Professors and Personal Branding

Why Professors should develop a personal brand?

(and how it is easy for them to do so)

Professors and academicians can develop into personal brands much easily compared to others. Here are some of the reasons why Professors should develop a personal brand and how it is easy for them to do so.

The Personal Branding Skills you already have

Public Speaking Skills

Professors already have good public speaking skills as teaching obviously exposes them to speaking.

Coaching & Mentoring Skills

Teaching also exposes the academicians to coaching and mentoring as any good professional University/institute focuses on individual mentoring of students. Therefore professors and senior academicians can easily develop themselves them into coaches and consultants.

Passion for Teaching

My academician friend jokes, “Teaching attracts two categories of people, one who are extremely intellectual & passionate and the other who don’t get good corporate jobs.” Personal Branding through Social Media requires passion and if you have passion for your subject and teaching (or coaching, training, consulting), brace up for the exciting journey.

Conveying expertise, passion and thought leadership

Social Media is a great tool for academicians to convey their expertise, passion and thought leadership. Professors tend to write a lot to submit to research journals and writing (content generation is very crucial for social media success. Start writing a blog and collate it into a book later. Books are powerful tool for personal branding (See Image below). The passion can also be used to build the brand as an expert in the domain or sometimes convey the thought leadership work done in an area. A doctorate in the relevant area helps in developing and communicating expertise.

Future is Going to Be Exciting

Increasing opportunities for international assignments

Speaking to international students through webinars or coaching international clients through Skype are becoming a norm and professors will find plenty of opportunities to do so, if they develop strong brands.

Consulting assignments

Many senior academicians are already providing consulting to the corporate world and can further their career as consultants by building a strong personal brand.

What You Need To Learn

Social Media Tips

But what authors need to learn is the social media tips and tricks besides the principles of brand management of course. Each social media platform is unique and understanding this uniqueness and capitalizing on it is an essential step in the journey.

Personal Growth & Viral Marketing

The main tool for success on social media is viral marketing (or other people sharing your content). Other people share your content when the content is excellent or they have a good relationship / soft corner for the content creator or they have a pride in associating with the person. Social Media success becomes easier with a collaborative mindset and developing the right mindset and wisdom is crucial.

Understanding the technical side of digital

For success in the online world, one also needs to understand the SEO basics, social media optimization techniques, blog traffic techniques, email marketing, web analytics and so on. The digital tools available are increasing everyday and it’s easy to learn things from someone who knows the rules of the game.

Offline branding and miscellaneous tools

Personal Branding is a universe in itself with infinite tools available. Other useful tools for authors include newsletters, guest blogging, article marketing and so on. The activities must be aligned with the short and long term objectives behind brand building.

I remember reading a survey long back in India Today magazine that the two professions who contribute the most to the society are entrepreneurs (creating employment) and teachers (delivering knowledge and skills).

So dear academicians you have given a lot to the world; now it is time to tell your story, and of course, it has to be a success story.


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