What is personal branding? Why focus on it? Why even care about it?

Here is my definition of the phrase: Personal Branding is about building and managing the associations/images the public has in regards to yourself about a specific field(s) or topic(s).

If you Google the phrase “personal branding” and read the Wiki entry — personally I find the explanation falls short. There’s an entirely more expansive side to the topic.

Right around the launch of the Facebook Newsfeed feature, I believe a big social shift occurred. It’s been easily forgotten by most, but it truly made all the difference in regards to the masses and how we “think”.

Our views on what should be shared, what shouldn’t be shared, and with whom we share our lives are what have changed the most. We’ve grown more accustomed to sharing our lives with more people as the technology has allowed it.

Furthermore, the advent of social media technologies have made it easier to share our lives, our experiences, our thoughts, our beliefs, and our personalities in the digital realm (e.g. Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube)

The act of sharing and sharing often is an fundamental building block of Personal Branding.

It’s essential. I’ll use myself as an example; I frequently publish several types of content with substance about my personal life, opinions and convictions regarding the technology industry. Because of this, people I’ve interacted with online and offline form mental associations about me, therein by building a personal brand.

When anyone asks me about Personal Branding and gets tripped up and confused — it’s almost better to take a step back and and think about it outside from the “digital world”. You’re already accustomed to it, you may just not know it. Take for instance my friend Chris. He is a singer in his own band. Chris is always providing music recommendations when we’re out for happy hour (and he’s a light weight too). You’ll always find Chris reading up on music magazines and books. Since Chris has shared and communicated consistently his passion and has an educated opinion regarding music — any time I’ve got a music question, I go to him. Furthermore, when Chris makes a critique regarding anything about music, I find it more credible than my idiot of a friend Jeremy.

One important golden branding rule to follow; Brand consistency facilitates recognition. So in addition to sharing and sharing often — if it’s consistent in the delivery of the quality, tone and presentation, this helps greatly.

Having a Personal Branding strategy paired with an understanding of how to use the medium (the internet), can provide you with an unstoppable advantage in your swiss-army-knife of communication channels that exist.

“Self-promotion is no longer solely the domain of egotists and professional aspirants. Anyone can be a personal branding machine.” (Wired Magazine)

In the professional world, you can begin to establish yourself as a “thought leader” or “expert” through a blog, Twitter, YouTube, etc. How? If you’re posting content that is timely, relevant, and has value to the topic of interest or field you’re employed — chances are other people will see you know what your talking about. Furthermore, if you use common phrases and keywords within your blog posts, your digital footprint indexed on Google maybe easily found.  Think about it — you’re probably guilty of typing complete sentences to search; “how do I tie a tie?”, “how to start a blog”, “how do you crank dat?”.

Additionally, if the tangible benefits Personal Branding aren’t appealing, consider this; The act of cognitively having to consistently develop, manage, and produce WILL help you become a better person. You’ll know more about yourself and your industry.

Bottom line; Personal Branding is important. In this day and age when “googling” people’s names to do research is a common practice (and it’s freakin’ verb), it’s reason enough to take note that lightly managing your Personal Brand online at the very least is important.

You get to tell the story, before someone else tells the story for you.
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**UPDATE**
Chris Brogan has a free eBook compiled regarding Personal Branding.  It’s called “Personal Branding for the Business Professional“.

**UPDATE 2**
Check out a great personal branding video (embedded below) by a Gary Vaynerchuk — it’s a presentation from Web 2.0 Expo in NYC. Awesome 15-minutes that you’ll thank yourself for watching.