I’m in the middle of putting together a personal branding workshop for students. here are some of my brief opinions, site by site:

Facebook (100% Private, 100% personal): Completely privatize your facebook. Draw the lines in your corner of cyberspace and make facebook the one place where you can truly interact with friends and family in a private setting. facebook isn’t the best forum for networking, but is #1 for socializing. A locked-down, private facebook allows you to be you, say what you want, and will stop you from sweating every Sunday morning when you get the e-mails that pictures from the weekend are up, and you’re tagged! Just beware, though, employers can still find a way in if they or someone in their office is connected to you.

Twitter (100% public: 60% Professional, 40% personal): Professionalize your twitter account. Don’t make it “protected”, allow anyone to see your tweets…. otherwise, whats the point? Put the private stuff on facebook (now that you’ve shut out the outsiders). Follow professionals and professional hashtags (for example, student affairs people follow #sachat or #sajobs, there are similar hashtags for different industries). Get involved in the conversation: Retweet, mention people, be consistent. Tweet “personal neutral” things. This includes things that are relevant to your personality but won’t cast a bad shadow on you… like your hobbies, the last movie you saw or your last vacation. Leave off how drunk you got last night, how much you hate your ex, or how high you currently are. Put up a professional-looking profile picture, and a headline/bio relevant to your career ambitions and personality. Sell yourself!

LinkedIn (100% professional and public): A must-have for students looking to get professional. Your future boss IS on linkedin, it is the oldest social networking site (linkedin isn’t old, its users are), and an increasing percentage of hiring occurs from recruitment on linkedin. Unlike twitter, you can’t and shouldn’t just connect with anyone and everyone: only colleagues/friends/family. But keep your profile public. Join groups. Get in on the conversation. When you are active in the conversation, people look at your profile.

Integrating your websites: Activate your twitter account on LinkedIn, put your LinkedIn URL as your website on twitter. Make an About.Me page. Your About.Me page connects people to all your social networking sites, and allows you to say a few things about you. What should you say? Who you are, what you want, why you want it (motivation) and a few other tidbits about you. Look at their gallery of featured users for tips.

About.Me allows you to connect to a LOT of different platforms. You can share your YouTube, Vimeo, WordPress, Flickr, Tumblr accounts and so forth. Just use caution though, be conscious of what you are allowing people to see. I don’t mean to dissuade you, though, share away if the pictures/words/videos are PG! I do! I think it works in your favor to give them a “peek” into your world.

Blogs (varies, depending on blog topic): Blogs that are public are dangerous given what you might be sharing. Make sure you most intimate thoughts are kept private…. if your blog is accessible to the public (and most are), be very meticulous about what you post.

Bottom-line rule? Before you post on a site that is accessible to the public, ask yourself: Would I share this at an interview? at a job fair? at a networking event? would I even bring this up at a lunch interview? or after I got hired? The answer should be yes.

Finding that balance of conservatism in your online personality is tricky. Let me reassure you though, it is just as bad to be overly conservative with what you post as it is to be entirely liberal. You want the right parts of your personality to shine. You want people to know you have hobbies and a life outside looking for a job.

Those things help you. Embrace the positive parts of YOU, and you’ll set yourself up to find or attract the job that is perfect for you.

To get started, first seek out professionals in your field that are well-established online. Use what they do as inspiration for how you create your personal brand. There is no “one method” because different industries call for different things.