In the article “How to develop a personal brand and use social networking,” Pam Gaulin clearly defines the modern-day calling card: branding yourself via social media.

Call it modesty, or simply, uncertainty– but creating a brand for yourself can be off-putting. “When it’s time to promote ourselves, we may feel a little shy. Any woman who wants to advance in her job, change careers, or find a job, or is a crafter, writer, baker, or an artisan with products to sell should develop a personal brand.”

Control is the first and foremost essential step in branding oneself. Control is attained by creating a brand website, or personal blog. This can be done easily and is a necessity.

Ideally, one should purchase a domain name. As Pam Gaulin writes, in addition to having a social media presence, you should maintain a sense of consistency. This insinuates that your blog’s logo, color scheme, basically even profile picture or icon should be the same across the board.

As a general warning, Gaulin warns against the tendency of making a brand a bit too personal. “Practice walking that tightrope between private and personal, informative and awkward, and between self-promotion and self-centeredness.” Additionally, branding is all about keeping the general tone “informative but light.”

FInally, the quality over quantity of connections of your connections. This is true with Linkedin connections as it is page likes.