A College Student’s Idea of a ‘Well-Branded’ Digital Image.

For my samples I chose to look at Colleen Wainwright's "Communicatrix", Chris Pirillo's site, Kelly Rigotti's "Almost Frugal", Bob Baker's "The Buzz Factor"  and on Linked in, I looked at Thomas Clifford and Jason Alba.

I think the key element to all of these sites is that the owners did a great job of ensuring that we, the viewers, knew what the point of the site is.

These websites and blogs are fairly simple, well laid out, and make it easy to find the information that is needed. A potential employer could easily find out who these people are and what they do that makes them special without a lot of extra work. A great example is Colleen Wainwright's "About" page. She has it laid out like an FAQ where she poses questions and then answers them - often in a humorous way, but always thoughtful and interesting way. This made me want to continue reading and would make it more likely that I would want to pursue this person in business.

On Linkedin, which is essentially a social resume site, the focus lies on a few things: having a complete resume with a lot of relevant experience and insight on those experiences, and good connections. The connections seem to be very important on Linkedin. If, for example, you have your employer, boss, and other industry people as your endorsements it is probably more likely that an employer would want to contact you. Ultimately Linkin sites seem to be much more straight forward than blogs or personal sites. They are focused almost solely on the work you have done and what would make you a good candidate for a job.

Other things I noticed are a strong focus on social media, having a strong and friendly photo of yourself, and focusing on your strengths and interests.

Five Criteria for a well-branded digital presence in college:

1. Clarity - be up front about who you are, what you are interested in, and what your motivations are. This doesn't mean talk about your friends
2. Professionalism - be professional! This doesn't mean you can't have fun or but funny, just make sure that the vulgarity is gone, the photos of you drinking with your buddies aren't visible, and (depending on the goals you have) your political and religious views are not a focus.
3. The future - talk about your long-term goals and what inspires you, both on a daily level and to meet those goals.
4. Resume - let people know what you have already done so they can see your accomplishments. As a college student your grades, clubs, and other non-academic achievements could be important.
5. Visibility - Make sure that your site can be seen and accessed by people! And make sure that if you do you have a personal facebook or journal page that it can NOT be seen by those who shouldn't see it.

My own digital presence is fairly lacking. I have had a lot of visible accounts in the past, but I have tried very hard to lock them down. I have either made most of them completely private or "friends-only" so that my friends and family are the only ones able to view my posts and photos. I also have a number of other blogs that are not connected to my name in any way. The one thing I do have open is my Linkedin profile. I have been meaning to expand that, but have no had much to add to it for a while. I think I will definitely add more information as well as add more contacts. In the future I will create a personal site for my resume and as a way to have sort of a digital business card I can send to people.