I love this topic, I think it’s extremely important, especially in a down economy. If you’re not familiar with personal branding, I suggest you get familiar. What is personal branding you ask? Simply put, you (and your career) are a product, and you need to learn how to define, market/sell, and ultimately profit from that brand (conceptually or tangibly). I’m going to quickly throw out some ideas that might be able to help people get started. Although I readily admit I’m not an expert in this topic, I do research and keep up with the trends. My advice is if you need an expert, check out Dan Schawbel’s blog and/or buy his new book Me 2.0. However, my two cents on personal branding will give you quick, high level overview on how to apply some techniques and practices with very little time and effort.

Define your Brand. I think the first step in personal branding is to take a step back and define exactly what you want your brand to be. Do you want to be a leader in the recruiting industry, do you want to be a part of the Minneapolis Groovy/Grails movement, or a do you want to be a lobbyist for green peace? Whatever it is, define who your target audience is and how you want them to perceive you, and deliver a consistent message about your brand.

Market your Brand through Social Media. This is easier and easier to do these days, purely because of the availability of social media at every corner of the internet. As mentioned above (and every single day of our lives currently), Facebook, Twitter, personal blogs, professional user groups, and LinkedIn are all ways to promote yourself professionally (and personally for that matter).

I think the biggest benefit of Twitter is to drive people to your blog and professional profile. I’m still in the infancy of using Twitter, so take my comments with a grain of salt. Twitter has been a great learning tool for me, but also a chance to change the way people view me in the marketplace. And the more people you follow, the more people that follow you (and ultimately see your blog posts). My only advice there is to only follow people in your target audience. I haven’t fully utilized all of Twitter’s power quite yet, but I do see it as a surefire way to differentiate yourself from your peers if you ever do find yourself looking for a job.

Blogs are great, and really easy to set up. Wordpress is simple to create a professional blog, and there are many other sites that exist to host blogs (blogger.com, blogspot.com, typepad.com, etc.). The main reason I wanted to start blogging is to create and promote my personal brand and the company I’m working for, while also getting an opportunity to research topics of interest and share them with my target audience. By doing so, I’m basically validating my experience to employers, clients and candidates, and I’m showing the world that I do know some things about my profession (depends on who you ask .

LinkedIn is basically an online resume, it’s personal branding at it’s best. Now with LinkedIn apps, you can integrate your blog, current books you’re reading, and your travel destinations with your profile. I can tell you right now, if I’m meeting a candidate for an initial interview, the first place I look is LinkedIn. And if that person has a blog, I look through it thoroughly. I look at the people they’re connected with, if we have any shared connections, and I look at all recommendations. LinkedIn groups and Q&A is also a good way to promote yourself. LinkedIn exists to help define and promote your personal brand, you better use it.

A newer “online portfolio” concept through PersonaVita, is promoting “an exciting new way to capture your experiences, validate your contributions, and draw from your social, professional, and academic achievements to create a personal brand online”. My first glance is that it’s a more involved LinkedIn networking site, drawing from others to validate your experiences and accomplishments (sort of like recommendations on LinkedIn).

All these are great ways to promote yourself, and the more you use the better.

Profit from your Brand. Hey, click on the link to Dan’s book above….what a great way to profit from your brand! If you have time and more importantly the knowledge to do that, more power to you. Dan’s situation is unique as he is more of an expert, not to mention a great writer. Many of us who have full-time jobs are blogging once our kids are in bed and have about an hour to do so. It’s tough to get everything accomplished in that timeframe, especially if you’re writing a book. So how else can you profit from your brand? Well, I think if you’re branding yourself appropriately, you should have an increase in marketability and job stability; which ultimately leads to more money in your pocket. Don’t forget, as recruiters you’ll be driving candidates to your social networks, and ultimately that will give you more options for increasing sales and commissions. As technologists, you’re driving recruiters and employers to your profile that will increase your marketability and hopefully higher paying jobs and/or gigs. Of course if you’re selling a real tangible product you’ll bring in some coin that way. You can always start advertising on your blog to earn a few bucks here and there. Adsense is easy, and if you get big enough, I’m sure you’ll attract other advertisers. Ultimately, I don’t think personal branding is going to make me rich, but I’m hoping it will increase my marketability, job stability, and give me more options for career advancement.

In conclusion. I could go on and on about this, but I think you get the picture. We’re being branded everyday by companies selling their products and images to us. We need to look at ourselves and careers in the same light. We are a product, we need to define and market this product. If we don’t, we’re going to lose out to our competitors (whoever that may be). Remember to be careful and what you’re putting on the web, it could ultimately affect the way anyone views your brand and could cost you more than you think. Take a proactive approach to marketing your brand, and make sure to deliver a consistent marketing campaign to your target audience.

Ask yourself a question, if you’re looking for a job, what do you want potential employers to see? Your tweets about how you hate John McCain, or tweets/blog post on how to avoid office politics to increase productivity? Remember, recruiters/employers are resourceful, we’ll find you….and we know what you’re doing and where you live! Ok, maybe not where you live Remember, it’s a competitive job market, and always will be. You don’t want to give ANY employers/recruiters/hiring managers reason not to consider you for a job. Who knows, maybe they love John McCain.

Tags: blogging, linkedin, personal branding, social media, twitter

This entry was posted by Ehren Seim on Tuesday, April 7th, 2009 at 8:41 am and is filed under Economy/Job Market, HR, Job Search, Social media/networking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.