alstin communications

Tony Rosato’s confessional about his undying passion for Honest Tea caught a lot of eyeballs the other week, including those of the company’s founders. They not only left Tony a very nice comment, but tweeted about it and added a link on their Facebook Fan Page. It’s one of our most viewed posts of all time.

This little anecdote reaffirms the concept of six degrees of separation – we are now more than ever so closely interconnected. Anecdotes like these also abound for those of us who are using social media.

Using social media effectively can garner a lot of immediate attention and when you are looking for a job in today’s market, you want that immediacy and you really need to stand out.

The economy and our friends LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter have created not only the desire, but the ability to establish and build a personal, virtual brand. It’s not surprising to me that people are using the principles I apply when creating employer brands to market themselves. And its even spawned a new niche – the personal branding expert.

There’s a particular book with the clever title Me 2.0 that’s getting a lot of attention. It’s written by Dan Schawbel – a “personal branding force of nature” (according to Fast Company). In the book Schawbel offers up a 4-step process to build a powerful brand (discover, create, communicate, maintain). He founded an excellent, award-winning blog on the subject and created an award for, you guessed it, the best personal brands. The awards are given to those “who express what it means to create and execute on their brand value to achieve their dreams.”

I came across this post titled The Brand Called You  and while it may be a wee bit dated, the rationale behind and advice on how to start building your personal brand is timeless:

• What makes you different?

• What did I do that I am most proud of?

• What do I want to be famous for?

The author states: “You are a brand. You are in charge of your brand. There is no single path to success. And there is no right way to create the brand called You. Except this: Start today. Or else.”

Hmmm, really? Or else?

Will using social media become the new job requirement and a personal brand the new resume? I blogged about this particular job that cropped up that clearly said “yes”, but what about the rest of us say in accounting? There’s much to debate and think about – time will certainly tell.

Author Bio:  Annette DeHaven, Alstin's Vice President, Operations, serves as right hand woman for an impressive roster of clients. Known for addressing problems head-on, Annette, who's led by example for more than 15 years, remembers crazy statistics, regularly spouts off mind-bending metrics, and recalls just about every field description for birds you've never heard of.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009 at 10:15 am and is filed under The Daily Update. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.