Personal Branding that Can Work for Anyone

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Like many twentysomethings, I run into the problem of not understanding my personal brand. At times, I don’t know where to start, and I’ve been at this for 3 years.

The truth is most twentysomethings don’t know what they want to do with their lives, which makes it impossible to commit to a single message, or even a multiple ones. We don’t know what we are good at, we don’t know what our professions will be, and we don’t know what we will specialize in. We want a personal brand with room to move, change, and grow.

People have told me they don’t buy into the whole “personal branding” thing because it’s too hard to summarize a person with a sentence, or even a paragraph. I disagree. Personal branding is important, and anyone can create a personal brand that is flexible.

Here are just a few personal brands that work for anyone, even if you don’t know what you want to be an “expert” in:

  • Leader
  • Helpful
  • Charitable
  • Community builder
  • Tech-savvy
  • Entrepreneurial
  • Careerist
  • Intelligent
  • Opinionated
  • Socially-conscious
  • Eco-friendly
  • Independent

What do you want to be known for? That’s really all a personal brand has to be about.

This post was inspired by Grace Boyle, Andrew Norcross, Matt Cheuvront, and Carlos Miceli.

Picture of Monica O'Brien

Monica O'Brien

Monica O’Brien is an MBA candidate with years of experience in business, strategy, and technology. She currently consults start-ups in the Chicago area on establishing their social media strategies. Monica attends the Chicago Booth School of Business (at the University of Chicago), currently ranked the #1 MBA program in the country by BusinessWeek, and is one of the 2007 Chicago Business Fellows. She concentrates in Marketing, Strategy, and Entrepreneurship. Monica holds a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, with a minor in Physics, from Truman State University. Her blog, Twenty Set, gives career advice to young professionals. Monica writes candidly about her own experiences. She has also written for Mashable and ProBlogger, and has been featured in major publications like the Christian Science Monitor.

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