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Today’s Author Spotlight is on millennial Dan Schawbel and his upcoming book Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success which takes an in-depth look at the hot topic du jour “brandividuals,” and how his generation has come to embrace and advance the practice.

Part how-to guide, part personal journey, Dan gives a crash course on using social media to leverage who you are online and help you become who you are as a professional. Me 2.0 comes out in April, but we’re giving away free copies to the first three commenters who weigh in on their experience with managing their personal brand.

Ypulse: What inspired you to write a book about personal branding?

Dan Schawbel: I know first-hand how difficult it is to get a job right out of college. Even though I had eight internships, seven leadership positions and straight A’s in college, it still took me months to claim the marketing position I sought out at EMC Corporation. After four months in my role, I started my first blog called “Driven-to-Succeed,” which was a compilation of all my college experiences, with career advice for all of those frustrated college students trying to find themselves. Without the required marketing and engagement necessary to make a blog successful, it folded.

On March 14th of 2007, I read Tom Peters’ “Brand Called You” article in Fast Company, which discussed how we, as brands, need to market ourselves and become free agents. What was interesting is that I had preached self marketing all throughout college, as I had my own “personal branding toolkit” that I used to market myself, such as business cards, a website and a portfolio, which made me stand out. Since personal branding is my DNA, I started actively blogging, figuring out this brave new web 2.0 world and establishing new projects one after the other. In six months, I had a blog, awards, an online TV series, a magazine and a dozen published articles in magazines and websites. On August 1st, Fast Company profiled me, EMC found out, and I was recruited to be the first social media specialist for the company. Instead of applying for the job, I was recruited based on my passion and that triggered the idea for the book. To teach young individuals (even people in older generations) how to make a living based on doing what they love, and become the “commander of their career.” I believe that we can’t depend on our managers, teachers or even family to make us successful; it has to come deep within us. At the end of the day we’re accountable. The crazy thing is that I was in Fast Company exactly ten years after Tom’s article was published, meaning that there may be some fate involved!

YP: How do you think the practice of personal branding has changed businesses? What changes will we continue to see?

DS: Old business models are currently broken under these current conditions. Businesses are going to have to shift how they market themselves, from old communication methods, to leveraging the power of their employees and community. Instead of spending thousands of dollars on advertisements in mainstream publications, such as the New York Times, or on TV commercials or radio spots, companies are allocating their budgets to the internet. Businesses are expected to have a presence in social media now and it’s seen as an opportunity cost if they aren’t actively involved. From an internal perspective, companies are establishing social networks for employees and, externally, they are doing viral videos, corporate blogs, and registering for Twitter accounts and Facebook pages. We will continue to see more companies who develop content (non-sales related) to capture the interest of their audiences, instead of forcing messages down their throats.

YP: What implications will the leveraging of social media tools have on the lines between millennials’ professional and personal lives? What are the challenges? The benefits?

DS: There is no professional or personal life division anymore. Our lives are being converged through social mediums and it’s inescapable. A millennial’s best bet is to count everything they do as being public and realize that there is no hiding anymore. You are who you are and at some point people will discover the real you. “Social” is the keyword here because most people are using these tools to talk about personal interests, in addition to business. If you just communicate what you do for work, you’ll be perceived as not well-rounded and, as we all know, when we applied to college, they wanted everything.

[As far as challenges] hiring managers use social networks as background checks and if they discover pictures of your latest keg party or a status message talking about how much you hate work, you’ll be out of a job. One in every five hiring managers, as well as one in every ten college admissions officers uses social networks in this fashion.

Many millennials will, or have already, fallen into the trap of messaging social activities to the wrong audience (their fellow employees). Their communications through social networks can ruin their experience on their job if they connect coworkers with family members and friends together.

[In the way of benefits] social media tools allow you to promote your brand, in such a way, that you’re telling the world what you’re passionate about and the type of job you want. It’s like creating your own personal ad for free and hoping that someone takes notice.

By using these tools, you get to be authentic and people can really connect with that, which can help give you visibility and connectivity at work, or if you’re trying to get a job.

YP: How can personal branding help millennials’ weather the recession?

Millennials are very fortunate to have been born with a cell phone in hand and a laptop in the other hand. There is a great opportunity to use these new tools to connect with hiring managers directly, without having to use job boards and corporate websites. Twitter, for example, is a tool that allows you to message people who work at companies you’re interested in directly, without going through all the politics. It will be very challenging for millennials because there are 1.3 million college graduates and 20% less jobs for them. The competition will be harsh, but the ambitious and qualified candidates will prevail nonetheless. Personal branding allows millennials to match their expertise with their passions and become known for it, so they choose the right place to apply for or create their own position or company. It gives millennials confidence and a sense of identity, while, below the surface, it’s great for networking, which is the ultimate path to getting a job.

YP: Is there an example of a millennial that has handled their personal branding particularly well? Which one and why?

YP: I think Ben Casnocha has an exceptional personal brand. He started a company in his teens, is a bestselling author and use social media tools to maintain all his relationships. If you read his blog, you will gather that he is an intellectual. He writes about the books he reads, quotes famous people and now does video, so you get to know him more and the people who he interviews. Even though he’s young, he’s able to get a lot of respect from successful people, like Mark Benioff (CEO of Salesforce.com).

For more coverage of YA books and publishing, check out the Ypulse Books Channel sponsored by the NORTH OF BEAUTIFUL: FIND BEAUTY CHALLENGE! (LB Teens).

More about Dan Schawbel
Dan Schawbel is the leading personal branding expert for Gen-Y. He is the author of  Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success (Kaplan, April 2009). With over 150,000 results for his name in Google, Fast Company calls Dan a “personal branding force of nature.” He is the founder of the award winning Personal Branding Blog, publisher of Personal Branding Magazine, head judge for the Personal Brand Awardsand director of Personal Branding TV. Dan is keynote speaker at colleges and universities and helps individuals and companies with branding.

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Categorized under: Author Spotlight, Books & Print

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