Who Needs A Personal Brand?

As I mentioned in my first post, one of the reasons I decided to blog was because of the concept of "personal brand." The concept and the actual phrase is all over the place. Career guides recommend having one, especially if you're in PR or marketing. And after spending 15+ years in PR, I tend to agree. I've spent a lot of time elevating and maintaining the brands of several companies. I have also witnessed the connection between brand and reputation. In some cases brand identity can help a company protect its reputation during the time of a crisis. In BP's case, its brand may be destroyed

I’m struggling with my personal brand and the need for it. I get that people will check online sources for my fingerprints when they need to determine whether I would make a good addition to their team. I've been in the management classes where the HR team addresses the need to search on Facebook/MySpace/Twitter etc. before hiring someone. In this example, HR/hiring managers are looking to protect the reputation of the company with a candidate who hasn't done anything stupid online. We've all read the case studies/blog posts on what not to do online. What happens on Facebook stays on Facebook. Digital fingerprints are hard to wipe clean.

Well, the new discussion involves doing things online to get you noticed. Become more searchable. It brings up a lot of questions for me. According to LinkedIn I have a “complete” profile. I filled out all my career history, got recommendations and joined groups. I even posted a picture. The job search advice says that I should be actively commenting on the group discussions. What if they don’t have anything interesting to say? I don’t have strong opinions about many of the posts and don’t want to comment just for the sake of it. One person in a group I belong to posts some items that I find shocking. They are overtly political (it’s a PR Group) and often include F-bombs. What does that say about the poster? Should I comment and tell him it’s hurting his brand?

What about Twitter? Do I need to retweet something to be active? Or is it better to have something compelling to say? I try to do both. Do you get a sense of my personal brand if I just “like” everything on Facebook? What does that tell you about me? That I don’t have opinions of my own. That I’m a follower. Does anyone really like a "yes" man? Personal branding guru, Dan Schawbel, even tweeted about why not to be that person when looking for a job (JOB SEARCH: Be The Non-Pleasing Job Seeker http://dld.bz/fJrX.)

I've asked a lot of questions in this post. I am hoping that this blog and Twitter will help me find answers. I'll let you know what I find out. I would also love to know what you think.