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To cite this article: Jodi L. Philbrick & Ana D. Cleveland (2015) Personal Branding: Building Your
Pathway to Professional Success, Medical Reference Services Quarterly, 34:2, 181-189, DOI:
10.1080/02763869.2015.1019324
Download by: [Uni San Francisco de Quito ] Date: 29 September 2016, At: 07:18
Medical Reference Services Quarterly, 34(2):181189, 2015
Published with license by Taylor & Francis
ISSN: 0276-3869 print=1540-9597 online
DOI: 10.1080/02763869.2015.1019324
INTRODUCTION
The underlying question at the heart of personal branding is, What makes
you special? As Simons writes, in a tough job market, differentiating your-
self from others with skills and backgrounds similar to yours is a necessity.1
However, personal branding is a process by which you define yourself pro-
fessionally, and it should begin long before you start the job search. When
you engage in personal branding, you are developing your human capital
by investing in continuous learning and enhancing your social capital
181
182 J. L. Philbrick and A. D. Cleveland
through visibility and notoriety and access to financial success and financial
profitability.2
The concept of personal branding is gaining traction in the field of
library and information sciences. As one example, Bohyun Kim, associate
director for Library Applications and Knowledge Systems at the University
of Maryland Health Sciences and Human Services Library, organized a panel
on personal branding at the American Library Association Midwinter
Conference in 2011.
The personal branding process is deeply introspective, and it will take
time and effort to complete. Using the steps outlined in this article, you will
be able to jumpstart your personal brand.
The history of branding starts in the 1800s in the western United States when
ranchers marked livestock with distinctive symbols to deter theft and allow
lost animals to be identified.3 According to Lair, Sullivan, and Cheney,
consumer branding began in the late nineteenth century, and its peak period
of time lasted from 19201970.4 Brand products were marketed as unique
goods able to provide unique advantages to consumers; it was the brand
name that distinguished a productfor example, SpicNSpanfrom other
household cleaners.4 Therefore, the personal branding movement is a natu-
ral extension of consumer branding, creating a self-package of what is
unique about you.
The term personal branding was popularized by Tom Peters in his 1997
article The Brand Called You; however, as Khedher mentions, some
authors have debated that the term was indirectly introduced by Erving
Gofman in his 1959 book The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life.2 Over
the past 40 years, there have been three changes in society that have led
to the growth of the concept of personal branding.5 The first change
occurred in the 1970s when there were massive layoffs in some of the larger
corporations in the United States. These layoffs demonstrated that individuals
could no longer depend on employers to be guarantors of life-long
employment and personal economic stability.5 The second change was
societys new-found idea that work could be a source of personal satisfaction
and meaning. Not surprisingly, the third and final change has to do with tech-
nology and the ability to communicate using a variety of online tools to share
our personal thoughts.
Many definitions of personal branding exist, but there is one common
themeperception. According to Rampersad, self-esteem is about how
you perceive yourself and personal branding is about how others perceive
you.6 Everyone has a personal brand, whether they know it or not, because
it is how they are viewed by others. The most important thing is that you
Personal Branding 183
should be the one that crafts the perception that others have of you by
managing your personal brand strategically, consistently, and effectively.6
A personal brand can be defined as the combination of personal attributes,
values, drivers, strengths, and passions you draw from that differentiates your
unique promise of value from your peers, and helps those assessing you to
determine if they should hire you or do business with you.7 More simply, a
personal brand identifies, clarifies, and communicates who you are to the
world around you, whether it is a business environment, an academic field,
or an entrepreneurial setting.8 Not only does personal branding relate to
perception, but it also indicates the value you can contribute to whatever
organization hires you.
Personal branding is not synonymous to marketing, self-promotion, and
image, as a personal branding joins together what is most deeply real and
compelling about ourselves with our definitive accomplishments to date in
an effective strategy for professional fulfillment and success.4
There are six steps involved in building your personal brand: (1) taking an
introspective look, (2) understanding the brand that may already exist, (3)
developing your personal brand mantra, (4) crafting your physical footprint,
(5) creating your digital footprint, and (6) communicating your message.
Introspective Look
The first step in building your personal brand is to take an introspective look
at yourself by asking the following questions:
Existing Brand
The second step to building your personal brand is to understand that there
may already be a brand that exists. The existing brand can be seen from two
points of view: (1) your own existing brand that you may or may not already
know about and (2) the brand of your profession. It is a good idea to conduct
a brand audit where you examine at your current web presence to see what
message you are conveying. Be sure to look at your personal accounts and
profiles on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and professional association
websites as well as your own personal website.9 Also, you need to Google
yourself and set up alerts for your name on a regular basis.
Librarians have been concerned with their image since 1949 as indicated
in the professional literature, and in the late 1980s, the Special Libraries
Association established a Presidential Inter-Association Task Force for the
Enhancement of the Image of the Librarian=Information Professional.10 Since
librarianship has its own brand, you have to see how you can customize or
personalize this existing brand to align with your personal brand. As Gall
writes, librarians in general already have a brand . . . librarians are the
people who know where the information is.11 As an example, Sally Gore
has merged the brand of health sciences librarianship with her own personal
brand of being an informationist through her various positions at the
University of Massachusetts Medical School. In her blog, A Librarian by
any Other Name <http://librarianhats.net/>, she has described how she
has used her information skills in her transitions from being the Head of
Research and Scholarly Communications to Informationist and Research
Librarian to her current position outside of the library as Research Evaluation
Analyst at the Center for Clinical and Translational Science.
(or do I want to be in)? and What are the words that I would use to describe
my work?12 Your function is what exactly that you do, and you need to
consider the following questions: What service do I have to offer people?
and What do I do that makes me stand out from everyone else?12 Once you
have considered all these questions, you need to combine the three aspects
together to formulate your mantra. Your personal brand mantra will serve as
the foundation upon which you craft your physical footprint, create your
digital footprint, and communicate your message. As an example, the
presidents of the Medical Library Association bring their own personal brand
mantra to the membership throughout their tenure in this position.
Physical Footprint
The fourth step to building your personal brand is crafting your physical
footprint, which includes your appearance and workspace. Although per-
sonal branding is more than just about your appearance, you do need to con-
sider this aspect of your brand. As Simons writes, you can be sure that
potential employers, work colleagues, and anyone you have to meet in the
course of your professional life does notice what you wear and how you
present yourself overall.1 Looking polished and professional will enhance
your personal brand. Another aspect to consider is having a professional
photograph of yourself, but this will need to be updated as your look
changes.
Another way to communicate your personal brand is by decorating your
workspace. This is a strategy that might be appealing to more introverted
individuals. A professor at the University of North Texas College of
Information is a youth services librarianship expert, and her office features
comic book posters, a gumball machine, and announcements about her con-
ference presentations. For anyone walking by her workspace, it is obvious
that she is interested in library services for children and young adults. As
health sciences librarians, you could display Medical Library Association pos-
ters and memorabilia representing health sciences librarianship and health
informatics. You can also communicate your brand through your workspace
by displaying your diplomas and=or awards, which communicates your
expertise in a field. The physical footprint may seem like a superficial
method for building your personal brand, but its importance cannot be
overlooked.
Digital Footprint
The fifth and most important step to building your personal brand is creating
your digital footprint. One of the first things you should do when creating
your digital footprint is to come up with your brand name to use throughout
186 J. L. Philbrick and A. D. Cleveland
social media. If you have a common name, you may consider using your
middle initial or middle name to distinguish yourself. Thomas recommends
that your brand name is easy to read and spell phonetically and, ideally, isnt
too long, and she suggests that you should Google it and search it on major
social networks to make sure that it is original.13 Websites, such as namechk
<http://namechk.com> and knowem <http://knowem.com>, can help you
determine name availability throughout social media. Michelle Kraft, Senior
Medical Librarian at the Cleveland Clinic Alumni Library, is an example of
someone who has a creative brand nameThe Krafty Librarianfor her
blog <http://www.kraftylibrarian.com/>. Additionally, she has @krafty as
her username for Twitter. This is a clever way to embed her last name into
her social media brand presence.
Once you have established your brand name, it is time to start creating
your digital footprint online, and you need to decide which channels you are
going to use to share your message. Using social media is a low-cost solution
for creating your personal brand, and you can communicate with and receive
feedback from a broad audience. One of the drawbacks to having a presence
in the online environment is that there is a lack of information control, and by
having your information available, you can be at risk in terms of misdirected
and insufficient branding.14 Eke provides a listing of activities that librarians
can engage in to create their digital footprint:
BRAND REPUTATION
Once you have built your personal brand, you have the task of sustaining the
reputation of your brand. Remember that your personal brand is a promise of
value and performance, and you want to meet the expectations of your audi-
ence as they have bought your brand. Brand reputations can be positive or
negative and can change over time. Think about public figures who have
engaged in activities that have tarnished their brand reputation. Some of
these individuals have recovered from the negative brand reputation while
others have not. It can be challenging to change perception. Effective per-
sonal brand management will help you to avoid this possible pitfall. One
approach to managing your personal brand is to consciously, but subtly,
communicate your brand through five key everyday activities: actions,
reactions, look, sound, and thoughts.18
SUMMARY
Building your personal brand can serve as your pathway to professional suc-
cess. A personal brand helps you to summarize and concisely communicate
what makes you special to the professional world. Following the six steps
presented will assist you in creating your personal brand. Keep in mind that
personal brands are not static, and they will need to evolve with career
changes and trends in the field. Remember, achieving and maintaining your
personal brand is a journey, not a destination.19
REFERENCES
1. Simons, Alexandra. Branding You! Texas Library Journal 88, no. 1 (Spring
2012): 1012.
2. Khedher, Manel. Personal Branding Phenomenon. Business and Manage-
ment 6, no. 2 (May 2014): 2940.
3. Snodgrass, Richard, and Merrie Brucks. Branding Yourself. ACM SIGMOD
Record 33, no. 2 (June 2004): 117125. doi: 10.1145=1024694.1024722
4. Lair, Daniel J., Katie Sullivan, and George Cheney. Marketization and the
Recasting of the Professional Self: The Rhetoric and Ethics of Personal Branding.
Management Communication Quarterly 18, no 3 (February 2005): 307343. doi:
10.1177=0893318904270774
5. Tinder, Galen. The Promise of Personal Branding. Mobility Magazine. August
2010. http://www.worldwideerc.org/Resources/MOBILITYarticles/Pages/0810-Tinder.
aspx.
6. Rampersad, Hubert. Authentic Personal Branding. January 11, 2008. http://
www.brandchannel.com/papers_review.asp?sp_id=1360.
7. Guiseppi, Meg. The 10-Step Personal Branding Worksheet. Accessed October 30,
2014. http://www.careercast.com/career-news/10-step-personal-branding-worksheet.
Personal Branding 189