Your personal online brand is like your DNA.  It’s what Differentiates you, gets you Name recognition, and brand Awareness.In Chris Brogan’s opinion,  “A personal brand gives you the ability to stand out in a sea of similar products. In essence, you’re marketing yourself as something different than the rest of the pack.”  Personal branding works for businesses, professionals and entrepreneurs.  It’s a science, like the atomic number for an element, which sets is automatically apart.

That’s a great reason to invest in yourself and this notion, but where does one start? The best place seems to be ‘at home’., with you, looking into the mirror and examining what you find there. In the Web2.0 (heading for Web3.0) world,  the Number 1 watchword is “authenticity”.  From the root word “authentic”, the cleanest definition is “genuine”

Make a list; ask your self ‘”what do I believe?”, “What are my most genuine traits and characteristics” and “How does that fit into who I am and what I do?”.  If your reputation in on the line, what do people remember about you?  Is it good or a bit ragged around the edges?

In Mark Montoya’s Eight Laws of personal Branding, Law #3 states “A great Personal Brand must be built on a foundation of the source’s true personality, flaws and all.”

Here are my Top 3 Tips for creating your Personal Online Brand:

3. Know who you are.  Your personal brand is a mix of

• reputation – what do people already think of you?
• trust – reliability is huge.  People do business with those they know, like and trust.
• exposure – have you got there attention/ can you hold on to it?, and
• performance – how well do you execute your promises/  Do you deliver?

2. Know how you are perceived.  What is your brand, today?

Look around you and take inventory; look at yourself offline (ask some clients and friends)and online(do some Google research ON YOU) and see what you find.  Seeing ourselves as others see us can be a sobering or eye-opening experience.  This is NOT news.  In 1997, Tom Peters started an article in Fast Company with these words “Today, in the Age of the Individual, you have to be your own brand. Here’s what it takes to be the CEO of Me Inc.”

Beyond that, there are lots of tools available to help you research and evaluate your personal online brand.  Do some research and find tools you like and will use – and put them to work for you..

1. Develop a strategy. You can’t create your Personal Online Brand without a plan.

If you need a bit of an Online Makeover, then do it!  Look at your competitors the same way you looked at yourself.  Pick out the good, the bad, and the ugly and make some notes about what you find that you like and what is different about you.

If you are tech-savvy and have the time, then get busy!  If that’s not your ‘genius’, then find a professional whose ‘genius’ it is.

This is real, this is NOW, and this is something you need to get done.  This is not an option, and it’s not going away.  (Please, please don’t think of this as a storm you can ‘ride out’!  That boat has no sails, no engine…..won’t stay afloat!).

To quote my Grandmother, “Time and tide wait for no one”.  Chart your course.  Bon voyage!  This will take you (and your message) around the world.