Introduction to Personal Branding: 10 Steps Toward a New Professional You

by Mel Carson

In this bestselling Introduction to Personal Branding you will get a short crash course (the book should take less than an hour to read or listen to) as to what personal branding is, how to take your first steps toward perfecting your personal brand, and you will learn some actionable tactics you can employ immediately in order to start becoming more memorable within your career niche and grow your network. These actionable steps include advice on how to take the perfect profile photo, how to think about your professional purpose, how to optimize your LinkedIn profile, how to optimize your social media presence for search engines like Google and Bing, how to craft a personal branding statement, how to analyze your competitors across social media so you can make your brand differentiate from theirs and how to be social by design. Personal Branding is the practice of defining your professional purpose and being able to articulate your experience and value to your target audience through digital media and social channels like blogs, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. It is also a crucial discipline to help you get the most out of in-person events such as conferences and networking opportunities where the key to a successful outcome often lies in your personal brand standing out. Given the explosion in use of digital and social media over the past few years, the internet has presented professionals with a magnificent opportunity to help their expertise become more discoverable, sharable and memorable through their personal brands. Personal Branding Benefits Your Business Establishing Credibility & Thought Leadership Growing Your Network Helping you Market Yourself Attracting New Opportunities Increasing Sales Helping You Reach Your Business Goals Who is this book for? CEOs, Executives, and Business Owners who want to position themselves as industry thought leaders and stand out from the competition. Any professional or Academic who wants to get ahead in their careers and wants to understand how to have their expertise and experience be more discoverable. HR & Training Managers who want to understand personal branding to help train employees on social media branding and social selling. PR Agencies & Exec Comms Managers who need inspiration and training on personal branding strategies for their clients, CEOs, or themselves. About Mel Carson Mel Carson is Founder of Delightful Communications and former Digital Marketing Evangelist at Microsoft. He speaks and writes about personal branding at conferences and for publications all over the world. He previously co-wrote Pioneers of Success Stories from Leaders in Advertising, Marketing, Search and Social and has had his wisdom featured in Forbes, Fast Company, GQ, QZ.com, USA Today and he regularly writes as a business columnist for Entrepreneur.com. For more on Mel Carson “Mel Carson is a gifted storyteller.” - Forbes "Mel distils and concentrates his branding advice to create a lean, efficient book that doesn’t waste time getting to the good stuff. Unless your last name is Kardashian, developing your brand doesn’t have to be a full-time job. This is one of my new favorite instruction manuals for personal branding is a lightning-fast read full of practical advice to get you up and running." Megan Golden - The LinkedIn Blog "This book is an absolute must-read and not just for those starting to build their own brand.

65 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 3, 2016

Reviews

[Jitka Egressy · Rating 5 out of 5]

WOW! Such a great book. Short read, but you get more info thank you think. Many resources, many links with other GREAT articles (not some empty articles).

You really have to read this book!

[Jason Braatz · Rating 1 out of 5]

Brochure for his consulting firm

So the narrative of building a social profile online with LinkedIn is one tactic, but that's the entire book summarized. And it's not a book. It's about as long as a whitepaper. The author states upfront that this is simply a collection of blog posts from his site. It's essentially an ad for his personal branding consulting company, move on.

[Shalynne Barr · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good information

I enjoyed reading this book. I choose it because I needed some professional tips and guidance in improving my branding as I’m moving forward into more of a public limelight. I found several things that will help improve my personal brand. I liked how the book was short and direct. I will now go back through the book and apply each thing that stood out to me that I need to change.

[Ramiro Rincon Vides · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was good but I expected more

The book has really good tips and gets you to think about your purpose and how you might communicate to others. The only things the book lacks is more examples or personal experiences of Carl of how you can build your personal brand.

[Qeren Azura · Rating 5 out of 5]

Enjoyed very much!

This is a fantastic resource that I will be using time and time again to revamp my businesses but to assist my team and business associates in doing the same!

[Jennifer Kornoely · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very quick read but not particularly memorable

[Aisyah Hanum Maulidea · Rating 5 out of 5]

aaaa mantap

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very short but some good tips. Key takeaway: find your professional purpose.

[Stanislav Stankov]

Great book for personal branding! Really help me out to put together a nice presentation about myself, what I do, and how I plan to enrich myself.

[William Anderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quick, Simple, To the Point

Well done! Really highlighted key measures one must take to develop, produce and differentiate their personal (digital) brand. Very helpful if you are looking to update and sync your personal brand across all digital platforms. Insightful...

[Kamil Raad · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good start

Good intro to the subject matter . Its also clear and straight to the point and easy to read .