Author: Erik Deckers

is the owner of Professional Blog Service, a newspaper humor columnist, and the co-author of Branding Yourself: How to Use Social Media to Invent or Reinvent Yourself, No Bullshit Social Media: The All-Business, No-Hype Guide to Social Media Marketing, and The Owned Media Doctrine.
Brand Identity & Self-DiscoveryBrand Yourself AsCareer & WealthLifestyle & Habit BuildingNetworkingPositioningRelationships & Personal Growth

Pioneers Have Passion, Settlers Accept Stagnation

Do you have passion? Do you have something you love to do or want to achieve, and you are constantly working and thinking about how to get there? Or are you marching in place, content to be in motion without actually getting anywhere in life?

I’ve realized over the last few years how important passion …

Brand Yourself AsJob SearchRelationships & Personal GrowthReputation ManagementSEO

Reverse SEO May Save Your Personal Brand’s Bacon

We’ve all done some stupid stuff in our lives. Some of it was even recorded. And if you’re really (un)lucky, some of that has even been put online for everyone to see.

Maybe it was a youthful indiscretion. Maybe it was someone catching you off-guard. Maybe it was that time you stupidly posted eight different …

Brand Yourself AsLifestyle & Habit BuildingNetworkingRelationships & Personal GrowthReputation ManagementSocial Media

Rebranding Yourself When Your Job or Life Changes

I’ve faced a couple of career changes in my years, after fully vesting myself in my previous job, company, and position. The changeover has been difficult at times, as I had gotten to know a lot of people in that previous industry, and set myself up as an authority on my particular company’s product or …

Brand Identity & Self-DiscoveryBrand Yourself AsJob SearchLifestyle & Habit BuildingPositioningRelationships & Personal GrowthReputation ManagementSEO

Share a Famous Name? How Do You Brand Yourself?

Vanessa Williams needs help with personal branding.

No, not that Vanessa Williams. She’s already famous.

Rather, Vanessa Williams (@prpeep), a PR professional in Pennsylvania. Last week, she tweeted Dan Schawbel and said, “Hey – would LOVE to see a post on personal branding for those of us who share a famous person’s name.” So, here …

Brand Yourself AsFuturesLifestyle & Habit BuildingNetworkingRelationships & Personal GrowthSocial Media

Growing Your Network for Your Next Job: A Parable

Steve was an ant.

A very hardworking, industrious ant who kept his eyes on the prize and toed the company line. He had been a hardworking, industrious line-toer for his company for 12 years.

For the last four years, he had even been the director of a brand new product line that was supposed to …

Brand Identity & Self-DiscoveryCorporate BrandingEmployer BrandingMarketingRelationships & Personal GrowthReputation ManagementSocial Media

Avoid Using Your Employer’s Name in Your Twitter Account

Using your employer’s name in your Twitter account can be a little problematic for you for a number of different reasons. Unless you’re using an employee-specific account, you’re going to have problems if you use your employer’s name as part of your personal brand.

Let’s say you work for Lamplighters Lighting Solutions and you launch …

Brand Yourself AsCommunication & NetworkingLifestyle & Habit BuildingRelationships & Personal Growth

Three Secrets to Build Your Personal Branding Success Overnight

We all do it. We all have someone we set our sights on as the goal we strive for. We have one person we aspire to be like, whether it’s achieving their level of success, their number of publications, their level of speaking engagements, or even beating their Klout score.

Our whole reason for personal …

Lifestyle & Habit BuildingMarketingPositioningRelationships & Personal GrowthReputation Management

Writers Need to Promote Themselves, or Go Unread

Writers hate marketing. Or most of them do. They hate promoting themselves, talking about themselves, or drawing attention to themselves in any way, any time, ever.

Ev-ver.

Writers — for the most part — are humble, and don’t like to “brag” about themselves. Of course, they equate “bragging” with telling people they just published a …