What Are Your Pictures Telling People About You?

Branding has always been essential to any business marketing strategy. It has also been an integral part of marketing for Universities and Non-profits (although it is established in hushed offices of the most important individuals). I've previously done a post about what the term "brand" has to do in relation to the concept and principles behind the strategy in my post What's in a Name. While a name may not be important... images are. A picture is worth a thousand words, what are your pictures telling people about you?

Today I want to focus less on the nuances of the debate and more on the specifics of actions that can be taken. Almost every individual has an account on one social media platform or another. If you pay attention to the way that people are presenting themselves across platforms, you will find some interesting strategies.

William Arruda is a self-professed personal branding guru. If we Google his name and look at a few of his social media profiles, you will see a striking consistency in the way he is portraying himself weather on Twitter (far left), on his blog (center), or on LinkedIn (far right). While this may simply be a coincidence, I imagine there is a strategic line of thinking behind it. These consistent profile images are establishing his image in connection with his name.

Barack Obama is the President of the United States, so I would hope that he needs no introduction. President Obama is another example of how consistent profiles establish an image that viewers begin to connect with a name. Not only does President Obama use a consistent profile image, but he has established an individual logo to represent his campaign. These are immediately recognizable by a vast number of individuals as being related to the individual.

Now I could repeat this same procedure for many individuals, but the principle remains the same. A consistent profile image or at least a variation of the same image will provide you with consistency throughout your social media use. The idea is to not have viewers guessing if you are the person that they met at a conference or saw in a meeting. Anyone can use this same principle to the extent that they wish. If you are not comfortable with having images of yourself displayed on social media platforms, come up with a caricature or image to represent yourself. These can often be just as fun and intriguing as a real image. I have created one that is displayed on my website.

Embracing Social Technology

In the article 3 Ways Educators Are Embracing Social Technology, a description of the uses of three social technologies are explored in the context of classroom application. The use of Skype, Mobile Phones, and Twitter in the classroom provides a few examples of how Educators can effectively utilize social technologies.

Take a few moments to answer a few of the following questions in a comment to this blog post.

Questions

• The article states that “budget cuts have caused ballooning class sizes,” thus Educators have attempted to utilize technology to engage students. Is this an effective approach?
•  How can Educators and Universities effectively use technology with such a vast range of devices?
•  Is there an expectation that all students be familiar with and have access to technology. Is this assumption correct or should there be steps to combat technology issues (Student Technology Support)?
•  How should Educators deal with “distracting technologies”? Is incorporating technology an effective way to eliminate the distraction?
• What are your opinions on the way Educators used the three technologies? (Skype, Mobile Phones, Twitter)
• Are there different approaches or technologies that would have been more effective in these situations?
• How can other social software be integrated into a classroom?