Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Personal Branding



In keeping up with the social media scene, the current buzz word seems to be "personal branding." For example, check out this Mashable article by Dan Schawbel. How do you present yourself to the online community? What are your interests, goals, and experiences? More importantly, what is your personal or professional expertise?

This last question is where I struggle. Specifically, I have trouble with the word "expertise." In my mid-20s I don't consider myself an expert on anything---and I don't see this as a weakness. This is the time to explore our interests, goals, dreams, and desires both personally and professionally.

Do I know a lot about my profession? Of course. But, I am nowhere near the level of "expert." In fact, I am learning new things every day. That's one of the things I love about what I do. There's always new authors, new topics, new manuscripts, and new business challenges and I have to treat each task separately. Hardly an "expert" mindset, I'm sure.

Despite this, I think that there are good reasons to network yourself through social media. Am I an expert? No. But am I an intelligent, dedicated, and interesting person? Absolutely. Hopefully this latter part shows through my online portfolio.

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