Optimalisasi Personal Branding Dosen PTS melalui Strategi Komunikasi Digital yang Otentik dan Berdampak

Abstract

The evolution of digital communication offers private university lecturers opportunities to strengthen their professional identities, expand the reach of their expertise, and enhance the visibility of their academic contributions. However, social media presence is not always accompanied by the ability to manage it as a planned personal branding strategy. This community service program aims to enhance the capacity of private university lecturers to build authentic and impactful personal brands through digital communication strategies. The activity was conducted offline at Universitas Selamat Sri in Batang Regency, Central Java, involving 30 lecturers. The program employed a participatory approach comprising needs identification and mapping, collaborative action planning, training, workshops, content production practice, mentoring, and evaluation. The curriculum covered identity and expertise mapping, positioning, personal branding message formulation, digital profile optimization, academic storytelling, and content production strategies. Evaluation was conducted via pre- and post-tests, digital profile quality assessments, and documentation of participants' personal branding outputs. The program is expected to improve lecturers' understanding and skills in managing their digital professional identities, resulting in profiles and content that better align with their areas of expertise, while shifting their social media usage from merely personal or documentary purposes toward strategic, authentic, and contribution-oriented communication. Program sustainability is fostered through peer mentoring and the establishment of a digital communication learning community among the lecturers.