Personal Branding, Should you be Concernded About Brand You?

If you have been keeping up with the latest blogs and twitters you probably know that personal branding has become a hot topic as we learn more about this “social media” space. While it is easy to argue that if we all do have our own “brand,” that it has existed long before the internet and especially longer than the growth of social media. Certainly politicians and other people of fame carry some level of their own perceptions, thoughts, and emotions that are associated with them.

And as it turns out with the invention of the internet, websites, blogs, podcasts, and twitter we find many people who do seem to have their own brand online. It is more than “so and so” who run’s a website, but people who have a specific set of emotions and qualities that are now associated with them due to how they communicate and converse in the social space online.

It is fitting the user experience expert David Armano write about personal branding in the latest AdAge Digital as he himself has a strong personal brand, and is a great example of how a personal brand can change your life. David Armano through his social participation has clearly become a thought leader and is now writing for publications, speaking at conferences, etc…

Other people have developed book writing careers through a strong personal brand, opened new career doors, and built businesses based on their personal brand. In advertising Olgivy comes to mind, of course this is much before the internet and social space; however it simply means that we now have more tools to establish our personal brands online.