Personal Branding

What is a personal brand ?

Your personal brand is the power, clear, positive idea that comes into a people's mind when they think about you. It is what you stand for , the values and abilities that are embedded in you in order to stand out from others. It's a professional alter ego designed for the purpose of influencing how others perceive you.
This can be done by telling your audience the following;

• Who you are
• What you do
• What makes you different

(Marketing Library.net, 2012)

Source: Quick Sprout (2012)

According to Marketing Library.net (2012) in order to maintain perfect personal brand, you must evoke following 3 main perceptions;

• You are different: ability to see as an original or a unique person, which is one of the most important factors of personal branding that should be followed.
• Your are superior: You should have the belief that, you are the best among all others and that you provide higher and better high technology service.
• You are authentic: You brand must be built on the truth of who you are, what your strengths are, what your capabilities are and the love towards the particular work, if one fakes it's personal brand the person will end up loosing their image.   

Practical example; In Sri Lanka the graduates per year is 3750+ but on 7/8 companies hire them from universities, thus they should have a proper personal brand and should be expertise in the particular area. It can be understood that companies not only search for academically qualified graduates, most of them seek for people who has excel in both academic and extra curricular activities. 

There are companies which have built their personal brand successfully, when talking about companies like Coca Cola, Nike, Mc Donals, Google, Pizza Hut, Pepsi, Amazon, Mercedes Benz etc. they have managed to excel in the field of personal branding, basically if a person sees a logo, the brand is identified clearly. 

 Source: Start Up Sources.biz (2012)

Source: Lip Glossiping (2012)

Author understands that maintaining a proper personal brand is essential in the long run. Especially when you enter the industry, when seeking for a job survival of the fittest is very essential as the counts taken for companies from universities are very less. Your image should be able to adapt with the fast growing technical world, or else you will be left out from the on going trend. Basically thinking yourself as a company will cater towards building up a better foundation and maintaining your personal brand. 

Reference 

Lip Glossiping, 2012. Lip Glossiping. [Online]
Available at: http://www.lipglossiping.com/2009/12/brand-loyalty/
[Accessed 17 01 2013].

Marketing Library.net, 2012. Marketing Library.net. [Online]
Available at: http://www.petermontoya.com/pdfs/tbcy-chapter1.pdf
[Accessed 17 01 2013].

Qucik Sprout, 2012. Qucik Sprout. [Online]
Available at: http://www.quicksprout.com/2007/07/07/the-first-7-days-of-personal-branding/
[Accessed 17 01 2013].

Start Up Sources.biz, 2012. Start Up Sources.biz. [Online]
Available at: http://startupresources.biz/how-to-develop-brand-loyalty-on-a-budget/
[Accessed 17 01 2013].