Every day, editors publish content about personal branding and identity all over the web. These articles vary from  purely self-promotional to truly helpful advice. Today we are taking a look at a range of articles on personal branding in order to understand the best practices to develop your personal identity online.

One

Earlier this month, Forbes published an article by self-proclaimed “personal branding guru” William Arruda. It’s wise to be skeptical of anyone who calls themselves a guru, but the article is full of insight and positivity. Arruda primarily writes about developing generous habits to support gratitude, solving problems for others, and facilitating connections. Building your brand is not a zero-sum game, the more value you add to other people, the more your own value grows within your network. Read the full article here: Three Steps To Making Giving Your Personal Branding Strategy.

Two

Next we include an article from an OSU student website. Written by undergraduate student Megan Weyrauch, the article identifies the general lack of understanding college students demonstrate about finding their professional niche, and the importance of differentiation yourself in a challenging job market. Read more here: Uniqueness: 7 Ways to Build a Personal Brand in College.

Three

Personal Branding isn’t just for Silicon Valley hotshots, pop stars, or media magnates like Opera and Warren Buffet. All over the world, professionals and creatives of all types pay attention to the benefits of personal branding. This excerpt from Zimbabwe’s news source “The Herald” contains a fantastic perspective:

“Your personal brand should therefore emerge from your search for your identity and meaning in life, and it is about getting very clear on what you want, fixing it in your mind, giving it all your positive energy, doing what you love and develop yourself continuously.”

For more, read: Branding key to personal success.

Four

This next article offers 5 tips aimed at authors, but the advice is relevant to anyone who wants to understand how personal branding can support a particular goal. Time spent thoughtfully interacting online is an investment in building your network, a community of people who can appreciate your work. This is not only important for an author, but also for a real estate professional, punk band, or non-profit. Building a more-receptive-than-average audience to support you is one ingredient for success. Read more here: Branding For Authors.

Five

Frequent contributor to entrepreneur.com Jim Joseph does a great job of placing personal branding in a natural context. A professor of marketing at New York University, Joseph argues:

“each of our personal brands began at birth. When Mom and Dad gave us a name, they unknowingly launched a new brand”.

He doesn’t say this to cheapen or commoditize a child’s life. The message is that we have always had a personal brand, we are just now realizing how to leverage it for our own advantage. Read more here: What It Really Means to Have a Personal Brand.

Six

This final article from the New Yorker plants us firmly in expert territory. Far from an introduction to personal branding, author (and fiction writer) Tony Tulathimutte critiques the uniformity he expects to see as a result of personal branding. He examines the media response to brands that have been “tarnished”, and questions the need to “polish” a person’s identity. While many of his ideas are insightful and accurate, Tulathimutte bases his critique on a false assumption that there is one ideal personal brand. In fact, there are as many ideal personal brands as living people. A personal brand is exactly that, personal, and unique to you. Read the full thought-provoking article here: You Are What You Tweet.

The Decision is Yours to Make. 

How you develop your identity is entirely your choice, but ignore personal branding at your own peril. Thoughts about the articles or our conclusions? Please let us know in the comments below and on twitter @aboutdotme.

Top image courtesy of Julia Reinerth.