Free Personal Branding Blog Guide

Gretchen Glasscock — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 14:07:36 +0000

One of the key elements of success is building your personal brand. Find what is unique and distinctive about you and build your brand around that. How you talk, dress, think and speak are all part of your brand. And one way to start building you brand is with a blog which is all about the topics which concern you. Dan Schawbel can help with that.

From Personal Branding Blog – Dan Schawbel

Why blog for your personal brand?

There are so many reasons why blogging is good for your personal brand. A blog allows you to position yourself as an expert in your field and blogs rank very high in Google because there’s fresh content, they are keyword rich and people link to them often. Blogs allow you to build a community around a topic, network professionally, and hopefully make new friends. A blog will help you become a more proficient writer, gain confidence in yourself and it will make you feel empowered to reach to the stars. From a marketing standpoint, you can get your message out for free and command the attention of the media. There’s also bloggers who make money with advertising and AdSense.

DOWNLOAD: “Blogging Your Brand: A Complete Guide to Your Success!”

Click here to download

For complete table of contents go to Free 52 Page Complete Blogging Guide | Personal Branding Blog – Dan Schawbel.

Branded Yourself Yet? 2 Keys to Personal Branding Success

Gretchen Glasscock — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 14:50:22 +0000

We’ve already discussed the importance of creating your own personal brand in order to stand out from the crowd and capture the attention of your audience. Few have done this better than Christiane Amanpour.

When we think of Amanpour what comes to mind? An attractive, sophisticated woman in a safari shirt and jeans in some exotic locale… perhaps the Middle East…engaging in incisive commentary on world events, comfortable asking probing questions of world leaders, often in moments of crisis. Based out of CNN’s London bureau, Amanpour is one of the most recognized international journalists on American television, with a willingness to work in dangerous conflict zones. She speaks English, Persian, and French fluently. That is who we think of when we think of Amanpour. Her name doesn’t bring to mind Images of her as a wife and mother, which she also is, or arriving at an international soiree in elegant evening attire and striking jewelry, which she also does. Amanpour has succeed in creating her personal brand and melding it seamslessly with her professional life. You can do the same.

JobMob reflects further on The 2 Keys to Personal Branding Success:

“What is personal branding?

Quickly think of someone you know. What qualities of theirs come to mind when you think of them? That’s their personal brand.

Most people don’t choose a personal brand. They live their life according to their needs and desires, leaving various impressions to people along the way. Sometimes, the impressions are so different that when those people meet each other, they wonder if they’re even talking about the same person.

The opposite happens with personal branding. When you choose what kind of impression you want to leave on people and continue doing so all the time, there’s no resulting confusion among the people you meet. Strangers who know of you can then recognize you more easily because you’ve given them common impressions.

How to make it work

1) Choose the right personal brand for you

For your personal brand to be genuine, it should come to you naturally and without requiring any extra effort on your part. You can portray yourself as the best at what you do, or as someone who brings a lot of value in a certain way, or as someone who can do something amazing. However, unless it’s credible and comes easily to you, your personal brand will just be an act and will eventually be exposed as such in ruining your credibility.

Choose your personal brand so people can consistently feel the same way when they meet you or experience your work. To get started, make a list of your strengths and determine how other people know of those strengths from your past actions and accomplishments. Next, make those strengths even more visible by e.g. blogging or Twittering about your profession in reinforcing your brand to what you’d like it to mean.

2) Reinforce that personal brand all the time

Once you’ve chosen a personal brand, live and perform by that brand. Every action you take and every impact you make should reinforce it. Your brand should be felt every time you communicate, whether face to face in an interview or by reading your resume. The way you act, the way you dress and where you appear in public should all match your brand. The way you act on the Internet, over email, on social networks, etc., and which sites you visit and use should also match your brand.

The more you reinforce your personal brand, the stronger your brand gets by increasing the number of people who have similar feelings about you. As more people become aware of your personal brand and appreciate you, it will be easier for you to reinforce your brand among those people and their peers, continuing the upward spiral.

As you move forward, your first signs of personal branding success will appear when you discover people you’ve never met who already know you and are happy to meet you.

Conclusion

Personal branding shouldn’t be an act. Choose a brand that matches who you are and that will be reinforced by you living your life the way you want to. Then make efforts to push yourself further in reinforcing your brand and growing the positive impact you leave on others around you.

Personal branding in the blogosphere

For more in depth on personal branding, see the blogs of these personal branding gurus:

Also see Chris Brogans free ebook on free ebook on personal branding called Personal Branding for the Business Professional (pdf format). It runs just about 15 pages (including the cover) and contains everything from strategy advice to some considerations to over 100 tactics and ideas on what to do next.

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