I’ve been thinking about my digital brand and wondering whether I am communicating my brand messages and values correctly. So what do I mean by that?

Your digital brand
As an individual you are known for your specific area of expertise and skill in the real networking world. Translating this online, means that you need to ensure that you are engaging in discussions around your brand identity.

Imagine if someone met you at a real networking event, and they lost your card. If they typed in your name into Google – what would come up? If they can find your LinkedIn profile, Twitter account or blog, then they are more likely to get in touch with you to follow up the conversation.

If you have not got any information out in the digital world about who you are, then how do you expect people to find you in the online networking arena?

Managing your digital brand
There’s a few other ‘charlotte brittons‘ around. There’s one who’s a nun in Spain who paints watercolours and there’s an actor in Wales or Manchester.

So over the past 18 months I’ve worked hard at getting my personal brand online expanded so people can find me in a number of different locations such as Linked In, Twitter, Make Your Mark and obviously my blog, plus a few other niche sites such as slideshare.

Online networking
Once you have got your brand established online you can then start using the channels to find new contacts and ideas. Through Twitter I have found some like minded people in Leeds who I would have not found if I was active on Twitter.

I have also had a huge success on LinkedIn. Over the past year I have gone through my offline network and replicated this on LinkedIn. So when I updated my profile in February, my old boss from many years ago got in touch. A lunch and a few coffees later, we have started doing business again.

I have started investing more time in LinkedIn, instead of going to actual networking events I spend time updating my profile or doing blog entries………which in time will pay off in terms of finding new and old contacts.

Is it worth it?
I get asked that question loads of time. In fact I was at a meeting on Friday afternoon with some senior business leaders from Leeds. My answer is always the same – if you spend time effectively on the sites such as LinkedIn, Twitter and blogging, then yes, it’s totally worth it.

When you are blogging or on Twitter though be wise and savvy…..don’t Twitter ‘I’ve had Shreddies for breakfast’ and other whatnot like that. Who’s interested? But your Tweets get indexed in Google. So if someone Google’s your name your latest Tweets are included in your listings……and is that really something that you want to share with a potential customer or business partner?