Communication strategy as a tool for building a career and personal brand

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The question of building and developing a career in IT is so important that numerous articles, posts and trainings are devoted to it. However, in the network in general, and in Habré in particular, I didn’t often come across publications that would comprehensively highlight the issue of promoting my personal brand on the Internet as an IT professional.

The information came from the humanities, since sociologists and PR schis have long learned to communicate much more effectively than techies, and in this regard they have a lot to learn.
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The tool for building a career and promoting a personal brand is called a “communication strategy” and below describes how it can be applied in IT for professional and personal growth.

Not so long ago, I posted a series of articles on Habré on the promotion and systematization of publications on the web . It seems to be an important task, but did not leave a feeling of some incompleteness. And just by sorting out what a communication strategy is, I managed to create a whole picture.

How to present and present yourself as a specialist (or a “free” consultant) that any company dreams of? It is obvious that, as for any difficult task, the solution must be complex.

Communication strategy structure

In this post, I look at the communication strategy for a personal professional brand.



The overall structure of the communication strategy is presented in the form of a Mind Map and includes the following components:

- Background (starting position);
- Objectives (goals);
- Communication Activities;
- Evaluation (evaluation of achieved results);
- Additional Activities.

Consider below these components.

Background (starting positions)

Before embarking on any activity, it would be nice to think first, and why, strictly speaking, all this is necessary. As a rule, at the head of the corner is some kind of problem, an unmet need, which must be solved on the basis of an analysis of the current situation.

I would formulate a key need, as the need to understand how a career should be built and developed. The second complementary factor is career-related self-education and personal development strategy building. I think no one doubts the need for what is called Life Long Learning. There is so much educational information around us, how can we avoid drowning it? Career strategy will help to answer this question. And there is another important point - personal and professional mission, the compass, which shows us the direction even when there are storms and tsunamis around (there is also a lot to read about the mission, if you google it).

Objectives

After analyzing the initial situation, proceed to the formation of the objectives of the strategy. First, we formulate the general purpose of communication. Obviously, such a goal, first of all, is the development of a personal brand, i.e. creating the image of a sought-after and recognizable professional.

After that we reveal target audiences. There is one not quite obvious, but very productive idea. We must try to communicate not only and not so much with the already established circle of communication, as much with the circle of communication that we would like to ideally get into.

Who can interest us in terms of "dream work"? Obviously, these are three categories:

- firstly, it’s HR-s (Human Resource Managers), people who carry out the primary selection of our resumes;
- secondly, these are top managers of companies that make decisions about appointing us to the position with payment of a certain remuneration;
- thirdly, these are key specialists (leading engineers, managers, professors, researchers), those in the team with whom we would like to work and grow, those who are for us an authority and an example in the profession.

For all three categories we must be “visible”, and for this we need means of attracting attention and broadcasting some message.

After such segmentation, for each target audience we need to formulate our own particular goal and message. Somewhat simplifying, I would put it this way.

For HRs:

- purpose: to draw attention to the summary;
- message: I meet the requirements of the company to the candidate for the positions that interest me.

For top managers:

- purpose: to draw attention to oneself as to an advanced specialist and personality (“advanced” tops are looking for, in the first place, like-minded people);
- message: my values ​​correspond to the values ​​of the company.

For key professionals:

- goal: to draw attention to yourself as an advanced specialist and personality;
- message: my professional activity easily integrates with yours, and creates value.

Other "necessary" contacts, too, no one denies. Here it is simply not necessary to build illusions that the life of celebrity and any other “top” is beautiful and amazing. Unfortunately, there is a certain threshold after which a person no longer belongs to himself. How to be here? I was once advised that I needed to communicate with highly spiritual personalities. The concept of "spirituality" is different for everyone, so we will not go deep.

Communication Activities

Now the most important thing is what we should do to realize our career strategy and build an attractive and recognizable professional brand?

Start better with a plan. When planning it is necessary to determine the communication channels that will be used for promotion. The realities are such that the focus of communications has shifted to online, so we consider, first of all, social networks and professional resources. At the same time, off-line communications (meetings, exhibitions, conferences, etc.) also make sense to use. In addition, the plan should define long-term goals (I’ll talk about measuring quantitative goals a little later) and short-term tasks, for example, the plan of posts and other activities for a week or a month.

So, social networks. The presence in linkendin and Facebook is by far the de facto standard. In linkendin we fill out sections of the profile summary. Facebook is more of our social profile.

In my opinion, on Facebook and other networks, it is important to honestly and without distortion transmit their values, such as politics and religion, family, lifestyle, environment, hobbies, travel, volunteering, etc. Well, if suddenly we “embellish” something, then it is important to understand why we are doing this and what consequences this may have. In any case, Facebook and other social networks can both strengthen and reduce our positive image.

Important aspects of linkendin and Facebook are participation in professional groups through posts (reposts) and comments. The style of communication also affects the image in many respects, because it demonstrates our values.

Next come the professional sites, which are also, in essence, social networks. It's over, there is a place for the beloved “Habra” and other IT-communities, taking into account the personal professional focus. For example, I am engaged in scientific activities, so for me the presence in the Research Gate , Google Scholar and ORCID is important.

You can also consider other, more “exotic” for us communication channels: writing articles on Wikipedia, posts on Instagram, videos on YouTube, etc.

Do not forget about the standard tools of self-presentation, such as a resume and portfolio. On this topic you can find a lot of information, I note only two important points:

- resume and portfolio should be periodically reviewed and supplemented;
- CVs and portfolios should be adaptable for a specific situation and audience.

Your own blog or website is also an important communication tool.

In addition, it makes sense to study how it is possible to increase visability for yourself on the website of the company in which you are currently working (personal page, company blog, etc.).

Evaluation (evaluation of achieved results)

Now, perhaps the most difficult moment. How to evaluate the effectiveness of the actions taken and understand that we are really moving in the right direction?

It is known that goals, ideally, should be measurable. Obviously, their wording should fit into the value of our professional strategy. So what do we want? A certain number of monetary units per month?

Or maybe be famous? If "famous", then how to measure it? The number of mentions in social networks? Citation index? Habr rating?

In general, in this moment you can set foot on such “thin ice” as “what is happiness?” And “how satisfied are I with my life?” These questions are correct, but in order to catch the measurable markers for assessment, we can recommend the formulation method SMART goals.

Another important point is the budgeting of invested resources. In the described case, we, as a rule, deal, first of all, with personal time, our most important resource. However, with a serious promotion of the brand, as in any PR company, you may need financial and other resources.

Additional Activities

Everything that is not directly related to our professional activity falls into this category, but nonetheless “pours water on the mill” of our positive image, everything that presents us as an interesting and attractive person for communication: stories about a hobby, experiences, travels, read books and viewed films, photos, articles and posts, family stories, experience of obtaining new knowledge and experience of teaching other people, social activities, etc.

To transfer your unique image it is important not to fall into contradiction. For example, if a person simultaneously likes and posts about vegetarianism, and recipes for meat dishes, then his credibility is clearly not increased.

And, of course, in the process of communication activities, we must continuously improve our skills, and plan further activities based on the results obtained: Plan - Do - Check - Act.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I will say that I am not a specialist in communications and PR companies. Therefore, I can not boast of numerous success stories. I am writing on this topic because for me the question of building a personal brand is relevant. My own career has gone through several nontrivial turns, and I understand that success (or failure) completely depends on the presence (or lack) of awareness. It seems to me that the communication strategy is an “enlightening” tool that draws awareness into our lives, so I decided to share my thoughts with the community. I think that many of the points I have outlined can be supplemented and corrected by readers based on their experience and preferences.

And it seems that most of the facts about communications are obvious, but when they add up to a single puzzle, insight comes ("... that's it, Mikhalych ..") .