Hello and thank you for joining it into today's Leadership, Empowerment, and Development program through the Society of Critical Care Medicine. My name is Brooke Barlow. I am a Neurocritical Care Clinical Pharmacy Specialist at Memorial Hermann The Woodlands Medical Center in The Woodlands, Texas. Today I'm very excited to present a special lead program on building your digital brand and how to employ and foster social media for your own professional development. Throughout this session, we're going to dig through the different concepts illustrated in this infographic, truly discuss how to skyrocket your career success, and build your professional brand all through social media. And this infographic is published out on Twitter and was created by myself and my sister, Ashley Barlow. So when you hear of the term brand, what do you think of? I know this is a very common and simple question, but oftentimes when we think of the term brand, it's about commercial products, right? Like Nike, maybe your favorite soda, Coca-Cola, whereas pharmacists and healthcare professionals, maybe you think about brand name medications. And it oftentimes comes to your thought, well, what exactly does branding have to do with my professional career? Your brand is actually a synonymous term to your reputation, which is a close integration of how you see yourself and how others see you. Your personal brand is really what other people say about you when you leave the room, right? And it's your professional reputation. And this is an important part about our professional career path. So how can you help to build your brand to, again, integrate how you want to be perceived and how others see you to ensure they align? Well, what exactly does your brand have to do with your professional career path? I'd like for the audience tuning into today's session to take a moment and jump onto your search platform of choice. Here I have the example of Google search and go ahead and insert your name onto this platform. Maybe you have to tailor it to PharmD, MD, RN, et cetera, but see exactly what do you find through your Google search and what does your Google search say about you? Because believe it or not, you may think this is a silly activity, but this is so important, especially to today's employment strategies in the era of COVID-19 and social distancing, right? So why should you develop your online brand? It's actually estimated that 30% of employers may check social media accounts of their current employees. So your online persona actually represents your institution or your organization that you work for. 70% of employers actually check social media profiles, so if you're going to look for a new job, they're going to investigate your online social media profile to learn more about you outside of just the CV that you provide. So do you have a professional online persona if you are currently looking for a new job or place of employment? What do you think those employers could find or say about you based on your online social media platforms currently? So further, a little bit more statistics, 47% of employers are actually less likely to offer an interview if a candidate cannot be found online. Because the fact is that they want to learn more about you prior to offering you an interview. How do you represent yourself on the online social media platforms? And a lot of people nowadays, given the growth of social media and various different platforms, they actually expect candidates to have an online social media presence. So all in all, what this is telling us is that employers, colleagues, and even some of our patients, now that healthcare is moving digital, will look online to gain more information about you. Now, what exactly do you want them to see? And this is an important question to ask yourself because leveraging social media to help maximize what you want your brand to be defined as on social media and what you want these people to find about you can be such a powerful tool, really in the palm of your hands, to employ this important brand development strategy. So the reality is that your digital footprint exists whether you like it or not. Anybody can go onto the Google search to find something about you. So the question you may want to ask yourself is what are they currently saying about you versus what do you want them to say when they go on to those social media or Google platforms to find out more about their healthcare providers or educators, etc. So I love this quote to help emphasize the importance of building your digital brand. So it's so true, especially nowadays, is that the first real impression you may make is actually likely to be your online persona. So this is a quote by Dory Clark, who is an online branding specialist that says your online persona can shape the way people think about you before you ever meet them in person. And the truth of the matter is that you never get a second chance to make a first impression. So for those of you who may be on social media or social media platforms, maybe you met somebody or interacted with them through the Twitter or whatever social media platform, like LinkedIn, and then you go ahead and you meet them in person and you're like, wow, I already felt like I knew this person prior to ever meeting them. Well, that's kind of where this whole first impression really comes from and how important it can truly be as an employment strategy for developing that online social media brand. So the truth of the matter is, and kind of jumping in again why it's so important, is the power is really in your hands to shape one of the strongest first impressions that you may make. So just thinking through what are some of the great advantages to building your brand through social media, and a really common platform nowadays is Twitter, but of course we'll talk about some other ones in upcoming slides. So which social media platform to choose? As a healthcare professional, it is estimated that the highest platform utilization through healthcare professionals and educators is Twitter and LinkedIn. However, there are some great strategies for social media branding development through Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, there are so many different platforms nowadays. I would say just make sure that you tailor it to whatever your greatest interest is, but I would say LinkedIn and Twitter seem to be the highest, most utilized amongst healthcare professionals. So regardless of what platform that you decide to use for your branding strategies, these steps, these A, B, C, D, E, Fs to remember your six steps to success on social media can really be employed within any of those different platforms. So again, this is kind of the part two of the infographic where we're going to talk through really how to build your brand on social media, because I think a common question that those may have is like, where do I get started? So hopefully these steps can help to at least jumpstart some ideas in your mind of how to get started in building your brand on social media. So the A in the acronym stands for align your goals with your social media strategy. The question you should be asking yourself here is what exactly are you looking to achieve with your social media platform? The way that I like to describe this is, you know, you never jump into creating a PowerPoint presentation or a manuscript or even a research question without asking yourself, what exactly are you looking to achieve with that specific content that you're creating? So that's a kind of a way to think through your social media platform in a very similar fashion, right? There are so many different platforms that you can utilize for social media and professional development. There are various people you can engage with, content to create, etc. So I think when you think about the broad scope of things, really you want to jump in there and knowing that you have this specific goal in mind. So therefore, you can align your strategies, such as the content you create, the people you engage with, etc., to align with that specific goal. So again, just thinking through what exactly is your goal of your social media platform can really help you build and enhance your digital brand on these different platforms. So next, thinking through how to build your profile, again, to align with that goal and that brand that you're looking to develop. So building your profile is a really fun, probably one of the funnest parts of first jumping onto social media because it allows you to express about yourself and get creative. Now, of course, ensuring that you maintain professionalism is critical on social media. As we discussed, this is for professional development. But there are some ways that you can go ahead, get creative, and show a little bit more about your inner creativity throughout this process as well. So this is an example of a Twitter profile. Now you can see the professional. There's a professional photo. It's in a professional attire. And the avatar is very clear and easy to see. So I can identify who exactly Brian Hayes is. Now, as you can see, there is also a cover photo option here. Now you can put anything you'd like in here. A lot of people place institutions. And again, just ensuring that aligns with a professional goal there. Now this is kind of the exciting part. You can create a demographic section. In describing more about who you are, what your specific institution is, what your affiliations are, et cetera, you can include your title, institution, organizations, other interests and social media platforms. And then so say, for example, if you are an educator like Dr. Brian Hayes is, he includes other platforms that he utilizes for education within his Twitter profile. So just a great example of a way to create a profile and enhancing his goal here as an educator and some of the other platforms that he utilizes for people to learn more about him and his educational interests. Now don't be afraid to get fancy also with your handles and stuff that you utilize on these platforms. I'll give a personal example. So my sister and I have a Twitter together. We're both Ashley and Brooke. And we're pharmacists. Our goal of jumping into social media was really for education, because we are huge fans of interdisciplinary education. So our handle is at the AB, which is capitalized, of Pharmacy with a capital C. So the ABC demonstrate the educational piece. And the AB is, of course, for our names, Ashley and Brooke. And then Pharmacy, because that's our profession. So again, just a fun way. Don't be afraid to get creative in building your profile while maintaining professionalism is key. Now, some other things when you think about creating profiles across various platforms. Now the pro tip I would provide here is consistency can be really important for people to identify who you are across platforms. So as you can see here, there's an example of both a LinkedIn and Twitter profile for Dr. Doug Jennings. And as you can see, he has consistent cover photos as well as avatar profile pictures. And that, again, helps people to follow him and his content throughout different social media platforms. Now, if you do have a social media platform that maybe isn't specifically for your professional development, like Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, etc., that you have more for personal reasons. But you, like we said, a lot of people are now looking at these social media profiles like employers, your colleagues, etc. If you specifically think that the information you share on these more personal platforms may not be something you would want patients, etc., other people to find, then ensure to enable your privacy settings. This is going to be a really important way, again, to help to filter through for content that you just want to be found within these social media platforms. So just an important thing to think about is employing those privacy settings where applicable. So jumping into the C of the ABCDEFs in social media success is creating and curating content. This is a really fun way for you to engage on social media, right? Because one of the parts about social media that makes it so exciting is the fact that you can involve yourself in conversations, create content, and educate the masses, really, on all senses. If you are a researcher, you can help disseminate some of your research information, etc. So when it comes to content creation and curation, etc., there's a spectrum of social media participation that's kind of been thrown out there in the literature. So 90% of people are actually considered to be lurkers. So when you first get started onto social media, don't be afraid to just kind of browse, right? Seeing what's out there, what kind of content engages you, what sort of content and audience do you want to engage with, etc. Or if you're maybe just kind of searching, trying to peruse, gain information and research articles, etc. So lurking at most times is actually a really important strategy to see how you want to kind of maybe amplify your own specific brand and see what others are doing out there. But then there's 9% of us that are engagers, right? We like, retweet, comment on different content, which can be a really important way to, again, enhance and engage with a specific audience. And then there's a 1% who are actually considered to be creators. This is the most active part of active participation sort of aspect of social media, where you're in there, you're creating tweets, infographics, maybe publishing some of your research articles on there and some of their findings. So that creation part of it is one of the most active and one of the most ways to really help to enhance your brand and be heard on social media. So while you may fluctuate between a lurker, engager, or creator, I would highly recommend that that creation part can be really fun and one of the best ways to help amplify your brand and your professional development on social media. So now jumping into the D, which is defining your audience and engaging with them. There are so many people on social media platforms. So ensuring that you kind of define what audience you want to follow you, that you also want to follow, can be really important to help filter through, filter your feed, necessarily, for the information that you're gaining, but also sharing on social media. So these are just some examples. So if you are kind of trying to direct a lot of your content towards learners, maybe you have a specific specialty in mind, or you're just jumping in there, you want a broad professional network to engage with. And this is kind of just some information about how to kind of align some of those content creation with your audience. So Dr. Kittleson has a very great Twitter profile that's kind of aligned towards cardiology and different educational tips for new doctors. And so she posts different engaging questions, and she created her own hashtag, tips4newdocs, to share information for new doctors who are jumping into the field for the first time, and shares really, really great content in regards to that, and people can follow along with her tips through this hashtag. And then on contrast, we have Dr. Casey Albin, who is a neurocritical care specialist and has really employed some unique strategies in jumping into social media and sharing really engaging content for neurocritical care pearls, for those who are neurocritical care trained, but also for those who may not know much about neurocritical care, and she shares so much great information that makes it shareable throughout the masses of people. So she does these neuro post-it pearls and other tutorials that are great educational content about her specific specialty, which is just amazing. I would highly recommend following the top, both of these people, for great content. And then I have my own Twitter profile kind of shared on the bottom there. And I have a broad network, you know, kind of interdisciplinary education. My sister's in oncology, I'm in neurocritical care. So it kind of allows us to have a broad network, and so, you know, our engagement strategy is the creation of infographics, which, you know, can help, again, share and disseminate information to a broader audience, and that is kind of our engagement strategy. So thinking through, again, defining who you're trying to educate or reach with your social media profile, and then engaging with them is really important to help keep your social media following. And then last... So last but not least, F stands for find your voice. Social media can undoubtedly be a noisy place, but finding what makes you stand out and finding your voice on these platforms can really help to harmonize your brand and allow you to participate and engage in conversations naturally. And you never know when kind of creating your own brand what sort of opportunities and experiences may come forth to you in your professional development endeavors through social media. As I can certainly say, this is true for myself, that getting social on social media has really been so powerful for professional networking. So it's not only just important to build your brand on these platforms, but the networking opportunities are beyond what I would have ever imagined. And I'm sure if you speak to anybody that engages within these platforms, they can all resonate very similar in saying that the professional networking and development opportunities are truly endless. As long as you, again, stay consistent, be authentic in your content creation and your development of your social media strategies. So these are just a few examples of some of the truly incredible opportunities that myself and my sister have had through social media. This can include things like interdisciplinary education opportunity, the finding of mentors, scholarship opportunities, career growth, finding your different residency or training programs, engagement in podcasts, and then involvement within professional organizations. So this could certainly go on in terms of the professional networking opportunities, but this is just one of the many advantages to getting started on social media. So this is kind of the last part of the infographic that summarizes those tips and tricks, the ABCDEFs that we talked about in developing your social media successful strategies. And just some final thoughts that I'd like to finish out this discussion today are these two tweets that I found on really how social media has enhanced these pharmacists' experiences as they are endeavoring in their professional development opportunities. So Dr. Melanie Smith Condoni said, I just love Twitter. I would have never guessed that when I joined 10 years ago and only followed Real Housewives and sports teams, that I would use this platform every day to be a better pharmacist and form connections to advance patient care. And I can certainly resonate with that as well. And then you miss 100% of the shots that you don't take was posted by Dr. Bernie Marini. And that is so true, right? So just try social media. Even if it's something you never would in a million years imagine would have been a platform for professional development, you really never know until you try. So hopefully this was an educational session to inform you about some of the advantages of social media and how to get started in building your brand on these platforms. Again, my name is Brooke Barlow, and I would be happy to answer any questions either through the Twitter platform or other social media platforms, or you're welcome to email me as well. Thank you so much for joining into this leadership, empowerment, and development program sponsored by Society of Critical Care Medicine.

digital brand

social media

professional development

online presence

social media strategy

professional online persona