I purchased Dan Schawbel’s book, Me 2.0, in Spring 2009.  Since that time, I’ve diligently studied and implemented Dan’s advice particularly in creating and promoting a personal blog.  Dan is the lead author and founder of the Personal Branding Blog and Personal Branding Magazine.  He’s a nationally recognized expert, and I avidly read his blog for helpful insights relating to online personal brand management.  Dan also has a number of talented, contributing authors to the Personal Branding Blog such as Chad Levitt and Jun Loayza whose articles I regularly study.

Me 2.0’s target audience is the Generation Y demographic.  The book provides excellent guidance on interview preparation, interviewing skills, and professional networking that I wish someone would have shared with me 20+ years ago.  Young undergraduates and graduates competing in today’s job market should heed Dan’s guidance.  These two Wall Street Journal articles provide sobering evidence: With Jobs Scarce, Age Becomes an Issue: More Young Workers are at Risk of Layoffs as Employers Grow Wary of Letting Older Employees Go and The Curse of the Class of 2009: For College Graduates Lucky Enough to Get Work this Year, Low Wages are Likely to Haunt Them for a Decade or More. 

Furthermore, 40-Something Working Professionals (like me) can tremendously benefit from Me 2.0’s advice on online personal branding.  According to Me 2.0, effectively creating and promoting a blog are foundation principles in successful online personal branding.  Until I started studying Me 2.0 and Dan Schawbel’s free eBook, Blogging Your Brand: A Complete Guide to Your Success, I had no idea about “the basics” and overall commitment required to effectively create, optimize, promote, and maintain a blog.  These two resources educated me on purposefully:

·     Positioning my knowledge about a subject I’m passionate about (e.g., social media and digital marketing strategy)

·     Establishing my personal brand online (as evidenced by Google Search Engine Page Results / SERPs on my name)

·     Optimizing and promoting my blog via search engine marketing and by commenting on other bloggers’ blogs

·     Evaluating and selecting a blog hosting service such as TypePad or WordPress (along with other infrastructure considerations)

·     Claiming my blog on Technorati.com (and other relevant steps to “owning” my online identity)

I’ve been executing Me 2.0’s lessons in professionally branding myself as an inbound marketer and social media / digital marketing advocate.  Writing The Social Media Reinvention Blog and earning the Inbound Marketing Certified Professional Certification are cornerstones of this branding strategy and the reinvention of my professional skills. The online publication of my new blog, catalog of blog comments, and tweets on Twitter will credibly present my personal wherewithal and knowledge in a Web 2.0 world. 

Studying and implementing Me 2.0's lessons provided me the "hands-on guidance" I required to purposefully build and shape that knowledge.

And the journey continues …