I thought it fitting to write my last post on building your personal brand online. Don’t worry; I will not pretend to know much after my four short blog posts here. But would like to share in my experience. Whether you are looking for a new job, a student, or gainfully employed, the rise of social media enables you the opportunity to manage your own reputation, both online and in real life.  When you engage in conversations and interact with others, both online and offline, it will help build up an image of who you are over time.

For me, the experience of blogging has made me think about my own strengths and personality and what my online voice would look like. It has been interesting trying to find a unique position amongst the substantial amount of blogs, online posts, articles and thoughts out there.  If you are new to the blogosphere like me and are trying to find your own voice amongst the noise and establish or grow your blog, here’s are 16 Tips for Beginner Bloggers from one of my favorite bloggers Geraldine DeRuiter from Everywhereist and 21 Tactics to Increase Blog Traffic from her equally talented husband Rand Fishkin, CEO of SEO software company SEOmoz.

Perhaps marketing guru Seth Godin sums blogging up best in this video with Tom Peters.

He says, “It doesn’t matter if anyone reads it. What matters is the humility that comes from writing it.  What matters is the meta-cognition of thinking about what you are going to say … How do you force yourself to describe in three paragraphs why you did something?  How do you respond out loud? … [Blogging] forces yourself to become part of the conversation.”

So for those who have stopped by, thank you! And for those who will be starting new blogs or continuing your own, let’s keep the conversations going.

With the rapid growth of social media, businesses need to focus on analytics and tools to measure and increase their effectiveness online. The right social media analytic tools provide opportunities to measure marketing initiatives and act on insights gained by expanding reach and increasing customer loyalty and retention, ultimately driving sales.

As an eMarketer article points out, 41 percent of marketers had no return on investment figures for any of the money they spent on social channels and only 25 percent are measuring additional sales generated from social media.

Social Media Examiner discusses 5 Reasons You Should Measure Social Media ROI To be able to effectively measure social media efforts, companies need to go beyond brand awareness measurements such as number of fans, followers or friends to conversational exchanges, engagement and online sentiment which will allow it to focus on harder metrics such as ROI. There are numerous metrics out there and no one size fits all approach. But here are some questions that would apply to most companies when measuring social media.

1. Engagement & Participation– Are customers or prospects seeing your message and interacting with your brand? Are there conversations happening and are they being shared?

2. Brand Reach–  What is the audience size that is seeing your content across social networks? Is this increasing or decreasing? Why?

3. Online Sentiment– What is the overall attitude and perception of the company? Are their positive or negative comments and engagement?

4. Influence– Do the people talking about your brand have influence or large followings? Can your key influences motivate others to take action?

What measurements are used at your company? Does your company measure ROI and sales associated with social media initiatives?