Social Media and The Role of Personal Branding In Education

I believe we live in a time when Education Brand Management is quickly becoming a skill all educators will need. Others agree.

Dan Schwabel of the Personal Branding Blog has recently had a great series of post on the use of Social Media and the importance of understanding Personal Branding in education.

In part 1, they discussed why blogs are important in classrooms and the advantages of using blogs as a learning vehicle.

In part 2, they talked about the relevancy of “Blackboard,” which is an online teaching center that many colleges use and how the teachers are actually using social networks, blogs and wiki’s for their class.

In part 3,they talk about the concept of Personal Branding in education

 "The idea is that we can think of the identities we project onto others as our own brand and that we can apply advertising and marketing principles to shape what we want others to think of that brand - all within ethical guidelines of course. That means we shouldn’t abuse the anonymity of the Internet to present a self that has nothing in common with our true self. Instead, we should put our best self forward and think about the impressions our online actions will create."

"In an age where the boundaries between private and public life are becoming increasingly blurred and personal (and corporate) reputations are defined by Google results, it is crucial to monitor and define our online identities. We need to start thinking of those Google results as our resume and clean up anything that doesn’t belong there. Unfortunately, students oftentimes don’t think about the implications of their online actions until it is too late and their reputation has been damaged. The latest figure I’ve seen suggested that 75% of employers Google job candidates before making a hiring decision and that roughly 1/3 of recruiters have eliminated candidates because of what their search turned up. That alone should be reason enough to learn about personal branding!"

I previously wrote...

As readers of this blog know, I believe that technology, education, marketing, and brand are on an eventual collision course that will create Educational Brands for teachers, schools, and districts. Teachers, schools, and districts will have marketing brands created by students, parents, test scores, and any number of available data streams in the coming years. Much as business has had to come to terms with their brand and reputation, so too, I believe, will teachers, schools, and districts have to comes to terms with the need for brand management.

I call this Educator Brand Management. Dan calls it Personal Branding. The point is we are on the road to being de-privatized as educators. Think about the recent story of L.A. City Teachers being evaluated with publically available data by private researchers and then having the story printed in the L.A Times.

(Los Angeles Teacher Ratings)

The recent Education Nation T.V. special on MSNBC has demonstrated that education has lost control of the narrative and are being defined by others. Perception, as they say, is reality--even if it isn't. Education's brand is currently being defined by people outside of education, rather than educators.

We need to begin to think about what that means for us on-line and off.

Recommended Reading:

Should you be on Facebook?  David Truss says yes: When facing the issue of Facebook,
our students are there, and we should be there too!

Beth Holmes deals with the personal implications of David's idea.

The Groundswell and Your Educational Brand Management

14 Trends Of The New Educational Reality (Trends 1-7)

Education Brand Management

How Strong Is Your Educational Brand?

 

Comments

[matthew john]

hey rob ... i agree that social media is converging with education. teachers, professors and even superintendents should build personal brands as extensions of their district! great info thanks!

[twitter.com/jarrodmartin1]

I actually thought about this today. Why haven't our schools realized the power that is inherent in creating a brand that students will want to be associated with? What amazing community could be built, if we just branded ourselves clearly and purposefully. Facebook pages that students could add to themselves. Twitter accounts that encouraged knowledge sharing.

And even on the personal teacher level, i think you will eventually see individual teachers building such a strong brand that students will wait for openings in their classes rather than take the class with someone else, much like what happens in colleges and universities.

Schools need to think ahead. It's not enough anymore to have your pics in the local paper and a small write up there. Real, authentic branding of your school is going to become a very important topic.

[Rob Jacobs]

The right educational brand would be highly attractive for most students.

That college student will examine the brand of professor to make selections is an obvious. But, with the advent of data being made public and social media, K-12 teachers will have a brand that will be attractive to parents or negative to parents.