Summary: The term <a href="http://www.tdktalks.com/show-038-freetoasthost-for-club-websites-my-hpl-part-1/">branding</a> came into my vocabulary within the past decade, exacerbated by the hype around advertising using <a title="Using Social Media Today Allows You to Develop & Project Your Brand" href="http://www.tdktalks.com/you-toastmasters-media-today/" target="_blank">social media today</a>. Today we are surrounded by numerous <a title="We are surrounded by a variety of social networking tools which we can use to develop our own personal branding" href="http://www.tdktalks.com/social-networking-tools-for-toastmasters/" target="_blank">social networking tools</a>. But I never fully understood the term, implication and practise until I started writing on <a title="This is My Facebook Timeline" href="https://www.facebook.com/TDKozlyk" target="_blank">my facebook timeline</a>.<br> There was much I didn’t know about facebook. But, by “LIKE”ing a few people that I knew, I began building a repertoire of scrolling real time news posts. After a year of reading my timeline I discovered a pattern in how certain people were casting themselves, or branding. Some, may I say, were NOT in a good way. It was such that I began to UN-follow some of them.<br> For the full article, please read the extended version on my <a title="For More, Read my Extended Article Version on Ezine Articles Website" href="http://ezinearticles.com/?Branding---How-Do-YOU-Appear-on-Facebook?&id=8881934" target="_blank">Ezinearticles – Branding – How do YOU Appear on Facebook?</a><br> Here are 3 questions you should ask yourself before you click POST;<br> Question #1 – What is the purpose of my post?<br> Is it to inspire, inform, motivate or instigate your audience. Are you sharing your experience with a picture hoping to get some feedback from others? Or are you just blowing off some steam.<br> <br> Question #2 – Am I comfortable having my post repeated and attached to my name ?<br> This is the typical “gossip session” or water cooler talk, when others may talk about you behind your back. We can’t control gossip about us, so make sure it is gossip you are comfortable having proliferate about you.<br> <br> Question #3 – If this was my final post, would it be how I would want to be remembered ?<br> Think legacy. No, you are not dying yet. But think in what light you would like others to think, see or talk about you?<br> <br> I said 3 questions, but here is the bonus question;<br> Question #4 – Will my post be of any value to anyone ?<br> Remember that today, more than ever, people are in the “What’s In It For Me” syndrome. Their time and patience may be limited. They want instant return on what they will find on your facebook page. Perhaps cheap tickets, tips on vacation spots, or who is hiring. Post so there is some value in your post, even if it’s an everyday funny.<br> When you are posting on facebook, you are talking to the world, not just your friends list. Your posts will never be retracted or deleted. Your posts may even proliferate and haunt you if someone reposts yours onto other social media. Even if it does get deleted, enough people may have already read it to have cast you in a certain light, good or bad. Don’t place yourself in the “court of public opinion”.<br> Remember that some potential employers actually hire social media consultants to compile a social media profile of you. Seeing pictures of you volunteering in a developing country with a worthy charity is a good thing. But pictures of you getting sloshed on the week-ends at social events, well, not so much.<br> Facebook is a powerful social media tool. It levels the playing field between a lowly individual and a multi million dollar company. Done right, you can project as well as the Fortune 500 companies.
