Social Media Networks and Confidence in Who You Are

I’ve been reading a great deal about social media networks such as Facebook and Twitter. And every article I read leads to another social media network and another and another. Not to mention discovering lots of new people and new blogs.

Monday on the Blogcatalog.com-sponsored ustream.tv teleseminar by social media expert Erica O’Grady – www.ericaogrady.com, social media expert Chris Brogan was mentioned. I have to admit I had never heard of him.

I later went to his blog and read the post titled “The Real Power of Personal Branding” – http://www.chrisbrogan.com/the-real-power-of-personal-branding/ I was very impressed, as were many of the people leaving comments about the post.

One thing Brogan wrote about was the need for confidence. He said: “Confidence (not arrogance) is the secret sauce to everything you do with regards to personal branding.”

And I thought about confidence in connection with the topics that I blog about: college applications, applying for internships and jobs, career strategies. In every one of these scenarios, you’re putting out your personal brand for others to consider. And if you don’t have confidence in your personal brand, who will?

On the other hand, it is important to distinguish between confidence and boasting. Confidence is the ability to say “I’m the best for this job because ….” and then tick off very specific traits that make you the best. (Of course, per my earlier post “Interview Tips: Backing Up Resume Statements with a ‘Compelling’ Story,” you need to be prepared with stories to back up the traits you tick off.) Confidence is NOT boasting how terrific you are without any actual examples of this.

In talking about college applications, a college’s admission goal is usually not for every college applicant to be well-rounded. A college’s admission goal is usually to have a well-rounded class. This means accepting a freshmen class of students with passions in a wide range of areas. And students with passions must have confidence about those passions – they must be willing to publicly say “this is what I love and this is who I am.”

And that passion can become your personal brand in “adult life.” A personal brand built with confidence on something you love can be an extremely powerful personal brand.

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