Whether you are a job seeker, own your own business or wish to move up the corporate ladder, it is essential that you develop your own personal brand.
But what is a “personal brand?”
A personal brand is what sets you apart from the crowd or your competitors. Think of how you perceive a Cadillac compared to a Neon, or a BMW compared to a Buick.
Most likely there is a huge difference in your mind between these automobile brands. The auto makers have spent years cultivating brand recognition in the market place so that we perceive these vehicles in a certain way.
Another analogy is a successful politician. All politicians strive to accomplish two things: name recognition and a perception that they are better able to solve problems than their opponents. In any campaign, the person who accomplishes these two objectives the best, is the one who gets elected.
In your your case, a personal brand consists primarily of creating both name recognition and a status of expertise. Whether you are seeking a job, new business, or wish to advance your career within your existing company, your personal brand is what keeps you from being a commodity.
This brings us to the question of “How do you create a personal brand?” I believe the best vehicle for creating a powerful and effective personal brand is a blog.
Unlike a static website, a blog is meant to updated with fresh, new content on a regular basis. You can write articles, like I do in this blog, or you can post short videos, or you can even post audio recordings called “podcasts.”
A good blog can position you as an expert in your field, gather a following of people who are interested in your content and produce a significant amount of name recognition.
Additionally, search engines like Google, love (and reward) blogs because they tend to be keyword rich and are updated frequently with new content.
If you decide to create a blog as your own personal branding tool, here are a few tips:
- Compile a list of keywords pertaining to your topic and emphasize them often when you post new content.
- Subscribe to Google Alerts so that new information on the web relating to those keywords will be sent to you daily. This helps you avoid the onerous task of coming up with new ideas to write about all the time.
- Consider using your blog as a platform to write a book. Most people balk at the idea of becoming an author, but if you blog regularly, your book will almost write itself.
- Use social media sites like Twitter and Facebook to attract readers to your blog articles.
- Cultivate a community around your topic. You can do this by encouraging people to leave comments on your blog, making comments on other people’s blogs, and with the social media tools mentioned above.
What about you? Do you have any blogging success stories or thoughts you’d like to share about personal branding with a blog? Please leave your comment.
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COPYRIGHT © 2009, Charles Brown
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