Five Steps to Kickstart Your Personal Brand and Stand Out from the Crowd

April 7th, 2010 | Posted in Career Advices

Personal branding has become the latest “hot” topic. While some may see this as a fad, your personal brand as a concept has been around for awhile. Tom Peters wrote about The Brand Called You in Fast Company magazine in 1997.

Given its longevity, it is amazing that so many people still do not understand why personal branding matters or what to do about it. If you are a job seeker, personal branding can be critical in separating you from the vast crowd of other applicants vying for the same type of positions. It also serves to differentiate you in the interview and hiring process, and makes it easier for the employer to see that you are a good fit with the company and team culture.

So, what are some quick steps to get you started on discovering and communicating your personal brand? Here is a list of five with related links. I suggest you do them in the order presented for best results:

1. Determine the current status of your personal brand. Are you Digitally Distinct or Digitally Disguised? Use the OnlineID Calculator and the Google results from searching your name to get the current diagnostic of your personal brand.
2. Uncover and evaluate your digital presence. What exactly exists online about your personal brand? Whoozy.com crawls the Internet and finds websites, blogs, comments, images, videos, and audios that reference your name. Review those results to see if there if you have any digital dirt, or if there is primarily information about someone else with the same name. Luckily the online world is ever evolving, so you can do a lot to ameliorate a bad rep online or distinguish yourself from others with the same name.
3. Get clear on your own personal brand with the 360Reach personal branding assessment. The 360Reach is a quick online tool allows you to solicit feedback from people you choose and guarantees their anonymity so they can be completely honest. Analyze that feedback and consolidate the results OR contact me for an upgraded version of the 360Reach, which provides a detailed analysis and 20-page Summary Report. Coaching on personal branding can also help you to fine-tune the perception you want others to have about your personal brand.
4. Optimize your LinkedIn Profile. Use your personal branding results to customize the content in your LinkedIn Profile. Create a descriptive tagline. Showcase the strengths, skills, and leadership style your 360Reach results revealed. Also include industry and occupational keywords to more easily be found by employers and recruiters as they search online for candidates.
5. Start blogging. Entry into the world of blogging is simpler than ever. With free tools like blogger.com and minimal fee sites like Typepad.com, you can have a blog up and running in no time at all. However, beware of what you write about and how you do it. The whole idea is to showcase your personal brand, industry knowledge, savvy business sense, and so forth. Stand out from the crowded job search arena by making a positive and compelling impression! Check out these blogging tips to enhance the effectiveness of your blog.

by Susan Guarneri, Career Assessment Goddess

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