In Part I of this series on achieving professional success through personal branding, we talked about the importance of establishing a blog as an online “home” for your personal brand. In Part II, the focus is exclusively on social media as a tool for professional branding. Social media is so popular that it’s an unavoidable part of personal branding. It can also be powerful, offering more ways to communicate your brand, connect with your professional community and build strong search engine results. But like personal branding as a whole, using social media should be approached with thought and care for the best results.

Your Name

When your goal is to build a professional reputation, your personal brand should almost always be your given name. After all, that’s what you’ll be using in the work world. However, if you happen to have an extremely common name, or a name that also belongs to a famous person, it may be difficult to use online. Even if nobody would mistake Charles Manson the lawyer for Charles Manson the serial killer, his Web search results are certainly going to be diluted. If you’re in this position, you may want to adopt an appropriate nickname. For Charles Manson the lawyer, this could mean building a personal brand as Copyright Charlie.

Brand Consistency

Your personal brand should be just as consistent as any product’s brand. This reminds readers who they’re reading and gives you a chance to reinforce your personal brand through visual choices. To start with, use the same profile picture across social media sites, and make sure it allows readers to recognize you in person. If your blog has a distinct logo — and it should — consider repeating that logo or elements of it (like fonts or colors) on other sites. Perhaps most importantly, make sure that every social media site links to your blog and, when appropriate, to other social media sites.

Selecting Social Media Sites

It’s impossible to use every social media site, so you should pick the ones that are most used or most important in your field, and make sure to take full advantage of them. Start by making sure the profile page on each site reinforces your personal brand — by telling readers what you’re about and linking to your site.

LinkedIn is designed for professional use, so it’s a particularly strong choice for building your personal brand. On LinkedIn, take full advantage of the career-focused features by filling in your resume, with links, and seeking out recommendations. Join relevant groups and use the community where appropriate. Also, don’t forget the less common social networks that may be specially designed for your field. If you’re a photographer, for example, Flickr allows you to not only post a detailed portfolio, but participate in an entire photographer community.

If you’re currently using a social media site for purely social purposes, you may have to make some choices. Some of the posts that are routine in your social life could damage your professional life — such as references to heavy drinking or supporting marijuana legalization. Keep those worlds separate by removing non-PG content or using security features carefully. This is paramount. You may even choose to start separate accounts for your professional and personal lives. If you have any doubt, take a look at the Talent Check BASIC Executive Background Screening Model. There is nothing “basic” about the in-depth background investigations they perform for some of America’s top companies, including probing online data.

Using Social Media

To start with, link your blog posts to your social media sites and, when appropriate, the social media sites to one another. For example, you can often feed Twitter posts into Facebook. More people may read your blog, and you’ll definitely improve your blog’s SEO. Follow up by actually interacting with your connections, including sharing other people’s content when you find it worthwhile. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and your personal capital won’t be either. To get some value out of social media sites, you’ll need to be social there, so you can become part of a community. This gives people a reason to care what you post and follow your links. As with the blog, however, keep your social interactions reasonably light and professional. It’s good to show a human side, but avoid anything controversial or things you wouldn’t share at the office. Remember, your ultimate goal is to build a reputation that opens doors for your future — by impressing potential employers, customers and colleagues.