Building a Personal Brand – You Tell Me What’s Important

October 23rd, 2009 Comments
Gary Vaynerchuk

I'm not this guy, so help!

I was recently invited to keynote the California Future Business Leaders of America- Phi Beta Lambda Leadership conference in Berkeley, CA in early November.  The topic of my talk is building a personal brand using online tools. With the focus being on how recent college graduates can better differentiate themselves from their peers and get a leg up in this super-difficult job market.

I’m really excited to speak on the subject because it is something that is very near and dear to my heart.  If you haven’t known me for very long the 30-second version of the story goes like this: I started a blog about mortgages and finance, it got me a lot of visibility in my market niche, I won some awards, I got a new job based on a connection I made through the blog and Twitter, and along the way my blog made a bunch of money and then I sold it.  There’s more there; but that’s the overall gist of the story.

I want to tell that story to these graduates and show them how they can leverage the same opportunities to create that kind of experience for themselves.  If I can do it then anyone can.  I know everyone says that; but in this case it’s true.  I got to the blogging game late, I had little experience in my field, and it still turned out to be a homerun.  I want to share my experience and try to identify what worked and what didn’t work along the way so that these grads can apply that to their situation and begin building their personal brand.

So now I need your help.

I know my story. But it is just one.  I don’t know everything there is to know about building a personal brand online.  I’m no Dan Schawbel or Gary Vaynerchuk.  So if you don’t mind please take a moment to leave a comment about what’s important to you when building a personal brand.  What would you tell these students if you had the chance?

I’ve done some early thinking on the plane ride from SFO > OC last week and came up with this v1 mindmap.

mindmap_1

I see a lot of things that I need to update when I do a new one tonight; but I’d love your thoughts on how I can make this talk really rock.

Image by aaronmentele via Flickr

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  • Understand who you are as a person. One of the biggest blocks I see with people if that they get stuck in comparisons and self appraisal. To this, I quote Brenda Ueland - "Since you are like no other being ever created since the beginning of time, you are incomparable".

    Disengage from the comparisons and judgments. Embrace your individuality.
  • I agree Brad. I think a part of that is finding your own voice. It takes a while to figure out how you speak and convey your thoughts. Writing, blogging, doing audio or video podcasting or blogging all require time to figure out who you are and then how you go about conveying that in whatever medium you choose.

    Some people tell me that there are just people who have no business blogging, that there is absolutely no one interested in what they have to say. I think that is generally poor advice. Particularly for any professional who is looking to connect and build a reputation that they can use to further their career, having a platform where you can share your thoughts and opinions is critical to future success.

    Thanks for the comment.
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