A midsummer night's Dreamweaver

Society today is all about branding. Whether it be branding on cereal, clothing, cars, hotels, branding is prominent in everything a person does. While society is lead to believe that brands are important when it really comes down to it the only branding that matters is the way we brand ourselves.
The question can be asked of how one goes about branding themselves. The answer to that is simple- social media.
Now, more than ever, people are reliant on social media to interpret who someone is and what they are like. That is why it is important to have an organized place where someone (potential employers) can easily access information and social media links. A perfect place for this information is a personal website.
Having a personal website is more important than ever. It not only displays that a person posses the skills to design and code a website, it also gives the creator the ability to showcase their best work and link pages and contact information to a central location.
When linking social media accounts to a website it is important to ensure they are professional caliber- meaning no party pictures or obscenities. A website is a way to brand yourself and set yourself apart from the rest, by staying professional it gives potential employers the right message about you and your image.
Taking a social media class offered by a local college can serve useful for the future, not only in online presence but also in the context of having a better understanding of what people see. SUNY Buffalo State offers a web and social media production class where students go through a series of projects, each dealing with a different platform. They start off small using the platform Blogger, and then progress to iMovie, wikiHow, Twitter, and then finish with the creation of their very own website. This course builds proficiency in media and the tools that are used to create it and also provides a background of how the web and social media became what it is today. At the end of the  course a student walks away with a high caliber, professional grade website and online portfolio that serves useful in the context of college and the "real" world.
The projects and assignments may prove to be time consuming and frustrating for some students but the hard work that one puts in to the class is evident.
The social media class also assists students in the aspect of personal branding. Through out the projects emphasis is placed on professionalism. Each post a student makes is combed through for grammatical errors and problems with content as well as looked at in terms of personal pictures and messages. Special attention is placed on the Twitter assignment where a student creates a Twitter page and treats it like a professional entity. In this case the Professor looks at each individual tweet and interaction to ensure it not only meets the criteria for class but also for the professional world.