I started blogging in April 2007 and could never have imagined the benefits I would reap as a young nonprofit professional:
- 50+ speaking opportunities since 2007
- Offered an adjunct faculty position at a local university
- Popular nonprofit blog with 900 subscribers
- Over 8,000 followers on Twitter
I owe all of this to personal branding. But wait. What the hell is a personal brand, you ask? Business management guru Tom Peters coined the term in 1997 with this bold statement: “Big companies understand the importance of brands. Today, in the Age of the Individual, you have to be your own brand.” He wrote a fantastic manifesto titled “The Brand Called You” on Fast Company that you should absolutely go read. Like right now. Another term for personal branding is “impression management,” which comes from the field of leadership studies. Leadership scholar Gary Yukl defines impression management as “the process of influencing how others perceive you.” Makes sense, right?
But here’s something even simpler. Your personal brand is essentially your professional reputation. It’s what other people say about you when you’re not in the room.
As many of you know, my success in using social media to build my personal brand is what allowed me to make the decision to leave my job and branch out into full-time consulting in January 2010. Just seven months later, I am truly amazed that I’m already on track to earn the same amount of money as I did while working at my previous 9-5 job! And guess what? I want to show you how you can craft a successful personal brand, too!
One more thing to drive home my point as why all of this matters. In July 2010, HR Examiner published a ranked list of the Top 25 Online Influencers in Leadership. The list ranks the Top 25 voices in leadership based on their online footprint. They used a tool called Traackr to discover which 25 people are the most influential on the subject of leadership. And lo and behold, yours truly was ranked #10 on the list! But what’s even more exciting than the fact that I actually made this list is how I made this list. Blogging was what allowed me to build my personal brand online and I want to help other people achieve the same success.
I hope you’ll join me for daily conversations about today’s most effective personal branding tool: blogging! I’m going to be sharing some exciting content, so you should start by subscribing to future posts. I wouldn’t want you to miss a thing!
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