Personal Branding is Not a Fad, and Why You Need to Read This Book

Tom Peters first wrote about The Brand Called You in a 1997 issue of Fast Company. Slowly but surely, in the 12 years since, Personal Branding has gone mainstream. Nearly everyone in the social media/web 2.0 world is aware that what we do, both online and off, defines our personal brands. College students get it too. At a University of Wisconsin panel last week, we polled the audience and more than 75% people had heard of personal branding.

Despite this, many college students and young professionals aren't exactly sure how to effectively build a brand. Lucky for them, my buddy Dan Schawbel's new book, "Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand To Achieve Career Success" will teach you exactly how to do it. Anyone who wants to give themselves the best chance to succeed in this new, hyper-connected world, needs to check it out.

If you're still not convinced, here are a couple reasons why I know that personal branding is not a fad, and why you should buy Dan's book, or at least read his blog

Everyone's an entrepreneur
The average stay at a job for Generation Y is about 18 months. Job hopping is the norm these days, and even the recession isn't going to change this fact. So, if you're changing jobs every couple of years, you need to think of yourself like an entrepreneur. Reid Hoffman, the CEO of Linkedin says, "Every individual is now an entrepreneur, whether they recognize it or not. Because it used to be that you got a job at one company and you were there 20, 30, 40, years. That's been dead for decades. That's even dying in Japan. The salary man no longer even exists in Japan."

Entrepreneurs start companies, and the smart ones spend a lot of time branding those companies and branding themselves. If every individual is an entrepreneur then it makes sense that you start managing your personal brand too.

Google is Branding You Right Now
It's true. You have a personal brand and someone can find it on Google. If it takes hours of searching to find some information about you online, then you're probably doing a poor job of creating your personal brand. If the first thing someone finds is your Facebook page with pictures of you beer bonging in college, then you're doing a poor job of managing your personal brand. Regardless, Google is branding you as a party animal, or a music lover, or a blogger or completely out of touch. First impressions are important, and increasingly first impressions are happening on Google. You may as well make a good one.

Personal branding lets you learn about you
I have to admit, when I first heard the term personal branding, I thought it was kind of lame. But as I've progressed in my career and in my life, I see the importance of defining who I am to the world and more importantly, I see the importance in defining who I am to me. Entrepreneurs deal with this all the time. I often find myself in meeting asking the question, "What is Brazen Careerist? What are our values? What's our mission?" When you figure out those questions, you can accurately define your company's brand. Well, it seems pretty important to ask the same questions of an individual. What do you stand for? What are your goals? Where do you want to end up in life?

Creating a personal brand allows you to look at where you are right now, and think about where you want to be and then you get to project that self knowledge to the world. That's pretty powerful stuff.

So, what are you waiting for? Buy the book. Build your brand.

Leave your thoughts here. (4 responses)

This article´s comments All Employee Evolution comments

Thaddeus Figlock

Apr 7th, 2009 at 10:26 am

You have my attention. Knowing "Who I am" has been an important concern from since Sr. Vera taught about the Oracle at Delphi and Alice in Wonderland. I've been lucky to have some fantastic teachers from the start. However, trying to find the right position that lets me be me, that makes the most productive use of me without using me up and provides best for my family and life, well…. I need to know, express and communicate myself better than ever. And this sounds like building a powerful brand.

Even though I've invested too much in self-help and business books, I'm going to read this one for sure.

tom

Apr 8th, 2009 at 8:59 am

Agreed, I know people use google to search for people they are dating, I first heard this on the radio about 2 years ago and it was weird to me.

However, recently it started to make sense. Eventually google will become like the directory so people should really watch out what they post online.

Stuart Fleming

Apr 19th, 2009 at 10:44 pm

Wealth / Money Expert for Teens – sharing the 'best of the web' this week…

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Advisor

Jun 6th, 2009 at 3:17 pm

Its interesting how people can learn about you in google. People at my school found out I played the piano by searching for their school and youtube results of me comming up.

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