Personal Branding Training

Facilitation Guide

Developed By: Meghan Campbell, Chris Jones, Hannah Kelliher, and Lenora Willis

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Introduction

For individuals entering the “real world”, learning how to successfully brand yourself is

vital to having a successful professional career. Tom Peters, a prominent figure in the

management world, coined the term “personal branding” in 1997 (Schwabel, 2009). Peters

wrote about how each individual is a CEO of their own company; he called these companies “Me

Inc” (as cited by Dan Schwabel, 2009, para. 1). Peters believed that each of us are responsible

for marketing ourselves in a way that is professional in all aspects of our lives. Dan Schawbel

defined personal branding as:

The process by which individuals and entrepreneurs differentiate themselves and stand

out from a crowd by identifying and articulating their unique value proposition, whether

professional or personal, and then leveraging it across platforms with a consistent

message and image to achieve a specific goal. In this way, individuals can enhance their

recognition as experts in their field, establish reputation and credibility advance their

careers, and build self-confidence (Schawbel, 2009, para. 1).

College is a vital time for students to begin to mold their personal branding statement

because they are training to become professionals within their fields. Schawbel (2009) suggests

personal brands consist of three elements. The first element is answering the question what do

you stand for? The second is what makes you stand out? Finally, the third element should keep in

mind is what makes you compelling. Student affairs professionals should teach college students

the importance of creating a personal brand, being sure to incorporate the three questions listed

above. Personal branding is a way for college students to convey their unique characteristics,

skills, and abilities which, done correctly, could put them ahead of another candidate. With high

competition for those exiting college and entering the workforce, it is imperative that students

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market themselves properly. Training such as this will give students the tools they need to

develop an appropriate brand.

In an ever evolving technological world, it is important to realize what goes online,

never fully goes away. Stereotypically, college students live in the moment and do not think the

pictures or comments they post on the internet will affect them in their future. Today’s

employers search candidates online. If they find something that may cast the student in an

unfavorable light, even from years past, they may pass over that student for the position. As

student professionals, we need to take into consideration how technology and social media

outlets are effecting our students and help students learn how to utilize these tools to their

advantage. Creating a personal brand that is used in all aspects of their life, online and offline, is

one way in which students can use social media outlets to their advantage.

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ScheduleTime: 3 Hours

Location: Computer Lab

1. Introductions of Presenters (5 Mins)1. Name, Position

2. Ice Breaker (15 Mins)1. #hastagmania

3. Pre-test (10 Mins)1. Polleverywhere

4. Prezi Presentation (50 Mins)1. Night of the Living Selfies

5. Prezi Presentation (50 mins)1. @Brand U

6. Activity (20 mins)1. Logo Quiz2. Build Your Brand

7. Discussion (20 mins)1. Clean up your Profile

8. Post Assessment (15 mins)1. About Me

9. Goodbyes! Wish them well! Offer any last advice!10. Evaluation of the Class

1. Have a volunteer collect the evaluations and return them to Presenter(s) office. You should not be in the room.

Overall Goals and Outcomes of the Presentation: ● Students will develop an understanding of how their online identities can positively or

negatively affect their brand.● Students will begin to develop knowledge and skills associated with positive branding

utilizing social media.● Students will create their own branding statement to be used as a guide to managing their

identities online and offline in the future.

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#Hashtagmania

Objective:Students will learn to utilize social networking media to interact with one another.

Materials Needed:ProjectorComputerTwitterfall link: http://twitterfall.com/?trend=%23branding2013%21%231F3547

Description

Students will use their cell phones or computers in the lab to answer to tweet #branding2013 and answer any one of the following questions.

● What are your plans for the rest of the night?● Favorite memory @ [your institution]● What did you do this weekend?

Discussion Questions:1. Did everyone feel like they shared honestly?2. How did people feel about sharing some of these questions with one another? 3. Would the amount of information you shared differed if this was not online?

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PolleverywhereObjectiveTo gauge the use of Social Networking sites in the audience and also develop a baseline (pre-test) for how students utilize social media. Materials Needed:Projector ComputerPolleverywhere slide: http://www.polleverywhere.com/free_text_polls/MwZI1uaupdNwynXDescription

Students will use their cell phones or computers to answer the prompt questions.Prompt Questions:

1. Do you use these sites for personal or professional use?a. Make sure to go through the list and have each student indicate which ones they

use.2. Is your profile private or public?

a. Make sure students indicate which sites their profiles are private or public. 3. Do you know everyone who is “Following” you through these mediums?

Discussion Questions:1. What are the trends among the answers? (i.e Are their certain outlets students are using more personally rather than professionally?)2. What are the reasons why you have chosen to make your profile public or private?3. What benefits or pitfalls are there by having your profile public or private?

Outcome:● Students will begin to think critically about how they currently use social media outlets.

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Night of the Living Selfies

ObjectiveStudents will be able to recognize their online presence in more than a social setting. They will be able to put into perspective how their online presence can have an effect on their social and professional networking. This is a discussion based presentation. Materials Needed:ComputerProjectorNight of the Living Selfies @Brand U PreziPrezi Notes

Description

The image that you are putting on the internet is the image that your friends, family, and even future employers have access to. Ask the class if this is the image that you really want to put out into the world and if not how are you going to change that.

Here are some pros of social networking sites and some of the reasons that they were created in the first place.

Can you think of any other ones?

Here are some of the downsides of social networking sites. Have you seen any of these? Have students answer the questions that are written on the slide and then ask if they can think of anymore?

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Click 1: Catfish is a show on Mtv about people who fall in love over the internet with people who portray themselves in a way that may or may not be completely themselves. Talk about the show a bit with the class and see if they have any personal experiences with catfishing or know anyone who does.

Click 2: Write what you want people to perceive you as.

Click 3: Do you think this is how you are perceived? Students can write their answers on the same paper as the previous question. When done have them ask someone in class how they perceive them to see if their answers are similar to what their classmate says.

Discussion Questions:1. If someone did not perceive you the way you thought they would how did that make you feel? 2. If needed, are you going to take steps to change the way you act to make the way you are perceived better? Why? And if not how can you improve this?3. Are you portraying the best/ realest form of yourself online?

Outcomes:● Students will consider how their online identity is being perceived by other individuals. ● Students will begin to develop a plan to portray their best or realest self online.

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@Brand_UObjectiveStudents will be able to learn how to effectively brand themselves and their organizations.Materials Needed:ComputerProjectorNight of the Living Selfies @Brand U PreziPrezi Notes

Description

What is personal Branding? So before we were talking about perception vs reality but when it comes to self-image perception is reality; the perception that you are putting out there is the equivalent of your first impression that 6 billion people are getting of you. Ask the group what they think the definition of personal branding is. Solicit feedback and write their thoughts down.We all have heard the expression perception is reality. Here

you should talk about examples of how this saying is true in our lives. Such examples could be of a girl dressing with little clothes. The perception of this girl’s choice of clothing would be she is looking for attention when she could just like the way she looks in sexy clothes and they make her feel more confident. Another example would be a teacher and a student dancing together at a bar, the perception could be construed as a romantic relationship is forming when in reality they are celebrating the student’s graduation. After you give some examples ask the group if there are any more examples they can think of.

According to the Personal Brand Company, brands are not static. They are dynamic and living representations of you. Look back to their ideas of what personal branding means to them and see if it corresponds with the definition provided on the slide.Explain what brands not being static means, how they are change with how you change as a person both professionally and personally.Explain how they should change their brand should change along with them changing.

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Brands are like logos that we find on cars, billboards, and all forms of advertisements. They allow us to connect with an image in an instant. Have students choose a partner and think of a company they know the logo of. An example would be Nike. Have them write on a piece of paper the responses to the questions. When done you can have a discussion about the outcomes.

Logo Quiz (See activity)

What are some characteristics of a strong brand? For this slide you want to talk about what makes a strong brand. There are some ideas listed but this is a good place to ask students for their input. Write their answers down as they give them in a column type of fashion.

What are some characteristics of weak brands? Just like the slide about the strongest brand, this is a good place to get students input on what they think a weak brand looks like. Gather their input and write it on the other side of the column created for the strongest brand.

Ask the students what are some of their skills and have them respond with one word. Write these one word responses on the whiteboard or on easel paper. After words are written ask how they would market these skills. This could be a conversation type of activity.

Outcome:● Students will begin to recognize the importance of branding and realize the importance of

developing their personal brand.

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Logo Quiz

ObjectiveStudents will be able to see the importance of branding and marketing themselves but testing how quickly and easily the recognize logos from their everyday lives.

Materials Needed:http://www.logoquiz.net/

DescriptionLogos leave an imprint on our subconscious so that every time we see the logo we automatically associate the company and what they do to an everyday picture. Let’s see how many logos you find familiar. There are 20 total questions. This is an excellent activity for students to participate in to physically see how important recognition of logos are to companies successes. Have students go to http://www.logoquiz.net/ and play the game. If you want you can reward the student with the highest score at the end with a piece of candy or something else.

Discussion Questions:1. How do you think your brand would stand against big time brands?2. Is your brand strong enough to make you stand out in a crowd in a good way?

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Clean up your ProfileObjectiveStudents will consider being more intentional about managing their online identities.

Materials Needed:ComputerProjectorNight of the Living Selfies @Brand U PreziPrezi Notes

DescriptionTalk about what this quote means to them.Ask students what they think their brand destroyers are, write down responses as they are given.Talk about how they can avoid these brand destroyers.

Answer these questions with the class. Refer back to the definition of personal branding they helped create. Talk about what each of the bullet points mean, you can make this interactive by asking what does target your audience mean? What does stay authentic mean to you? What does make it punchy mean? Can they give an example of a good punchy vs bad punchy. Talk about an appropriate length of a statement and again how personal brand is ever changing and should change as you do both personally and professionally.

Talk about each of these points. Ask students for examples of things they have seen online that may be inappropriate. Maybe give an example you have found such as this woman who thought it was a good idea to dress as a marathon bombing victim for Halloween and then post pictures of costume online.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/rachelzarrell/what-happens-when-you-dress-as-a-boston-marathon-victim?bffb

Discussion Questions:1. Have you ever seen a profile of one of your friends that made you cringe because you thought it was inappropriate?2. Does everything that happens in your life have to go online? Outcome:

● Students will understand the impact their online identities can have online and offline and think about better managing their online identity.

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About Me

ObjectiveStudents will be able to reflect on their social network usage and their existing personal brand by coming up with action steps/mission statements about how they will actively improve their online presence. Materials Needed:ComputerProjectorNight of the Living Selfies @Brand U PreziPrezi Notes

DescriptionAnswer the following questions in 140 characters. You may use the twitterfall and #branding2013 so that everyone in the session can see it as a form of accountability.

Discussion Questions:1. What did people include in their personal brand statements?2. Was there anything you wanted to include but did not have room for? 3. How are you going to incorporate this statement into your online and offline identity?

Outcome:● Students will begin to incorporate their branding statement into their online and offline

identities.

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Evaluation of the Class

Directions: Please ask for a student to hand this evaluation out and collect it when completed. This assessment is used for the presenter to assess the quality of the presentation on Personal Branding. It also allows the presenter to see what the students have learned from the presentation itself.

Evaluation

Directions: Please answer the following questions as honestly as possible. Thank you!

1. On a scale of 1-10, 1 being the lowest and 10 being the highest, how would you rate the presentation?

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

2. Can you put into your own words what personal branding is and why it is important?___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

3. What steps are you going to take to ensure your online personality is made to show who you are in the most positive light?____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

4. Did you feel as though the information you learned relates to you? If yes, how? If no, what can be done to change that?__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

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____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

5. How did you like the activities?____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

6. On a scale of 1-10, 1 being the lowest and 10 being the highest, how would you rate the presenter’s knowledge of the material?

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

7. Was the presentation fun? Boring? If you thought it was boring, do you have any suggestions as to what would make it more engaging?_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

8. If you had the opportunity to add something to the presentation, what would you include? ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

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References

Schawbel, D. (2009) The real definition of personal branding. Retrieved from:

http://personalbrandingwiki.pbworks.com/w/page/16005465/FrontPage

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Talking points for presentation:

· Personal Branding is a process where people make themselves stand out in a crowd by

highlighting their strengths, their values (both professional and personal), and using this in a

multitude of platforms to best market themselves.

· Personal Branding is important for college students to learn because it will help them market

themselves in a professional manner.

· Personal brand statements allow students to form a concise statement that helps them be

competitive in the job market.

· Technology is used in everyday life, in and out of the classroom and for this reason it is vital

for students success to learn how to best use it appropriately and to their advantage.

· Students need to learn what is appropriate and what is not material to go up on social

networking sites and why this is.

· Students need to learn how to use social networking in a professional manner. They need to

learn which sites are geared towards professional life and learn how to use them to their

advantage.

· Students need to learn how to use their personal brand in their virtual lives as well.

· OUTCOMES FOR TRAINING can go here too…

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