Social media is a terrific way to build your personal (professional) brand. Blogs, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and even YouTube can get you in front of recruiters much faster than your resume. The problem is many job seekers don’t have a strategy for using social media, “Should I start tweeting first?” “Isn’t Facebook just for personal connections?” “How can YouTube help me with my job search?” In this series we’ll outline a basic strategy for using social networking tools to advance your career. Today’s article will look at why a blog should be your entry point into social media.

Your blog’s purpose
A personal blog allows you to show-off your expertise and experience by developing content. The primary content of your blog should be articles, how-to’s and videos that you author. Are you an administrative assistant? Write an article telling other assistants how they can use Outlook more effectively. Graphic designer? Use screen capture software and record your own Photoshop tutorials. The information you share will help others, but it will also show prospective employers that you know your stuff.

Why blog before using Twitter, LinkedIn and other social media?
Think of your blog as the place where you house all of the content you want employers to see. Think of Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook as vehicles for getting employers to your content. For example, a web designer could tweet, “Working with jQuery on several projects” and leave it at that, but it would be much more effective to link that tweet back to his blog where he discusses the projects and his jQuery skills in detail. Blogging tools like WordPress can also be setup as full-fledged websites, so you have a portfolio of work to display, you can easily integrate it with your blog.

More work but a bigger payoff
Writing a good blog post takes a lot more time and effort than updating your LinkedIn status or retweeting someone else’s content, but it’s worth the effort. One well crafted blog post can get you a lot exposure if it becomes popular on sites like Digg, and tweeting your own content means others can retweet it – again, giving your personal brand more exposure.

Have your blog update your other social media accounts
If you already have a Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter account, you can easily setup those accounts to receive your blog’s feed. This integration is another great reason to make your blog command central for your content and personal brand.

If you’re already tweeting, leveraging connections through LinkedIn, and maintaining your Facebook profile for professional use, all without the use of a blog, that’s fine! It doesn’t mean you’re doing things wrong, but you should consider the benefits blogging can bring to your personal brand and career development.

In our next article we’ll look at job seeker do’s and don’ts when using Facebook.