Personal Branding is the process whereby people become well known. It’s a way to take the randomness out of your reputation.

Personal branding starts with a website. I won’t give you detailed information about how you create a website, my purpose here is to help you understand the importance of this platform in personal branding.

A website is the central spot when building a web presence, branding yourself. There are a ton of resources for building a site. You can go here to see many of the choices.

A blog or a Web Log is, in my opinion, even better than a website.

When you leave ‘posts’, articles with valuable content, on your blog, people can leave comments and you are able to develop a relationship with them. There are great resources for blog construction also if you go here.

I suggest you create a WordPress blog. WordPress is very user friendly. It’s free and there a ton of free ‘themes’ or templates to choose from.

Whether a blog or website, information about yourself, your professional goals and experience will be reflected. Your blog will be your main hub where all other platforms lead back to; a very important part of branding yourself.

If you feel unqualified to build your own, go a head and hire someone to do it for you. It is something worth the investment. I recommend Gavin Mountford of Tribe Syndication Alliance. While you’re there join TSA if you haven’t already!

Start with choosing your ‘domain name’. A domain name is simply what your website will be called. Use your name if possible. When I started, I didn’t realize the importance so I choose lindagraceonline.com, if I had to do it again, I’d choose lindagracecox.com.

You can register your domain name at Go Daddy, just click on the link here: Domain Sale! $7.49 .com at GoDaddy. After you have your domain name you’ll need to ‘host’ it, WordPress will host your domain for free, but if they do, they’ll have control over it. You definitely want to pay a service to host it and own it.

Go Daddy is a great domain registrar however my mentor, Kimberly Castleberry, says, “GD is *not* a place you want to be hosting WordPress sites.” I advise purchasing hosting from either Hostgator, by clicking on this link, when you scroll down you’ll see a Host Gator banner ad. When you click on the ad, you’ll be able to sign up for their hosting.

After you have a WordPress Blog of your own you can continue down the path of developing your personal brand!

Getting a Gravatar to connect a picture to your comments on other people’s WordPress blogs will get the focus on you, and attaching the same picture to blogspot or blogger blogs by attaching your picture to a gmail account will get your brand on the worldwide web!

Caution: choose a picture that you want to be remembered by. After having to change my profile picture on too many sites because I had chosen a snapshot that I never liked, I finally paid a professional photographer to take one that I’m happy with. This picture will be with me forever!

As you build your personal brand that stands out from the pack, you’ll get attention and people will learn to know, like and trust you! In the process, you’ll have a blast blogging!

Have you already started your personal branding? How long ago did you start branding yourself? Tell me in the comments below~ I started in October 2009~ I can’t believe how fast time flies!!!

“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind” – Dr. Seuss

Tammy Camp has an awesome post on transparency! She talks about the concept of transparency, being honest and open, about setting very few, if any, barriers between you and your social contacts.
Tammy said, “It doesn’t necessarily mean you have to tell everyone everything about you, or report about 100% of the things you do each day. But it means you can share pictures/videos of your everyday life, say where you are when you’re there, and share your experiences at many different times and places.”

Reality is, just as Brad Paisley shows us in “online”, you can be anything you want to be online.

I agree with Tammy, being transparent is being honest about who you are and being unafraid to show it.
When we get to know who we are, be honest and open about it, people will begin to believe we are what we say we are. People may not agree with our opinion or even like us, but they can trust we are what we say we are, we are transparent.

How are people going to know, like and trust us if we’re not transparent?  You know, it’s all about credibility!

When we are transparent, we will show people who we really are and there is no fear of facts undisclosed.  With this knowledge out there, we can develop true friends no matter where they are geographically located!  Some of my best friends are on the other side of the country  or even the world!

If you’re less than transparent online, I encourage you try to open up, show your real self!  If you’re not happy with your true self, make changes so you are comfortable putting your cards on the table!

I know from personal experience, full transparency is what will bring us the most happiness and the greatest success as online network marketers!

Tell me what you think about Transparency in the comments below!

Linda Grace

One day I went to a lawyer friend for advice.  “I’m in real trouble,” I said. “my neighbors across the road are going on vacation for a month and instead of boarding their two dogs they are going to keep them locked up and a woman is coming to feed them –if she doesn’t forget—and meanwhile they’ll be lonely and bark all day and howl all night and I won’t be able to sleep and I’ll either have to call the SPCA to haul them away or I’ll go berserk and go over there and shoot them and then when my neighbors return they’ll go berserk and come over and shoot me …”

My layer patted back a delicate yawn.  “Le me tell you a story,” he said.  “And don’t stop me if you’ve heard it – because it will do you good to hear it again.”

“A fellow was speeding down a country road late at night and BANG! went a tire.  He got out and looked and –drat it! — he had no jack.  Then he said to himself, ‘Well, I’ll just walk to the nearest farmhouse and borrow a jack!’  He saw a light in the distance and said, ‘Well, I’m in luck; the farmer’s up.  I’ll just knock on the door and say I’m in trouble, would you please lend me a jack? And he’ll say, why sure, neighbor, help yourself — but bring it back.’

“He walked on a little farther and the light went out so he said to himself, ‘Now he’s gone to bed and he’ll be annoyed because I’m bothering him—so he’ll probably want some money for his jack.  And I’ll say, all right, it isn’t very neighborly – but I’ll give you a quarter.  And he’ll say, do you think you can get me out of bed in the middle of the night and then offer me a quarter?  Give me a dollar or get yourself a jack somewhere else.’

“By this time the fellow had worked himself into a lather.  He turned into the gate and muttered. ‘A dollar! All right, I’ll give you a dollar.  But not a cent more! A poor devil has an accident and all he needs is a jack.  You probably won’t let me have one no matter what I give you.  That’s the kind of guy you are.’

“Which brought him to the door and he knocked –angrily, loudly.  The farmer stuck his head out the window above the door and hollered down, ‘Who’s there? What do you want?’ The fellow stopped pounding on the door and yelled up, ‘You  and your damn jack!  You know what you can do with it!”

When I stopped laughing, I started thinking, and I said, “Is that what I’ve been doing?”

I thought, “Most of us go through life bumping into obstacles we could easily by- pass; spoiling for a fight and lashing out in blind rages at fancied wrongs and imaginary foes. And we don’t even realize what we are doing until someone startles us one day with a vivid word like a lightning flash on a dark night.”

Well, the other night I was driving home from the city.  I was late for dinner and I hadn’t phoned my wife.  As I crawled along in a line of cars I became more and more frustrated and angry.  I’ll tell her I was caught in the heavy weekend traffic and she’ll say, ‘Why didn’t you me before you left town?’ Then I’ll say, ‘What difference does it make anyway –I’m here!’  And she’ll say, ‘Yes, and I’m here, too, and I’ve been here all day waiting to hear from you!’ And I’ll say, ‘I suppose I haven’t anything else to do but call you up every hour on the hour and make like a lovebird!’ And she’ll say, ‘You mean like a wolf, but you wouldn’t be calling me!’ By this time I am turning into the drive and I am plenty steamed up.
 As I jumped out and slammed the car door, my wife flung open the window upstairs.
“All right!” I shouted up to her, “Say it!”
“I will,” she cooed softly. “Wanta borrow a jack?”