Mark Nanez talks personal branding at Mass Comm Week

By Nichole Black

n_b157@txstate.edu

SAN MARCOS ­– Mark Nanez, a digital marketing strategist and Texas State University alum, delivered “Networking like a Boss” lecture on Wednesday at Mass Comm Week.

Nanez touched on many points explaining how students should create their personal brand on social media and market themselves to potential employers. The world is connected on social media and your personal brand needs to stand out on those platforms, whether it is Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn or TikTok. Nanez claims that your social media platforms serve as your portfolio to the rest of the world and encourages students to be intentional about what they are posting.

Dalton Marshall, a journalism student at Texas State, came to Nanez’s lecture to learn more about how to network on social media.

“I haven’t really had any jobs yet,” said Marshall.  “I just want to learn what the first steps are to building my network. I am not very active on social media, and that’s something I need to change.”

According to Nanez, the two key steps to getting yourself out there in the job market are by taking action and distribution. Realizing that your audience is on social media, you can begin to make a presence in that space and deliver yourself among multiple social media platforms.

“Social media and digital marketing are word of mouth 2.0,” said Nanez. “Instead of going to a networking event and going to talk to one person, you can sit on your couch, watch Netflix, make a tweet, and thousands of people can potentially see that comment. So, it’s networking on your device, and you guys need to take advantage of that.”

Haley Hoffman, a public relations student at Texas State, realized that she needs to use social media to her advantage after listening to Nanez’s advice on personal branding.

“I need to be more active on social media,” said Hoffman. “For a long time, I was really against social media growing up. Now, I see the bigger picture, and that I need to make a TikTok, and a YouTube, and a blog, and I can really see why that is so important now.”

Nanez believes that students should clean up their social media accounts, make their profiles public and reach out to employers and create the opportunity for a discussion.

“I think it is really good to reach out on social media,” said Nanez. “In the book I wrote, it’s all about how to use social media to land you the perfect job. Part of that is just sending a DM on Instagram. I think that’s a bigger statement. Sure, an email, that’s gonna go to spam and they’re not going to open it. Instagram, they are still going to get that notification, even if you’re not friends with them. But that’s when you still need to be professional and not use it like a platform that you and your friends use.”

To learn more about Mark Nanez and his background in digital marketing and advertising, visit his website at marknanez.com.