Who’s Managing Your Digital Ambassador?

Have you ever wanted to be two (or three, or four, or eight) places at once? Ever felt like there are not enough hours in the day to be everywhere and do everything?

Ok, real talk...who hasn’t?

In our social media economy and over-scheduled daily lives, more and more of us are shifting to online shopping, delivery or pre-order groceries, and include services like house cleaning, meal planning, personal training, dog walking - and just about anything that can be provided via an app - to the family budget.

At the pace of our daily lives, every single minute that we save in tedious and energy-sapping tasks is a minute to invest in family time, professional development, passion projects, fun activities, relaxing, and caregiving of self and others. 

Yet when it comes to our professional lives, there is a tremendous sense that one must go it alone, do all the heavy lifting, and be the expert at every aspect of career and professional brand management.

But why? Somewhere along the way, you heard about LinkedIn and thought, “Yep, that seems like a place I should have a presence.” You built your profile and wondered what to fill in (or not). You connected with people you know IRL, but don't necessarily know where to go from there. If you are like many people we talk to, you believe you are doing fine on your own. And if you are getting the opportunities you want, then great! But if not...if you sense that you aren't getting the payoff that you want from this system, perhaps there is another, better way.

LinkedIn is a powerful tool, and most people vastly underestimate what it can do for them. Your LinkedIn profile is your very own Digital Ambassador. It is the avatar of the real you, which not only provides a snapshot of you in two dimensions, but also can act on your behalf and build your credibility, connections, and audience. This avatar can be actively working for you 24/7, or it can be a silent and static portrait that fails to adequately represent your unique value proposition and expertise to the thousands of people who may want to do business with you.

To the LinkedIn system, your Digital Ambassador is a valuable commodity; one that it wants to trade for user engagement. The system is hungry to be used, in order to compete for the time and attention of its audience (LinkedIn is a business too, after all). The more your Digital Ambassador drives engagement, the more “love" that the system gives your Digital Ambassador, in the form of putting your profile at the top of searches, suggested connections, and even showing your likes, shares, and posts to more people, more often.

You may not like the idea of being a commodity. I get that. And you may not want to feed the system, preferring to keep a (literal) low profile. That choice is yours to make.

But here’s the deal. If you have goals for growing your business or advancing your career, and you don’t have the time to spend 20-40 hours a week networking and looking for new clients or a new job, then you need to examine your core beliefs and behaviors about how to effectively activate the LinkedIn system on your behalf, because it WILL change the game for you. Your brand recognition will skyrocket, along with your credibility and appreciation for the value you bring to others in your professional life.

A Thriving, Healthy Digital Ambassador can deliver:

• Business Opportunities
• Career Growth
• Professional Brand Recognition
• Trust in your living, breathing self before you ever speak to someone
• Help to your key connections to amplify their brand message and strengthen your working relationship
• New friends and group affiliations

The thing your Digital Ambassador needs, in order to work for you even when you are sleeping, is daily activity. If you take action every day, your Digital Ambassador will become a powerhouse for opportunity generation, and you might just be overwhelmed by the amount of incoming traffic and opportunities that arise.

There are a lot of ways that CareerToolboxUSA manages the Digital Ambassadors of our clients, and we’ve spent eight years creating tools and honing our expertise so that we can do it best. We give our clients the edge, over and above the competition, by ensuring that people are engaging with their profile, their message, and their value proposition more often. Our services include managing your avatar - your Digital Ambassador - so that you can focus on having real conversations and responding to the avalanche of incoming opportunities. 

You not only CAN be two places at once, you ARE two places at once. Right now. So put your doppelg?nger to work for you, or better yet, contact us to learn more about how we can help you rise above the competition.

Katherine Olson, M.Ed. is a dynamic organizational transformationalist on a mission to recognize, activate, and grow the strengths of individuals and organizations to create exceptional outcomes for humanity. Katherine is an executive coach and director of service delivery for CareerToolboxUSA.

?Contact her at: [email protected]