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izpeopleBuild a better online persona:stepsTech professionalsshould leverageInternet socialnetworks to build their“personal brand”By C.G. Lynch, CIO.comSocial networks including Facebook, Twitterand LinkedIn have enabled everyone tobecome instant publishers. As a result, thecontent attached to our names will continue toshape perceptions of us both professionally andpersonally.This has been a particular challenge forGeneration Y, the group of individuals thatgrew up with Facebook when it was limitedto “@edu” e-mail addresses. After people inGen Y’s future workplaces got their handslevel of credibility to the topic as it concernsGen Y: Schawbel is only 25.But while “Me 2.0” is aimed at the youngerdemographic, Schawbel says the book appliesto workers of all ages, and based on thebroadening social networking landscape.Facebook claims its fastest growing age demographicis users who are 35 years old ormore, and the number of 18 to 24-year-oldTwitter users is nearly the same as the 55to 64-year-old crowd. Knowing how to communicateyour professional persona on theWeb—and maintain it—is important for allgenerations.By writing constantly, it’slike practicing a sporton the technology and “friended” the youngerset, college students had to rethink the social networking services, says Dan Schawbel,author of the new book “Me 2.0: Build aPowerful Brand to Achieve Career Success.”Schawbel has made a name for himself inthrough, among other things, his blog, thePersonal Branding Blog. While blogging,he drew upon personal experiences gainedduring the rat race of competing for in-choice working in marketing at EMC. Notonly has he produced an extensive body ofadvice for people looking to “manage theirbrands” online, but also, he has brought aCIO: How did you decide to get into personalbranding? Was it based upon your ownexperiences?Schawbel: In high school, I gained two significantskills: Web development and graphicdesign. I had my first internship as a highschool senior, in Internet services. My jobwas sales-related and I did cold calls. Fromthat, I quickly realized that I wasn’t interestedin front-end marketing. I was more interestedin the back-end, doing things I’d studied, likegraphic design and Web development. ternshipat a promotions company. Afterthat, I realized it was going to be reallyBentley. So I formed a development planthat aligned me to various internships thatwere all across marketing. I developed thispersonal branding toolkit, though I didn’tcall it that back then. I had a business card,a website, CD portfolio, custom cover letter,and references.12 Computerworld Hong Kong June 2009 www.cw.com.hk
izpeopleFacebook claims its fastest growing age demographic isusers who are 35 years old or more, and the number of 18to 24-year-old Twitter users is nearly the same as the 55 to64-year-old crowdI did internships at Reebok, Lycos, Lo-Jack and Techtarget. Before I graduated, Iwhere I currently am, in product marketingA lot of people who had already internedI discovered something then: Even with agood resume, eight internships, seven leadershippositions in school and good grades,networking reigns supreme. I hadn’t focusedon networking. I had promoted myself in thetraditional methods, so it was really hard forbut the lessons learned there were interestingcall to my father. I realized the importance ofbuilding a network. to Succeed, in October of 2006. It was abouthelping college kids get internships and learnhow to market themselves. Then on March14, 2007, I read Tom Peter’s article in FastCompany Magazine: “Brand Called You.”Then it clicked for me: I realized that itwas the same type of advice that I’d beenpreaching for years, but I couldn’t put itinto a concept that I could evangelize. I didresearch, and saw that no one my age wastalking about this. So I quickly positionedmyself as the personal branding spokesmanfor Gen Y.CIO: And you had a day job in marketing atEMC. How did you align those two elementsof your life?Schawbel: EMC had no idea what I was doingoutside of work. I was working in e-services supportand online support tools for EMC, talkingwith customers and getting that type of experience.Our vice president here, Chuck Hollis, hehas a blog too. He wanted to move in the directionof social technologies both internally andexternally.Around that time, PR read an article inFast Company about the fact I was launchinga magazine on the topic of personalbranding. They found it because EMC wasmentioned. So PR forwarded the article to[Hollis], and then I was recruited to be theMy experience, in many ways, shows thechange, or evolution, that people are goingthrough in the whole recruitment system.Now, it’s not all about what you do at work.It’s also what you do outside of work. If youbuild a powerful brand outside of work, peoplewill know about you and you’ll have thatadded visibility.CIO: The book gives some practical tips forsomeone looking to get started at building abetter online persona. Can you share themwith us?Schawbel: It’s basically a four step process.Discover your brand. People should lock thoughts about how they’d describe themselves.Go talk to people who know you, andask how they would describe you. To brandyourself properly, you want your network toagree with you. If you say you’re intelligent,you want other people to say you’re intelligenttoo.At every point in your life, you’ll beasked, what do you do? In the book, I havea personal development plan. The personaldevelopment plan is a personal vision foryourself. It should help answer the “wheredo you want to be in 20 years?” types ofquestions.Create: You want to use the same type of pictureand writing for all your content on the Web, andwhat you create will very much depend on youraudience. While I started with Gen Y as my audience,for example, now a lot of people who readmy website [are older]. So I have to be consciousof that in the things I put on my website and onsocial networks. It must be consistent across allsites.Then you need to think about your nameon Google. Maybe you need to use a middleinitial so your name sticks out, because alot of people have common names and theystruggle with it. Whichever you use, you you’re creating when they use the searchengine.Communicate: You need to be a good communicatorand decent [at writing] because everyoneis a content creator now. For example, the moreyou blog, the better your writing skills become. Iwouldn’t consider myself a natural, gifted writer,but I think it’s because I blogged that I got betterat it. By writing constantly, it’s like practicing asport.Maintain your reputation: Use GoogleAlerts. Track your name, keywords for yourniche, or the companies you work for or mightbe interested in. It’s all about using thosecomments made around [your content] tohelp you be better at what you do. www.cw.com.hkJune 2009 Computerworld Hong Kong 13
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