooming daily that it has become difficult to track the rate at which new internet entrepreneurs are entering the World Wide Web.

Internet has easily become the most desirable place for business for the opportunistic entrepreneur. The world-wide reach given by the internet and relatively low cost of starting up have become attractive parts of the online business. Even businesses that are thriving in the offline world are creating their presence on the internet.

However, the challenges faced by internet entrepreneurs are totally different than from the entrepreneurs who make their business offline. This requires an internet entrepreneur to have a distinct set of skills to adapt to the challenges online.

One of the biggest challenges that are faced by internet entrepreneurs is the rate at which obsolescence occurs online. Internet is such a rapidly evolving and competitive environment that technology, software, social media and opportunities can be at an all time high in one moment and be totally forgotten the next day.

This requires the internet entrepreneur to learn quickly and unlearn even faster. Staying in the comfort zone can be perhaps the most fatal mistake that he can make. For example, earlier the promotional methods for a conventional internet marketing agency included paid reviews, buying advertisement and maybe a few press releases. Hardly did anyone imagine the advent of the powerful social media. Twitter so quickly took grasp of the social media marketing that many quick and smart internet marketers were able to boost their online income 100%. At the same time, many internet marketers who failed to realize the fact that Twitter had taken over the internet marketing techniques with a storm – lost a lot of customers to the new breed of fast learning and quick-to-act internet marketers. Suddenly, they realized with a jolt that old marketing techniques are just not good enough any more. What happened was that, many failed to adapt to the pace of development and shift of power to Social Medias.

Perhaps, the latest rage is the Facebook fan page – small blogs to big corporate are all taking their brand online to Facebook. This can be considered another challenge for many internet entrepreneurs to keep up with the rate at which the internet grows. Becoming an internet entrepreneur is lucrative – but it requires a whole new level of crazy acclimatization to the pace of development online.

What are your thoughts on this? Let me and the readers know below.

twitter logo

Twitter was launched with the intention of providing its users a quick update of their personal lives to each other. Basically, Twitter aimed at becoming the quick solution of social networkers who did not have a lot of time to spend on exhaustive social networks like Facebook, Orkut etc. It was a practical solution to the concept behind social networks.

Twitter was a practical idea for social networking because it helped you stay updated to your network in a quick no-nonsensical way. You know what the other guy is upto and the other guys knows what you are up to. This in a way helps you keep connected and fulfills the basic concept behind a social network.

Nowadays, however considering the volume of Twitterers and the sheer number of users simply in it for marketing their services/products has left a question mark on the purpose behind Twitter.

As I see it now, Twitter can be called a internet marketing platform. These days hardly except may be a few celebs let their network know what they are really up to. Most Twitterers are simply people who like to post links for their followers. They hardly tweet on what is really happening in their life. Most tweets are related to posting about a new post on the blog,  a link to their squeeze page or a link for selling their products/services.

I must say that I am also guilty for the same thing, but then which is why I wrote this article. This is basically a speculation on whether Twitter can really be called a social networking site any more. Yes, may be it does allow you to network socially but with people you don’t know anything about, except may be the products or services they give.

Social website Facebook has gone a level above to connect to its members. Facebook will give options to members to create a memorial  page to its members who have deceased. The family members and friends are being asked to inform them on the event of death of a Facebook profile holder. Following which, Facebook will create a memorial page for the member.

The Facebook users must submit “proof” in order to let Facebook create a Memorial page for its deceased member. It can be done by submitting either an obituary or news article.

The main reason why this feature has cropped up is that although a person stops using Facebook, many of his/her information and updates are almost impossible to erase from the web.

“We understand how difficult it can be for people to be reminded of those who are no longer with them, which is why it’s important when someone passes away that their friends or family contact Facebook to request that a profile be memorialised.”

-Max Kelly

Max Kelly is the head of security at Facebook, he wrote this on the official Facebook blog.