With digital branding, you create content, interact on social media and optimize your visibility to spread your brand and convert your target audience. With personal branding, you write guest posts, appear in interviews, speak up to establish intellectual leadership and increase influence in your niche. Personal branding is the process of creating an identity for you as an individual or company. This involves developing a well-defined and consistent appearance, message and presence online and offline.
Personal branding is the practice of promoting people and their careers as brands. Your digital brand is the basis of your public identity and is often the first thing people look at, regardless of personal or business context, if they want to know more about who you are. In response, the concept of “electronic professionalism” evolved to describe how traditional paradigms of professionalism can be applied to digital media. Since the concept of personal digital branding is new, more research is needed to determine exactly how members of the pharmaceutical community view the absence of a social media profile and how different platforms compare with each other in terms of perceived professionalism.
Using authentic or fictional case studies for group discussion is a way to raise awareness and encourages students to think about their personal digital brands. However, students and young professionals whose careers will extend to the depths of the digital age should receive education on emerging issues related to digital communications and the skills needed to use social media strategically. In a world where everyone has a website and an online presence, personal branding can help you make yours stand out from the rest. In addition, as research expands the social media knowledge base, pharmacy educators are likely to discover that they need to teach students about personal digital branding and the skills needed to maintain and manage a personal brand.
Coca-Cola was one of the first companies to incorporate personal branding into their marketing strategies and campaigns. If a personal brand is how they perceive you, a personal digital brand is how they perceive you through the data that represents you on the Internet. As digital communications become more frequent, the absence of an online presence could send an unwanted negative message that the person is not ready for digital communications. Once you've updated your digital Rolodex, make it a habit to add new people to your online network as soon as you meet them.
The complex concept of configuring digital identity is increasing in importance as digital communications have become a social norm. In the absence of research findings to guide digital branding more comprehensively, pharmacy educators can take steps to prepare students to use social media for professional purposes.
