Defining Personal Branding

Personal branding is a hot Internet buzz word. It has been for the last couple of years. To some personal branding means choosing one's own cereal. To others it means applying a hot iron to your favorite head of cattle. And to others it has something to do with marketing one's self...or something like that.

If you were in the personal branding business, do you think that a single, accessible definition of personal branding might be helpful to potential clients? Sure you would! A group of folks in that business thought it might also, so they got together and created this definition:

Personal branding describes the process by which individuals and entrepreneurs differentiate themselves and stand out from a crowd by identifying and articulating their unique value proposition, whether professional or personal, and then leveraging it across platforms with a consistent message and image to achieve a specific goal. In this way, individuals can enhance their recognition as experts in their field, establish reputation and credibility, advance their careers, and build self-confidence.

The method in which our group of personal branding experts defined personal branding is fascinating. You're probably familiar with it. They used a Wiki. You've no doubt used a Wiki yourself... as in Wikipedia.org?

Did you ever want to work on a project with people who are scattered about the country, the world? Maybe you're in a business mix group and you'd like to put your collective brains together and come up with a social media policy for your coworkers. Create and use a Wiki. The cool thing about using one is it could be accessible to more folks at your company. This way they can interact with the workers at the other companies and get stuff done.

Here is the Wiki that our experts are using (it can be an ongoing process) to define personal branding.

Interested in starting your own Wiki? Go here.

Photo credit, Yodel Anecdotal