Balancing Corporate and Personal Branding

In the social media sphere, there is a constant struggle between building personal and professional brands online. Many employees (unless their job revolves around social media) find it difficult to keep up both a personal and corporate brand effectively. The problem is this: If your personal brand grows successfully, your employer benefits because you are perceived as representing their brand (at least in part), but, if your personal brand grows too larger, or overpowers the popularity of your corporate brand, then it can actually be detrimental to your company. No company wants to hire a star that shines brighter than the company itself, but if employees don’t develop a personal brand to some degree, then they risk fading into obscurity if the company fails, or you end up parting ways.

There are however, several ways that employees can balance successful personal and professional brands that are mutually beneficial to employee and employer.

1. Promote yourself and your company. Nobody has an unlimited amount of time to put towards social media. As a result, ensuring that you are consistently balancing your promotion of yourself personally, and your company, can help to make sure your social media presences’ grow together.
2. Get everyone involved. Social media accounts shouldn’t be the result of one person’s hard work. By getting your entire team involved you can help to mitigate the risks of one person not having the time to maintain their personal and corporate brands to the same degree. It also makes for a smoother transition if your “star” social media presence leaves your organization for whatever reason. 
3. Learn and communicate company guidelines. If you’re going to have everyone involved (or as many employees as you can) then it’s important that they all understand your social media policies, and, if you don’t have one in place, to develop one immediately.

Posted by Amberlie Denny at October 4, 2010 8:00 AM

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