This is a guest post by Mia Hadfield

Now you have delved through the wealth of personal branding insight in this series (and they’re not even done!) if you are anything like me you will be feeling slightly overwhelmed! How on earth are you meant to keep track of so many profiles, keep up your blogging, increase your social proof AND connect with the relevant people whilst still having time to study, eat, sleep and have a life!

Well do not fear, after a little digging, I have found my top five online tools to make your personal branding a little more manageable!

1. Google Alerts

This tool enable you to set up personalised alerts, meaning you will receive email updates based on your chosen search queries. This is great for monitoring three main things when it comes to personal branding:

• Are you interested in a specific sector or topic which your personal branding is tailored towards? Set up alerts to keep abreast of all the most up-to-date results and stay on top of your sector. You can set up broader alerts (i.e. “social media marketing”) to more specific areas within your chosen sector (i.e “social media fashion marketing on Pinterest”). Brilliant for keeping up to date with relevant topics without the hassle.
• Are there important people within your sector that you follow? Do you want to keep on top of their work and opinions? Simply set up an alert of their name and be updated with all the news and content from them.
• Finally, this is about developing your own personal brand, so set up alerts about yourself! Monitor how you are doing, are you receiving any mentions, what are people saying about you? This not only enable you to connect with them easily, but allows you to see how successful your personal branding is.

2. Hootsuite/ Tweetdeck

These social media monitoring tools can be a godsend when it comes to maintaining several platforms. Do you need to keep on top of Facebook comment and likes, Twitter @mentions and retweets? There is no better way that getting one of these free monitoring tools.

Tweetdeck only allows you to connect with Facebook or Twitter, which is great if these are your main platforms, but Hootsuite also has the option to connect your LinkedIn, Google+ and more which is great for listening, sharing and responding all in one place. You can create different columns to monitor different interactions and make sure running your social media doesn’t take over your life!

3. Namecheck

When you are starting to develop your personal brand, it is really important to claim all the relevant social networks through which to develop your personal brand. This could be a rather arduous task, trawling through the many many networks out there and trying to find your name. Also, in personal branding, consistency is key; what if you claim your name on some networks but cannot on others? Disaster!

This is what makes sites like Namecheck such a godsend. A simple click enables you to check on which social networks your name is taken, enabling you to quickly and easily find a consistent username through which to develop your personal brand. You can also run a check on what domains your name is taken on, should you decide to get a personal website in addition to a hosted blog.

4.  Rapportive

Using Gmail to connect with relevant contacts? This add-on is potentially the best download you can get! Find out about your desired contact; their job role, where they’re based, what they do, what they look like and links to their relevant social media profiles, enabling you to both connect and find out a little bit about them. This information will all be apparent right next to your email, perfect insight for helping you develop those all important relationships. You need not even email these contacts initially. Find their email address on interesting blogs or sites, pop them into your Gmail send bar, see their information come up and then connect with them on social media- couldn’t be easier! A great time saver when it comes to locating various social profiles of your desired contacts.

5. Givebrand

This is one of the newest personal branding tools available and potentially one of the most exciting innovations I have seen. Givebrand allows you to develop social proof, getting your friends and colleagues to vouch for your skills by tagging you and creating a ‘cloud’ of words’ demonstrating your areas of skills and expertise. This is a new innovation, and it will be interesting to see how it pans out and what influence this will have on the employment arena. Start using it now and get ahead of the curve!

So there you have it! Five of the best tools to save time and make your personal branding less overwhelming and stressful and a more altogether more enjoyable experience!

Image provide by ivanpw

Mia is an enthusiastic and passionate freelance writer. Get in touch with her on miahatty@gmail.com.