I’ve written at length about the fundamentals and importance of personal brand building and awareness. Specifically, I wrote about how important it is to develop a “sales pitch” for your personal brand, particularly because your sales pitch succinctly conveys the attributes of your brand.

My colleague Nick Westergaard is a savvy marketing guru who specializes in helping his clients develop sound social-marketing and branding strategies. I generally share Nick’s articles through my Twitter account, but I thought I’d give his latest contribution a bit more real estate on my blog because the key points align closely with my regular rants.

People ARE going to talk about you, but you want to be sure that your brand ensures that WHAT they say is positive…and accurate:

How Talk-able Is Your Brand?

“Is your brand social? Are you creating shareable content? Is your brand influential? For all of these questions we ask ourselves about important adjectives that our brands should be, we often miss one of the simplest yet biggest ones of all — how talk-able is your brand?

Whether you realize it or not, you know what a talk-able brand is. It’s a company that you do business with that makes you smile. An organization who has such a unique way of doing things you have to talk about it to others. In fact, you’re compelled to do so” (read more…)

 

The specific tone of the article addresses traditional marketing, but I contend that the same could be said for the merits of developing a personal marketing/branding plan. Nick ends the article with a question that drives it all home for me:

“Would you or your friends feel compelled to share your brand’s story with others?”