It is, therefore, necessary to put a little more thought into critical areas of your e-folio:
Great Content
Adding content to your portfolio is important, but making sure that the content is top notch, informative, and engaging will help to build credibility in the eyes of your community, and in turn, your employers. One of my favorite and more inspiring stories of how a great blog can create incredible real life opportunities was shared by a great blogger, who has not only mastered personal branding, but the importance of sharing great content too. Alice Ko’s How to Blog Your Way to Your Dream Job, gave us an insight on how she was able to build a great career working with startups, through her blog. Great content will allow your employers to see that you are an expert in your field, and have a lot of value to bring to their organization.
Understand and Apply Strategies for Personal Branding
Do you understand how to build a great personal brand? One that will help to your audience to not only understand you, but to connect with you? In order to build a strong personal brand, you have to understand what it takes to build a powerful, and unforgettable personal brand. Understanding what does and does not work with branding is important, especially as shifts in technology are redefining what it means to build a personal brand. Branding is more than just creating or sharing valuable content. In putting all of our focus on “sounding good” through our social media shares, we forget the importance of actually connecting genuinely and allowing others to understand who we truly are! Afro-Chic Mompreneur outlines key elements of successful personal branding:
Authenticity Having a strategic plan Remembering that it is not about you, but about your audience Consistency
Use High Quality Images
The use of high quality images will help to make your content social media friendly, which can help to increase your blog traffic. There are several websites that offer great free creative commons-licensed images that you can use on your blog, or you can choose to sign up for memberships with websites like Dollar-Photo Club. This site offers you 10 images a month for a small fee, and every image thereafter for $1. Your images should be a great visual representation of your content!
Comments Can be Great Testimonials
As Joshua Lockhart notes, we often forget how valuable comments are. But a creative way to use the great comments that you receive on your blog, is to use them as testimonials. This is a great way to demonstrate your ability to create engaging content. If you are worried about negative comments, you can moderate your comments with great WordPress plugins. However, you can also use negative comments to your advantage by allowing potential employers to witness your ability to handle negativity in a professional manner.
Make Sharing Easy
You have incredible content, great images to go with it, and your readers love your work- now what? Expand your reach by allowing your community to share your work. A great way to make this possible, is to add share icons in areas that are easy for your readers to access. There are many advantages to building a great blog. It allows you to network within your community and to build a powerful brand. What are some of the strategies that you have used to build a great e-folio through your blog? Featured photo credit: Unsplash via unsplash.com
