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And then it occurred to me - aren t there Personal Branding &amp Brand Management habits of the professionals?

Damn right there are!

FI ve got 10 of the best Personal Branding &amp Brand Management habits right here.

As I see it, the number one goal of personal branding, brand identity building and brand management on the web is to make your name synonymous with a certain phrase.

Personal Branding and Brand Management as SEM

In a very real sense, Personal Branding and Brand Management are an extension of your SEM (Search Engine Marketing) activities. So it s worth treating them as such.

What separates Personal Branding and Brand Management from your regular Search Engine Marketing activities is that you re adding on a layer, albeit a subtle one.

This layer represents the consistently applied, well-planned and well-honed image you should have created of yourself.

Once you ve fashioned this virtual you, you need to maintain that image. And that s much easier said than done. But, help is at hand.

If you re serious about Personal Branding and Brand Management, here s 10 things you ll see the professionals doing: Comments are your calling cards. Be sure to use these as an opportunity to draw the focus of the blog post towards your comments. Make sure you drop in a relevant link to an article of yours in the URL field.

That way, you re not just making a statement, you re opening the door for bringing the dialogue to your own blog article.

A word of caution here, misuse of this idea is essentially comment spam. If you re going to comment, then make sure you re adding value to the article you re commenting on, or don t do it at all, OK?

Think and act like a professional. Don t get drawn into heated debates, unless you re sure you can do so without just throwing away your dignity and losing some serious credibility into the bargain. As I ve discovered - much to my amusement - I m both a contrarian and a conflict writer.

Don t be afraid of contradicting or correcting someone, but be damn sure that you re right.

Have a theme? Well stick to it! You don t see too many truly successful general blogs.

Most might start that way, but as those few that stick around longer than twelve months will attest to, some trimming of the excess fat inevitably takes place.

The web rewards those that carve out their own niche. Working within a niche and becoming an authority within that niche is better than being one voice in a crowded room.

Be seen, be known. Remember what I said about your comments of other people s blogs? Right, well there s other places you ought to be hangin out, too.

There are some notable social web venues up &amp down the internet superhighway, and you need to make a few well-chosen stops along the way.

Don t be afraid to sing your own praise. Let s face if, if you don t, who will? To begin with, few people will know of you, so you need to be seen.

If you ve had some recent successes (strong linkage from a major website or blog) then talk about it. Use that one success as a driver to help you with the next one, wherever that may come from.

Be consistent with your image. Just like Darren Rowse said, Every blog post, every comment, every instant message, every email.

If you feel that you ve got a house style then apply that style wherever you go. Some may like your style, others may loathe it, but for me, that s where you want to be.

I d rather have a load of people hating and praising me, than have a few think that I m all right.

Be an opportunist. If news breaks on a story that s very much local to your topic of choice, get in there, dude! However, it s not a race, so be sure to put them emphasis on quality and not alacrity.

There s no point being the first in if all you re doing is saying: “Hi!” Sometimes, it s a well to be fashionably late. Over time, as your fame grows, those that know you, well, they ll wait.

Additionally, and further to Neil Patel s advice, being bad-mouthed could be a chance to make friends and influence people. Charm the pants off them, schmooze, cajole, you know? Win them over.

Get a blog and get ahead! Blogs routinely outrank websites on the search engines for a number of key reasons.

The main reasons are that a typical blog has a constant stream of ever-changing content, there are a great number of out-bound links to other sources, and there s usually a community people commenting on your articles.

In addition to this, make sure people can do stuff with your stuff. By that I mean make sure you have some way of syndicating your articles, either by a newsletter or from an RSS feed.

Be seen, be known .. be available. So you ve got your audience, you ve got some notoriety, but you re aloof! Someone might catch a quick comment exchange with you occasionally, but that s usually it. Make sure people can contact you.

What you ll have noticed is that some of these suggestions are about being a shameless self-promotional whore. And well done you! Coz that s exactly what I m asking you to be.

Be yourself. To make this kind of thing work, there are few a prerequisites, which I hope I ve covered above. But there s one prerequisite to rule them all.

It s there when you re commenting on blogs. It s there when you re talking to someone and explaining yourself to them for the first time. It s even there when things go wrong and you make that graceful recovery.

That quality, that essential personal ingredient is charisma.

If the current you has been doesn t include this essential ingredient, then it s time to change the recipe!

Just make sure there s no marzipan .. I hate marzipan.

Success rarely comes to you, and even trying to meet it half way often isn t enough.

As for me, well, I m still fighting the good fight, and I know what I need to be doing. Hopefully, after reading this little lot, you do too…

Wayne Smallman is the guy behind the Blah, Blah! Technology blog, a place where he demonstrates his passion and keen eye as an observer of technology trends, the impact of technology on society as well as the convergence of technologies to create something greater, enabling people to do better things with their lives.

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