N o question about it—personal branding ishot and is here to stay.Nonetheless, it under-

standably puzzles the uninitiated. Tobegin with, there is the name. Why isa phenomenon that is manifestly forprofessional purposes tagged as “per-sonal?” For this, there actually is agood explanation. The “personal” inpersonal branding effectively distin-guishes it from its corporate counter-part. In addition, personal branding

does incorporate important parts ofone’s persona.

A second cause for confusion (notto mention skepticism) is that at aquick glance personal branding canbe misconstrued as a gussied-up con-coction of old-fashioned image mak-ing, which is, in turn, associated withfalseness and hypocrisy. True—brands can be confused with imagesthat may bear little relationship tothe reality they purport to portray.We recently have seen examples of

fragile and now broken images in theworlds of politics and sports.

As we will see, however, personalbranding is not image-makingbecause it grows organically out ofwho and what a person is. Theessence of a personal brand isauthenticity.

A third potential distraction is theoccasional treatment of personalbranding as a job search tool. It cer-tainly can function in this way, but itsfirst and primary purpose is that of

50 MOBILITY/AUGUST 2010

B Y G A L E N T I N D E R

Personal branding is perhaps one of the most misunderstood ideas manifested by the Web 2.0 revolution. Tinder

writes that it is a means by which a person establishes a consciously crafted and public professional presence and

status in his or her field and the world at large, and personal brands articulate our distinctiveness in relationship to

our colleagues and thus characterize the unique contributions that we can make to those who engage our services.

T H E P R O M I S E O F

Personal Branding

Reprinted with permission of Worldwide ERC®, from the August 2010 issue of MOBILITY

MOBILITY/AUGUST 2010 51

professional self-definition. A solidand properly built brand naturallywill attract attention, admiration, andprofessional opportunities. On theother hand, waiting until unem-ployed to begin building a branddoes not work.

What Is It?Personal branding is a means by

which a person establishes a con-sciously crafted and public profes-sional presence and status in his orher field and the world at large.Until recently, only wealthy andpowerful people such as Jack Welchand Oprah Winfrey were able to cre-

ate “brands.” Technology has forev-er changed this and made branding atool available to anybody with accessto a computer and Internet connec-tion.

Our personal brand articulates ourdistinctiveness in relationship to ourcolleagues and thus characterizes theunique contributions that we canmake to those who engage our ser-vices. A personal brand clarifies anddemonstrates “what makes you dif-ferent and special and includes yourstrengths, values, and passions,”according to William Arruda, a per-sonal branding expert, on http://williamarruda.sys-con.com/.

A personal brand not only embod-ies our identity and capabilities buteffectively communicates this repre-sentation consistently across a multi-verse of intertwining platforms suchas LinkedIn, blogs, Twitter, andFacebook. Our brand pulls togetherand integrates our personal qualitiesand professional abilities into a singleentity that functions as a promise ofvalue to others. Thus, while ourbrand is a competitive tool in themarketplace, it is far more than animage.

Meg Guiseppi is among a handfulof people who is at the forefront ofthe branding movement and has

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O ne way to spot an important trend and distinguish it from passing fads is to determine whether it growsout of an historical development and is tied to the

dynamics of future change. Personal branding has no troubleestablishing its bona fides as a product of historical evolution.

To understand the position and power of personal brandingit is useful to see its rootedness in three broad changes span-ning the last 40 years of U.S. history. The first was economic,the second societal, and the third technological. The heart of the baby boomer cohort was in college when

the United States experienced its first massive layoffs in theearly 1970s. Today, layoffs are an assumed part of life but 40years ago it was shocking when economic pillars such as AT&Tand IBM let go thousands of people in one or two fell swoops.These and following “reductions in force” permanently shat-tered the implicit assumptions of employer-employee loyalty.No longer could we look toward employers as guarantors oflife-long employment and personal economic stability. Underthis evolving new order, employees began taking command oftheir own vocational destinies. As individual workers took responsibility for their careers,

experts in career and job search led the way toward a new

understanding of work as a source of human satisfaction andmeaning. At the time, not many of us realized how startling abreak this was from traditional conceptions. For centuries, workwas conceived of principally as a social duty, a burden ofresponsibility, and a taking of one’s proper role in the divinelydetermined order of things. Seldom had work been consideredan intrinsic source of personal significance and satisfaction.

But the breakdown of traditional economic relationshipshelped trigger a revolutionary reexamination of the purpose ofwork that elevated individual choice and initiative and empow-ered people to define their own career direction. One of today’sbyproducts of this emancipation is that we now spend an aver-age of only three to four years in the same job and five to sixyears working for the same company. As these two trends entrenched themselves in the devel-

oped world, we were convulsed by a communication revolutionthat is still hurtling forward at a torrid pace and transformingthe ways in which human beings communicate with and relateto each other. Technology has multiplied the means and thereach of individual self-expression on every imaginable level andin doing so has given us the tools for personal branding withthe touch of a computer “on” button.

The Historical Context of Personal Branding

done more than anybody to applypersonal branding to the develop-ment of career identity and attain-ment of vocational success. She writeson her website, http://executivecareer-brand.com that, “personal brandinglinks your passions, key personalattributes, and strengths with yourvalue proposition, in a crystal clearmessage that differentiates yourunique promise of value and res-onates with your target audience.”

The “value proposition” and“unique promise of value” thatGuiseppi speaks of consists of whatwe can accomplish for whatevercause, client, or company that hiresus or engages our services. Thus, per-sonal branding joins together what ismost deeply real and compellingabout ourselves with our definitiveaccomplishments to date in an effec-tive strategy for professional fulfill-ment and success. And it puts usfirmly in the driver’s seat. We cannotgo to an ad agency or image makerfor a brand.

How to Get a Personal Brand“Getting” a personal brand cannot

be done quickly. To have a brandrequires an interactive process of reflection and, in time, the process flowers into a broad self-representation in social media. Eachperson’s path to a fully embodiedbrand is unique but most share com-mon elements, particularly whenstarting out. Traditional career explo-ration might include:

1. Self-exploration and reflection.

• What are my values? • How and where do I find mean-

ing in life? • What am I passionate about? • What distinguishes me from oth-

ers in and out of my field?

• In what environments do I func-tion most effectively?

2. Conversations with others—how are we seen by those

who know us. The ongoing develop-ment of even a mature brand involves constant dialogue with a larger community.

3. Consulting online socialmedia branding experts such

as Meg Guiseppi, William Arruda,and Dan Schawbel for an under-standing of how brands function.

4. Experimentation to fine-tune one’s passion and

establish its niche.

5. The production of founda-tional written documents like

a résumé.

6. Brand articulation across aspectrum of social media.

In the stages of initial brand development it may be helpful tozero in on four career documents:

1. A value proposition—a brief,compact statement about who youare and the value you can deliver.

2. Your elevator pitch—this is alonger elucidation of the valueproposition and though it is good to write it down for precision andfine-tuning; you usually will commu-nicate it orally.

3. Your résumé. A brandedrésumé has a clear focus that articu-lates, highlights, and illustrates a per-sonal brand.

4. The cover letter—every coverletter should be uniquely branded foreach application.

For most people, these documentshave constituted their entire jobsearch arsenal. For those in the stageof brand building, they are an impor-tant foundation for the critical workthat lies ahead. For information onbranded résumés see the resource liston page 55.

The Personal Brand in Virtual RealityIf you are new to personal brand-

ing and have surveyed all the ways tocommunicate with others online, youknow about two of the challengesyou face—where to begin and whereto stop.

The first dilemma is the easier toanswer. Begin with LinkedIn. Join

L inkedIn, important though it is,presents only one of many social

media venues to use for personalbranding. It would be overwhelmingto list them all here and a full-timejob to keep up with them. But here isa list that many experts recommendconsidering at the outset. Twitter; Facebook; commenting to blogs and

message boards; guest blogging; operating and writing a blog; participating in discussion

groups; creating a visual CV with

links to some of the above; creating and maintaining a

website with links; posting work and work

projects online; joining and contributing to

professional groups throughLinkedIn; and taking advantage through

these communication platforms to help others by sharing your expertise.

Social Media Branding

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and within a week post a completeprofile. Complete means a picturebecause without it many people willnot take you seriously. Also, getthree recommendations. They do notneed to paint you as a saintly masterof the universe or be of Tolstoyanlength. Most are a paragraph andfocus on the recommendee’s strongpoints as experienced by the recom-mendation writer.

Whether it is worth your while toparticipate in all of the social medialisted in the sidebar and others notlisted will depend on your particularcircumstances, such as whether youare functioning as a free agententrepreneur or are employed by acompany. Some people choose toplunge into social media while othersare comfortable taking it slower. Forexample, one can get a profile up onLinkedIn, join and contribute to a

few of its groups, and participate onblogs and discussion groups withoutswinging into a full-blown personalbranding campaign. Some peopleraise their level of social media partic-ipation slowly and suddenly find thatthey have established a nascent brandto which others are responding.

Before you take the plunge or dipyour toe in the water, let us reviewseveral social media/personal brand-ing basics.

Consistency. It is a truism that abrand requires consistency of presen-tation. To use an example from thecorporate sphere, we are unlikely tosee Walt Disney Company sponsor-ing World Wrestling Federationbouts or walk into a Borders orBarnes & Noble bookstore toencounter racks of used lawn mow-ers. Translating this into the realm ofpersonal branding in the most obvi-

ous way, you cannot expect yourbrand to thrive if you are presentingone person on LinkedIn and anotheron Facebook. In fact, recently someprofessionals have begun to hidetheir playful, naughty Facebook pro-files from the public.

Digital dirt. This brings us to thetopic of digital dirt. Picture Googleand other search engines as giganticvacuum cleaners that suck up, cate-gorize, and display every piece ofinformation they find. Much of thismay go unnoticed—that is until apotential employer or client searchesyour name to see what comes up.What may come up are photos thatsomebody you never met took andposted (so easily done in the digitalage) of you the time you drunkenlyclimbed out your second story col-lege dorm and landed in the flowergarden below. Or, a search engine

may unearth rash and intemperatecomments you made in a 10-year-oldletter to the editor of your industry’sprofessional publication. This is thekind of informational flotsam thathiring managers can turn up with afew clicks.

Unfortunately, there is not muchwe can do about such shards fromour past except know that they arethere and be prepared to speak tothem if asked. Meanwhile we canpopulate the search engines withcomments on blogs and discussiongroups so that questionable informa-tion is less noticeable.

Generosity. We spoke earlier ofthe distinction between image -

making and personal branding. Thespirit of personal branding is charac-terized by giving and the sharingwith others of one’s own experienceand expertise.

The more a person gives, the moresolid his or her brand becomes. Inthis way generosity does more forself-branding than the blinkered pur-suit of self-interest.

Authenticity. The bedrock of per-sonal branding is the authenticity ofour brand and our contributions tothe virtual conversation. Social mediadoes not—especially over the longhaul—make a welcome home forcrass and duplicitous self-promotionthat presents an image we are selling

rather than a brand that reflects ourtrue character and abilities.

Conclusion–Citizens of the VirtualWorld

Personal branding got its start inthe United States but it already hasspread through much of Europe andis quickly making inroads in otherparts of the world. It soon will be aglobal phenomenon.

This geographic spread will beaccompanied by its broadening voca-tional applicability. Originally, socialmedia was the province of marketingspecialists but then grew to includeexecutives in numerous lines of busi-ness. It is now encompassing profes-sions like engineering and attractingentrepreneurs of all stripes. It is beingadopted, for example, by service pro-fessionals such as computer repairtechnicians, booksellers, caterers, tan-ning and hair salons, and architects.

Some refer to it as a new means ofjob hunting but, in many instances, itcan preempt the job search byattracting to one’s online presencethe attention of potential employerswho are scouring the Internet insearch of the right people for openpositions.

Finally, social media is profoundlydemocratic. It opens up the world ofcareers, professions, and job search toanybody who is interested and, pul -ling us into a maelstrom of informa-tion and conversation in which weare both learners and teachers. Weare not judged by the number ofdegrees after our name, the numberof books we have published, but bythe quality of our contributions andactions.

Galen Tinder is senior consultant and manager for Ricklin-Echikson Associates, Inc. (REA), Millburn, NJ. He can be reached at +1 973 376 2020 or e-mailgalentinder@gmail.com.!

Key People in Personal BrandingMeg Guiseppi – http://www.executiveresumebranding.comWilliam Arruda – http://www.williamarruda.com,

http://www.thepersonalbrandingblog.comDan Schawbel – http://www.//danschawbel.comHubert Rampersad – http://www.rampersad.wordpress.com

Websites on Social Media and Personal Brandinghttp://mashable.com http://www.job-hunt.org/personal-branding/personal-branding.shtmlhttp://www.careerrocketeer.comhttp://online-social-networking.com/are-you-building-your-personal-brand-and-future-around-your-passion

LinkedInhttp://jobsearchtech.about.com/od/jobsearchtools/a/LinkedIn.htmhttp://jobmob.co.il/blog/gigantic-linkedin-job-search-tips/http://imonlinkedinnowwhat.com/

Twitterhttp://www.personalbrandingblog.com/30-minute-brand-building-for-twitterhttp://www.twitip.com/personal-brand-how-to-build-yours-in-twitterhttp://www.careerrocketeer.com/2009/07/20-personal-branding-tips-for-twitter.html

Facebookhttp://mashable.com/2009/04/02/facebook-personal-brandhttp://mashable.com/2009/09/29/facebook-personal-brand-strategyhttp://www.facebook.com/personalbranding

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