Today we will be discussing personal branding to help everyone
willing to thrive during and beyond this hard time. Much as been discussed
about web 2.0, eGoverment 2.0, Enterprise 2.0 and less is being discussed about
the people who use these platforms everyday; those who make it happen.

Person 2.0 or personal branding could simply be defined as
your ability to use web technology to stand out on the internet. It involves
your ability to tell your story yourself. Telling people what you are capable
of doing, what you have achieved and how you can help them. This creates an
instant connection between you and your prospective client.

In the last edition of our magazine, we discussed defining your personal brand in the personal branding section. How do you stand out on the internet? In your niche, how quickly can people get to know/discover you? That is why it’s very important that you are 2.0 compatible.

How to be person 2.0 compatible

Achieving anything is first based on knowing what you want
and working towards it. So, before you can embark on the journey towards person
2.0, you need to do the following;

• Identify what your expertise are
• Define your goal
• Define your audience
• Identify where your audience are, and engage them there
• Know their problems
• Provide timely solution

After you have done the above, you now need to package your message for easy discovery. You need to take the Google exercise, by Googling yourself up on the Google search engine.

Example: if your full name is Possicon, if I google this name will your name come out in the first result page?

You could have people bearing same name with you; some might have good reputation or have achieved more than you do, so their name could come out in the result. How do you control the Google result? That is the main idea behind being person 2.0 compatible.

Making it happen

First of all you need to create your personal website, which must tally we your brand name. Your brand name could be your full name like Dan Schawbel, or could be a nick name like Possicon. This will compel Google to look for your web address before looking elsewhere for the term. So today, call you registrar and register your brand name.

Secondly, you need to register with various social networking sites, e.g Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter and Flickr.  Facebook gives you access to over 150 million people while Linkedin link you up with other business people and enable you to organize your profile in a resume type. With well organized standard, people can easily discover you. As you grow up your brand, you need to structure your profile to bring about consistency in the message you pass across to people. Also by having account on these sites, your brand name could quickly be discovered because these sites are well ranked by Google.

Thirdly, you need to do a daily audit to check if your name is being discovered on Google. Search for your name, search for your expertise and see if information about you is displayed. With that you can easily see which of the platforms you employ is actually working your plan then structure it accordingly.

Interact with the community; people won’t know what you are capable of doing until you put it forward. The only  people who know you are people who have worked with you. Help them solve problems, give them helpful links, comment on what they say. Just interacting! You also need to put it at the back of your mind that, the way you present yourself will ultimate be how people will respond to you. So be professional in your interaction with them.
You never can tell who will bring in your next deal.

Synchronize your network; you need to integrate your profile to make managing them easier with less hassle. You can use FriendFeed to get that done. It’s advisable that you link all your networks to the most active profile of yours.
We recommend that this be your personal website. You have more control there and you can make things happen.

With the above, I think you can kick start the process of becoming a person 2.0 to help your career and reputation.

Do you have any challenge applying these steps? Have you implemented yours? Share your experience below.