Post 321: Personal Branding

What is Personal Branding?

We are all looking for good decent paying if not high paying college teaching jobs. How can we get noticed in the job market? How can we stand out from the crowd?

One recent trend I noticed from taking a Linked In skills class ($30 a month with Linked In Premium) is the concept of 'Personal Branding'.  I had never heard of personal branding before until I took this class.

I had heard of the branding of merchandise like foods, medicines, appliances, and clothes. For instance, Levi's is a recognizable brand of blue jeans. I also heard of the branding of businesses although business types call this marketing.  The whole concept of 'marketing' is so American, that the French word for marketing is le marketing.

Rather than branding for objects and companies, Personal Branding involves branding individual people, skills and their reputation to give people a reputation of that person as an expert professional in her field. There are even personal branding classes where you can learn personal branding skills.

Personal branding is the practice of marketing people and their careers as brands. It is an ongoing process of developing and maintaining a reputation and impression of an individual, group, or organization.

The Importance of Personal Branding. Your personal brand is a vivid indication of the best you have to offer – the performance, contributions, and value your next employer can expect from you. The brand you communicate marks your career reputation and is in some respects a promise.

After all, when you write your resume, you are offering the employer the very best of your expert abilities in your field. You are offering the employer the promise of hard work, experience, and excellent teamwork skills along with subject matter expertise. What better way to show off these skills then through personal branding!

For me, Personal branding is a relatively new concept as i still associate branding with objects. Here is how I used the concept of Personal Branding.

1. I created a Wordle Word Cloud where I assembled all the positive adjectives from all the faculty and student performance reviews of my work.

2. I then added this Wordle Word cloud image to my Zoom Virtual Background and then I sat in front of it. 

3. I used this image as my Personal Branding in social media like Twitter and Facebook.