Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Dan Schawbel. Dan’s super skill is personal branding and he has an impressive set of credentials.
Dan is the bestselling author of Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success, an award winning blogger, and the publisher of Personal Branding Magazine.
He’s been called a “Personal Branding Guru” by The New York Times and has been featured in over 150 media outlets.
In this guest post, Dan outlines some common mistakes when it comes to branding yourself online and what to do about them.
Without further ado, here is Dan on the top 5 lessons learned in personal branding …
How Do I Manage My Personal Brand
In the past three years, I’ve noticed a lot about how people behave online and how people are building their brands.
Most of the time, people aren’t very self-aware of what they are publishing online and are actually hurting their brands in the long-term.
Everyone has a personal brand whether they like it or not, so the focus should always be “how do I manage my brand.” In the online world, perception is much more important than reality, but if you don’t deliver on that brand promise offline, you will fail.
5 Common Mistakes in Personal Brand Management
There are five common mistakes that I’ve seen and that you should not only be aware of, but you shouldn’t make them.
1. Don’t over-promote.
Don’t over-promote by tweeting about your products and achievements all the time. Instead you should have a careful balance of value contribution and self-promotion, so that you are helping your followers, having them spread your message, while letting them know what you’re all about in the process.
2. Be mindful of your blog comments.
Be mindful of your blog comments, not only because bloggers moderate comments but because people will only click through to your blog if you’re added value to the post.
Many people will cite their name, their company’s name, and multiple URL’s, when that subtracts from the comment and positions you as a spammer.
You should add your opinion when commenting on blog posts and let interested readers click through to your blog.
3. Discover your brand before you communicate it.
It’s very easy to start using social tools to communicate with the general public, but it’s not very effective unless you’ve discovered your brand first.
By having a clear understanding on what you want to be known for, your positioning in the marketplace (taking a niche), and the overall design and message you want to communicate, you will be much more successful when you’re actually on social networks.
4. Use the same picture, name, and messaging.
Be consistent with everything you do, so people are viewing the same picture, name and messaging wherever they see you online or offline.
Your Twitter avatar should be the same as your Facebook picture and the picture on your blog bio page.
If you position yourself as the top salesman for baby boomers in Texas, then make sure that branding exists everywhere as well.
5. Get your name out there.
Don’t just pump out content on your blog and pray that people find it. If you build it, they probably won’t come, unless they know to come.
You want to get your name out there by networking with the right people, not the entire world.
Use services like Twellow.com to narrow down your search to people who would be interested in what you have to say. Comment and guest post on blogs to attract more attention and build readership.
Put your blog or website URL on your business card, in your presentations, on your resume, and everywhere else.
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