Working World

Put “personal branding” in a search engine and you’ll come up with more than 122 million hits. It’s a hot topic right now, and it’s no coincidence that the fight for jobs has never been fiercer.

What is personal branding? It’s a way to use the Internet to increase your visibility and position yourself to be hired as a top professional in your field, or for creating opportunities of self-employment. The same advertising tactics that make you loyal to Pepsi over Coke (or vice versa) can now be employed to improve your perceived value in the career marketplace.

Establishing yourself as an expert in your field is a good way to begin. The idea is to show your knowledge as much as possible and create a visual “a-ha!” moment where people start recognizing you are the person behind all this valuable wisdom. You can start an “ask an expert” website or blog to answer questions about your industry; you can join discussion boards and other existing forums and post knowledgeable comments; you can even gain credibility by adding Wikipedia posts about your field.

Other options include submitting guest posts on related industry blogs, conducting online seminars about up-and-coming topics in your field, or contribute op-ed articles for mainstream media and then post links to your own bio/resume. The bottom line is you want to publicize your achievements as much as possible and even send out press releases when you have accomplished something newsworthy. Maybe you’ll be snatched up for an interview!

Just like the major brands out there, you’ll want to create a look that your audience will instantly recognize as yours. That means create a professional bio and resume and keep them updated. If you have them on more than one social media site, keep them consistent to consolidate your brand and keep it pure. You can develop an online visual at Gravatar and it will automatically accompany whatever you post online. Email, instant messaging and social media are also great tactics for establishing an easy way for people to find (and contact!) you with opportunities.

Dan Schawbel’s blog on personal branding is another valuable resource. The site is full of podcasts, expert interviews, articles and reports that will put you at the top of your online game.

What are you waiting for? Go brand yourself!   


Katy Allgeyer is an artist and freelance writer. She is a columnist for Working World and Working Nurse magazines and her features have appeared there and in Feng Shui Times, The Art of WellBeing, You & Me Magazine and others.