One of the most common overlooked areas by designers, developers and bloggers, is their personal brand.  Which is silly, seeing as its the most valuable marketing tool you can have in your arsenal.

What is a personal brand?  Well, it's you!  It's your portfolio, blog and twitter account, as well as your Flickr, YouTube, FriendFeed, del.icio.us, Facebook and other accounts.

Learn From the Experts

Take a look at Gary Vaynerchuk, who runs a multi-million dollar wine business, as well as a popular podcast. He is an expert at personal branding and has established himself as real guru when it comes to all things wine. Browsing through his website, you can't help but notice his name plastered everywhere, as well as links to all his social profiles. You could say that Gary is everywhere! Check out this video from Gary explaining some goods about personal brands.

You and Yourself

It's important to be yourself online. No one likes a phony and people seem to have a real knack at spotting the fake a mile off.  It's also important to know your talents, and shape your brand based on your skills. So if you're a graphic designer - be the best graphic designer you can be. Not a designer/podcaster/blogger/developer.  Although Gary has a podcast, he isn't known podcaster - he's a wine guru.

Get Profiled

I have been approached through Twitter to do the odd bit of development work, and I have also found some very talented freelancers there as well. So the value in having a "profile" is obvious. Having profiles on major social networks like Twitter, FriendFeed, Facebook, Digg, etc, will not only expose your brand to potential clients but will help you keep track of the intertubes and stay connected….

Get Connected

This is the most important point: no one cares about you!  However, if you show genuine interest in other peoples work, I guarantee that you will start getting noticed. Comment on blogs, reply to Tweets on Twitter, share other peoples posts on Digg. You might not believe me when I say this is way more important then any work you do.

So get out and grab a brand!

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