The Man Behind Me 2.0 – Dan Schawbel on Personal Branding

Dan Schawbel is my personal branding guru. The man has been showing up all over the web and even in newspapers made out of real trees! I was able to get him to answer some questions between guest posting on major blogs.

Dan is the leading personal branding expert for Gen-Y. He is the author of Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success (Kaplan, April 09), as well as the publisher of both the award winning Personal Branding Blog and Personal Branding Magazine.

Question #1 – How did you become the expert/authority that you are today?

I naturally grew into my role as a personal branding expert based on my passion for self-marketing back in college, where I created marketing materials to sell myself in interviews. By disregarding networking back in college, I forced myself to learn techniques to stand out amongst my peers and be chosen for the job that I desired. Part of the reason why I’m in this position, of which I’m very fortunate, is because I was willing to take risks early on and make a lot of mistakes. I realized that there was an open niche for Gen-Y personal branding and seized it immediately, while constructing a blog, magazine, online TV series and more during my first six months in this arena. I’ve learned how to marry social technologies with marketing and brand building, which has allowed me to stand out and become the authority.

Question #2 – After High School and College, did you think this is where you were headed?

I never called it personal branding in high school or college, but my story has been built up since middle school, when I learned some very crucial skills, such as graphic design and website development, which has helped me build my web assets and make them unique today. I wasn’t sure exactly where I was headed in college, which is why I had eight internships in all the different marketing disciplines. The only thing I knew was that marketing was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I wasn’t interested in Math or other topics in school, but my marketing classes got me excited and thinking creatively.

Question #3 – Who do you consider to be your mentors or those you have learned a great deal from (they don’t have to be from any specific niche)?

I’ve learned a lot from Tom Peters, Chris Brogan, William Arruda, Jack Humphrey, Donald Trump, Seth Godin, Tim Ferris and Penelope Trunk for starters. I’ve learned about building community from them, as well as how to be more authentic, transparent and how to exude that to the world.

Question #4 – What are the 4 Steps to Proven Personal Branding?

• Discover: In order to really understand who you are and carve out a career path moving forward, investing in self-discovery is critical. In fact, if you don’t spend time learning about yourself, your values, personal mission, and unique attributes, you will be at a disadvantage when marketing your brand to others. Start by removing yourself from distractions and ask yourself, “Who am I?” and, “If I could do anything, what would it be?”
• Create: Your personal branding toolkit may consist of a blog, Web site, business card, résumé, reference document, cover letter, portfolio, or even a LinkedIn profile. Each piece has to be consistent with the next and reflect the brand you discovered in Step 1.
• Communicate: Now it’s time to use everything you’ve created to let people know you exist. By attending professional networking events, writing articles for Web sites, and putting on your “personal PR hat,” pitch bloggers and traditional journalists to start gaining attention and recognition for the brand you created in Step 2.
• Maintain: As you grow, mature, and accelerate in your career, everything you’ve created has to be updated and accurately represent the current “brand you.” Also, you need to monitor your brand online to ensure all conversations about you are positive and factual. You can do this by using a combination of tools, including a Google Alert for your name.

Question #5 – Tell us how you came up with the concept for your new book, “Me 2.0″. This is a book for Millennials, correct? And, you are a millennial too?

Me 2.0 chronicles my journey, from high school till now. It shows how someone (me in this case) can leverage the power of social media to build a brand and transform their life, from a worker to a career commander. I applied for many jobs when I graduated from college and it was a grueling process of trying to get hired, even despite my top notch resume. Then, I figured out how to use social media to build a brand and get noticed, even while workin full-time for a Fortune 300 company. Fast Company wrote about my work and that visibility helped propel me into a brand new position in social media that I got to co-create at the company I worked for.I’m a millennial (25 years old) and I wrote this book for people my age because they need it. With 22% fewer jobs and 21% fewer internships this year, it’s imperative that millennials take ownership of their career, decide what they want to do and work as hard as they can to position themselves in those roles. I saw the pain that they were enduring and wrote this book to soothe it.

Question #6 – What makes your advice different than what others are saying at conferences and online?

My advice is different because it’s been tested over years and because I actually implement it in a large company, for myself and for others I work with. I’m also a forward thinker, thought leader and I have my pulse on the changing environment of the internet and how it impacts personal branding 24/7.

Question #7 – How vital is social media to your personal branding?

Social media is the heartbeat of my personal branding strategy. The reason for this is quite simple: it’s cheap and effective. I can’t afford a $100,000 PR campaign right now because I’m still young and trying to figure out the monetization game. What I can afford to do is invest my time to build a strong community of people who are interested in my topic and then grow that into a business. Since I’m young and have few responsibilities, I can get away with spending more time in social media, such as my blog, Twitter and Facebook, to get a high impact on my brand.

Question #8 – We know the days of the paper resume are dwindling rapidly, but, how many companies are really relying on the internet to find out more about their prospective employees?

There is no company that is not relying on the internet right now. It’s cost effective to recruit online and it saves you a lot of time. Instead of going through several rounds of interviews, you have direct access to potential hires and can scour their backgrounds on social networks to get enough information on them to decide if you want to hire them or not. Also, LinkedIn is playing a major role in the recruitment process and referrals are still the number one source for hiring others. The paper resume is standard, but will morph into a more social resume. For example, VisualCV is a forward looking company that understands the power of personal barnding and expressing yourself with multimedia, not just words.

Question #9 – What are your thoughts on Brand or Reputation Management?

Reputation management is required in a world filled with Google searches for your name. In fact, you probably Google yourself, your colleagues Google you, hiring managers Google you, admissions officers Google you and your parents do to. Aside from Google, there are other search engines like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, where your reputation is based on what is available for the eyes of the observer. You are what you publish, so what you create and share online is an important part of how you’re perceived by others. People might already be talking about your brand, so being actively involved in the conversation is important.

Question #10 – When you speak at schools what are the main questions and feedback that you get?

A lot of students are very clueless and aren’t even on LinkedIn. Everyone has a Facebook profile and only a select group of students even know what Twitter is. Students are interested in domain name selection, especially the ones with common names, who want to stand out. I also get questions involving me being able to have a full-time job and everything on the side and how I can balance it. Then there are students who are still trying to figure out what they want to do and need guidance.

Question #11 – Are the questions and reactions from the Millennial generation in comparison to other generations as wide and varying as they seem? Can you share some examples that you have witnessed or been part of?

Millennials are concerned about themselves and about connecting with their peers all the time. They want to climb the corporate ladder as fast as they can and want to know how to become the CEO in a years time. Millennials are surprised when they get strange reactions from managers and colleagues for being forceful with their ideas at work. Millennials have trouble conneting with other generations because they communicate in different ways. Millennials prefer Facebook and IM, while older generations want to see your face or hear you on the phone.

Question #12 – What are your goals for the future? Do you have a plan for where you want to be or what you want to be doing in the next 5 years or 10 years?

I have plans, but tend to not tell people them. Instead I allude to them and keep people in suspense for what my next move is. I’ve dedicated my entire life to personal branding so I can gaurantee that my blog will still be active when I’m 70 years old or so. I think everyone should have a plan of action or at least a destination to build a brand plan that you can carry out over time.

Question #13 – Where can readers find your website, magazine, personal blog, and of course your book?

My website is danschawbel.com, the magazine is at personalbrandingmag.com, the blog is at personalbrandingblog.com and the book is at personalbrandingbook.com.

Tagged as: branding, dan shawbel, gen-y, me 2.0, personal branding