Yellow Shoes: The Power of Personal Branding
- Posted by Badi Jones on April 17th, 2007 - Comment on this Post »
If you are reading this, chances are you probably know exactly who the person in this picture is, without me having to say.
This demonstrates the power of personal branding. (for those of you who don’t have any idea what I’m going on about, maybe my it’s my terrible photography. Here’s a better picture.)
Though I had never seen him in person, when I spotted the yellow shoes at SES NYC, I immediately knew it was Rand Fishkin. Why? Because he’s the guy with the yellow shoes.
My yellow Puma’s are a personal fashion trademark that I’ve been wearing to conferences and SEO events since I began in the field. – Rand Fishkin
For those who might not have Newsweek calling to schedule an interview quite yet, here are a few things you can do right now to increase your personal brand awareness.
Opportunities for Personal Branding
- Start a Blog – Blogging is a great way to establish yourself as an expert, or at least as someone who is passionate about something, and establish a reputation.
- Use Your Photo – Take a picture of yourself. Put it on your about page and on any profile pages for sites you are a member of.
- Use Your Name – Whether you use your real name, or a screen name, try to be consistent.
- Participate – Participate in communities that are relevant to your industry. Comment on blogs, post in forums, and participate in social sites like Digg.com, myBlogLog.com, de.lic.io.us, and Squidoo.com.
- Podcast – Podcasting is an extremely powerful tool for marketing and branding. I’d suggest partnering with someone as opposed to going it alone, unless you have some serious charisma.
- Video Podcast – Apart from being featured in a publication like Newsweek, video podcasting probably has the highest potential for marketing and branding. Think lonelygirl15 or the numa numa guy.
It’s not just the shoes
It’s important to remember that the above tactics aren’t enough to successfully brand yourself. To be successful, you’ll need to either have passion (in the case of the numa numa guy), and/or talent (in the case of lonelygirl15).
Feel free to comment (or should I say feel free to “increase your personal brand awareness”) with other thoughts, ideas, or tips about branding.
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April 18th, 2007 at 3:11 am
If you haven’t tried it yet, check out Serph.com. (track buzz in real time) It’s awesome. Way better than Google alerts for keeping track of the latest on topics of interest. (like you
)
April 19th, 2007 at 3:55 am
I’m sorry but even when I looked at the Newsweek full photo, I didn’t have a clue at whom I was looking. Never mind. Personal branding maybe hasn’t reached this side of the Atlantic yet.
On a related note, I was offered $25000 for my domain name, but turned it down on the advice of a close friend who basically said, your domain is part of your personal brand. Best advice I’ve ever taken. The website associated with that domain made far more than that paltry offer within a year of the offer being placed and is still rolling in some.
db
April 19th, 2007 at 9:49 am
Hey David. That’s a great point. Domain names are definitely an asset worth holding on to.
April 25th, 2007 at 4:27 pm
I also am not “in the know” about the yellow shoes guy. I would love to think that our heavy-weight Hawaiian t-shirts could get to a point of recognition like that though. Is it necessary to change your domain name to match the product that you are branding? We bought “OldHonolulu.com” when starting out and someone recommended that we ditch that and go for something that included the words t-shirts or HawaiianTShirts, etc. I didn’t take that advice since the brand that I want to grow is Old Honolulu. Was I crazy??
April 27th, 2007 at 11:07 pm
I just remembered having an old, almost dead blog on personal branding. It would be really time to start posting at it again…
May 6th, 2007 at 11:20 am
Personal Branding Online is about creating a positive brand persona for yourself, through visuals and written pieces. The key is to stand out, by any means necessary and to expose that virtually.
My blog is dedicated to this concept
http://www.personalbrandingblog.com