The Personal Branding Blog by Rob Cuesta

Managing your Technorati authority

I noticed the other day that this blog's Technorati 'authority' rating had dropped by a point. Your 'Authority' rating is actually a measure of your blog's popularity, rather than a measure of the worth of the information you are imparting, based on the principle that the more people are discussing something, the  more authoritative it must be. High minded, but you can probably see the flaw in that argument: by that reasoning, the most intellectually stimulating and valuable media phenomena today are Big Brother, the Diana inquest and X Factor :-)

How much am I worth?

Are you considering a job move? Negotiating a pay raise? Looking at a career change? Just plain curious how your pay compares to your peers? It can be difficult to get comparatives, particularly if you are moving between regions.

How (not) to do reputation management

I found a great blog post highlighting the dangers of old ways of thinking in a Web 2.0 world. If your gut reaction to someone 'dissing' your personal brand or your corporate brand online is to reach for your lawyer's phone number then you may want to read this post and think carefully about what you're doing, and the effect it may have on your reputation.

3 tips for writing great blog posts

A strong, well written blog can be the keystone of a great online identity, which in turn is a key element of a great personal brand. The problem is that the 80/20 rule applies as it does in so many areas of life: 80% of the really valuable content comes from 20% of blogs.

So, how do you make sure that your blog is helping you to build your reputation, not hindering you? How do you make sure that your blog is one of the good 20%?

Interesting blog layout

I recently stumbled across an interesting site. It's not so much the content I want you to look at - although I enjoyed the site even though my Italian is a little rusty, and it's over 10 years since I lived in Copenhagen! - but rather the layout.

Living the connected life

For as long as I can remember, we have been promised "mobile working" or the "virtual office" - the ability to work anywhere, any time -, but somehow it never quite took shape. At last, though, technology seems to be catching up with the promises.

Personal Branding Magazine

While I was preparing for my recent trip to Toronto I completely missed the fact that the second edition of the new Personal Branding Magazine has gone live over at personalbrandingmag.com.

Keep in touch: supporting your brand with touchpoints

A couple of years ago, Mercedes commissioned a market research firm to identify all the 'touchpoints' its customers had with the brand (in other words, all the different ways that customers interacted with the brand). How many do you think there were? 

My online personal branding bookstore

I was doing my regular 'self-google' the other day, and just for laughs I decided to carry on past the first 3 pages. I was delighted to discover that people have been tagging my online bookstore at Amazon on Del.icio.us and other social bookmarking sites, and sharing it with their friends as a site worth visiting. Thanks for the support folks :) it encourages me to keep reading and keep bringing you my the picks of current personal branding-related books.

How useful is an online forum in building a personal brand?

An interesting question came up the other day on a forum I belong to, which was "how useful are forums in building your personal brand?" This was very timely as I've recently been taking quite an interest in how professionals can build a brand based on information and information products.

Forums can be especially useful if you are working in a knowledge-related field and selling products or workshops. Set up a forum for each product or workshop where users/ participants can discuss what they have learnt and ask questions. You then have four decisions to make.