YouTube and Your Personal Brand: 5 Reasons Why Every Professional Should Have a YouTube Channel

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Hey, it’s 2010, so it’s time to shake things up a bit.  You’ve seen me blog a lot about LinkedIn and Twitter, but yesterday I let you know that I wanted to add more Facebook content to my blog.  Today I continue to expand my horizons, and hopefully yours, by talking about YouTube.  No, I don’t intend to talk about funny commercials or old TV shows that are popular on the video sharing website.  I want to talk about YouTube as a Personal Branding tool.  As a supplement to your blog.  As a way to help you get found.  I want to talk about the 5 reasons why you should start your own YouTube Channel.

Personal Branding in a Web 2.0 World is about proactively managing your online identity so that 1) you can be found, and 2) when you are found, you are being perceived in alignment with your brand.  The first step for professionals in social media has been to have a branded presence on LinkedIn, followed by Twitter and/or Facebook (although many people are not as cognizant about their personal brand on Facebook, they should be).

Over the last several months I have seen a lot of professionals rightfully start blogging.  Why you should start blogging is the subject for an earlier blog post of mine, but let me simplify by it saying that blogging can be a powerful personal branding tool in that you can share your expertise with the world on any subject you so desire.  If you have expertise, why not share it for the world to see?  You become a better Windmill Networker, and it becomes easier to find you with all of the content that you add to the Internet.

YouTube can serve as a powerful extension to your personal branding for the following five reasons:

You Can Share Your Expertise in a More Effective Format: Video

You have a lot of expertise to share with the world from your own unique experiences.  By showing off your expertise in a video format, you can be showing off your entire package, not just your writing skills.  Do people say that you present well in front of others or have a knack for speaking?  Is your profession naturally outward-facing?  If so, video may be a better personal branding platform for you when compared to the written world of a normal blog.

Get Found More Easily: YouTube is the 2nd Most Popular Search Engine After Google

Enough said.  If you want to be found on Google, why wouldn’t you want to be found on YouTube?

It’s Easy: You Don’t Even Need Your Own Content to Start!

Buy a Flip Mino for $200.  Record video.  Upload to YouTube via the Flip software after connecting it to your USB port.  DONE!  You have just created your first YouTube video!  Easier way to start?  Just favorite another video that aligns with your brand and it will show it up in your channel.  You can see how this works by visiting my new Windmill Networking YouTube Channel…notice the “Uploads” and “Favorites” on the right.

Helps Further Differentiate Your Brand…Especially if You are in Transition

VisualCV was the first platform for jobseekers to introduce the power of video to us all.  So using video as part of your job search strategy, while not being new, is still considered cutting-edge for a lot of professionals.  Taking this one step further by creating compelling videos on a YouTube channel can only help further differentiate yourself from the crowd…and the people that are competing for the same job that you are!

People Love to Watch and Share Videos!

If there’s one reason why YouTube became as big as it is now, it is because people love to watch and share videos!  Don’t you want this power to work in favor of your personal brand?

I plan to blog more on this in the future, but was I successful in selling you on creating your own Channel?  Any other reasons that I missed?  Let us know your thoughts!