3 easy ways to establish your personal brand

The old phrase “the cobbler’s children have no shoes” has no place in today’s professional landscape, because now, the expectation is that the cobbler’s children have on the most fabulous, stylish, and chic shoes available. Scratch that—they are wearing the shoes that won’t even be available to the rest of us until next season.

Clients today (and employers) want to see what you can do for them the moment they visit your website or hear your name. As PR professionals we are expected to be experts in positioning and branding, and what better way to showcase our skills than on ourselves.

Here are three easy steps to brand yourself in 2012:

Claim your name

Establish a blog or website under your full name and add interesting, relevant content to it regularly. The content you generate should appear in the first page of results for your name in Google and other search engines, making sure the first impression is the right one.

Include your bio, work experience, contact information, and a headshot, as well as links to your online profiles such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest. This way, people have options on how to reach you and spark a conversation.