Building Your Personal Brand

by Alison Doyle

When you're job hunting or career building, it's important to strategically work on creating (and tweaking on a regular basis) your professional brand.  Why?  Well the chances are that if you apply for a job, or talk to a recruiter or a potential client, you're going to get Googled to see what they can find out about you.

The more "good" links you have on Google (instead of "what I did on my vacation" type of links...) the more professional an image you will portray to the world.  That's important for anyone who is in career mode.  Even better, those good links - your LinkedIn profile, your Facebook profile (if you're using Facebook for more than social networking), your blog, and your personal web site can outrank the not-so-good links and push them down further on the search results page.

Users are more likely to click on the top search results, so getting your professional information up there is definitely useful. 

Online Branding Tools

That said, you can get create your brand easily enough with the tools that are available online. The leading expert on Personal Branding for the Generation-Y audience, Dan Schawbel, says "There are free tools available for you to create a magnificent personal eBrand on the web, including a blog, social network presence and sharing tools, that will enable you to accomplish more in less time." You'll find lots of advice on how to build and maximize your brand on Dan's Personal Branding Blog.

Also, here's some of my advice on how to create a professional brand, along with tips on how to build your brand.