I’ll go first.
Actually, I don’t remember exactly where I first heard about personal branding, but I do remember when it happened.
Introduction to personal branding
In the summer of 2006, up to my eyeballs in a trans-continental job search after having been laid off a few months before from a job in Paris, France, the idea to blog about job search came to me.
I’ll spare you all the details (for now…) but as I began working on the launch of what would become JobMob, I spoke with a graphic designer friend of mine whose studio spent a lot of time on identity projects branding companies, their products, and sometimes even specific employees.
My friend recommended that before I begin executing on my idea, I had to read a marketing book by Al Ries, the name of which he couldn’t remember. After some quick browsing on Amazon, I discovered it was The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding.
So I bought it.
And I didn’t read it.
And I still haven’t.
However, the book has a sub-section (or ‘BONUS’, I can see in block letters on the cover of the book as I write this) called The 11 Immutable Laws of Internet Branding. And I skimmed read that, which alone was worth the price of the whole book.
Al Ries’ 11 Laws really got the branding juices flowing and played a critical part in designing JobMob’s branding. It also got me thinking about how I can apply some of those lessons to my own brand, but I wasn’t using the actual term ‘personal branding’ just yet.
That came a few months later in late 2006/early 2007 when I discovered the original version of the Personal Branding Blog, left some comments and met Dan online. A few months after that, ‘personal branding’ got its first official mention on JobMob during an interview with Jason Alba.
What about you?
Where and when did first hear about personal branding?
And what were you looking for when you discovered it?
Author:
Jacob Share, a job search expert, is the creator of JobMob, one of the biggest blogs in the world about finding jobs. Follow him on Twitter for job search tips and humor.
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I saw the words “Personal Branding” on a sidebar on my Yahoo page – which led me to Dan – - and to LinkedIn. The rest of my history is still being written. But the journey is amazing.
I came across Personal branding and Dan’s blog at the same time. I was looking for great people to follow on Twitter and Dan came up because branding is a real interest of mine. I don’t have a product to sell but it came to me that what I am really doing out here in social media land is promoting myself. I want to see where that takes me. Like you say, it’s an interesting journey and I have alredy learned so much. Now I hope to share it with a ‘One woman’s journey into new media’ blog which should keep me out of trouble !
Kay- thanks for sharing.
Lucy- good luck with your new blog, it’s always fascinating to see how people apply lessons.
Interesting – but not surprising – how social media played an important role in the discovery for both of you.