500 million+ people have created Facebook accounts so there is a good chance you are one of them. If you have plenty of Facebook fans and friends you are in the business of building a personal brand.

But who’s brand are you really building?

Is it your brand or is it the Facebook brand you are building?

I would suggest it is the Facebook brand but maybe you don’t care as long as you are networking your brand via Facebook.

But who really owns your Facebook presence?

Well not you because facebook can delete your account any time they wish to and as far as personal risk management is concerned it’s not an acceptable risk for establishing a personal brand.

But ask yourself this:

If you owned your own domain name and established a blog or website to network your brand, who would own the brand?

You would.

It makes good sense to use your own domain name for personal branding. Your name as a domain should dominate the front page of Google when people search your name. You can use the blog to connect with people and you can link it to your Facebook pages with your domain being the central hub of your brand.

A domain name only costs around $10 year and web hosting around $15 month which is peanuts for the benefits they present.

So take charge of your personal brand and register your name as a domain and start building your blog.

Our favourite video is of Gary’s presentation at the Web2.0 Expo NY.

And the power of a personal brand.

I think the Nationals will be too nervous about doing anything with the domain other than not hiding the fact they now control it.  They are also enjoying that the press are suggesting that the Labour Party didn’t register nathanrees.com.au because they are preparing to dump Nathan Rees as Premier.

This is  a powerful example of why it is important to own and control your own domain. If your name was to fall into the hands of someone who really wanted to harm your good name (your personal brand) they could easily do it.

Eventually you would uncover them for what they are but the damage would considerable whilst you did so.

That’s when another general truth my parents taught me kicked in “What goes round comes round.” That one took me awhile to understand but now I realise they were referring to karma or everything in life is cyclical and will eventually balance out.

Those maxims are even more relevant on the Internet as it quickly becomes a bigger part of our lives and introduces new ways for us to communicate and express our thoughts and opinions.

But one thing you may or may not be aware of is that once you express your thoughts or opinions on the Internet they will be archived forever, literally. This means that if you create a webpage, leave a comment on a blog, participate in a forum discussion, post to Facebook or Twitter, whatever you write leaves your control and enters into some server side database that you have no control over.

An example of a public archive is the Internet Archive’s Way Back Machine a project started in 1996 that now has over 150 Billion web pages archived and searchable. You can search the archive and view web pages published years back and may no longer be online, or that’s what the original publisher may think.

So in your quest to create your personal brand my parents maxims become even more important because what you publish will always be available to anyone who really wants to find it.

Remember your brand is what people do think about you and if you make a habit of expressing unsavoury opinions of people, karma will kick in and come back and bite you.  And always be aware of the Way Back Machine and such like because they are probably allies of karma.

So I believe it is good practice to set yourself up for anything to happen in the future , all good of course.This is where personally branding yourself will assist you in attracting the right results and place you in a stong position for whatever comes your way..

I was speaking to a friend today and that is exactly what has happened to her. She was pretty well set up in her career and was working for a large International Company in sales. Over the years she has worked hard to build her skills and is now an excellent trainor and Team leader.

In the Company she was well respected and had a good reputation so she saw no reason to give any thought to her reputation outside of the compnay.

branding is a key to future success

Everything that she did was only reflected in the Company that she worked for and the one she assumed she would be with for a long time to come.

With the sudden change in the International economic climate this future plan dissolved very quickly leaving her with a clean slate to start all over again.

If she had been branding herself as a separate entity from the Company she worked in she would now have a great asset to assist her in moving to a new position or starting her own consulting company.

All the experience and training that she had acquired would have been reflected in her blogs etc and she would have built her own credentials .

Instead she walked out with a reference ,experience and needed to start applying for positons and preparing a cv.

T0 start a branding/blog website and begin to Brand herself at this time was too late for her current interviews or plans.

The important aspect of blogging and branding is that it needs to be accumulative over a period of time and there is no way of short cutting this.

So, to insure future results it makes sense to me that no matter where a person works they would be better to have a  Branding tool that is totally separate from where they currently work or contract to.

It was a mammoth effort,  and ever since,  the John Bertrand name (Personal Brand) has been associated with sailing.  I’m sure over the years sponsors have paid John mega dollars for him to be associated with their products and brand.

But some smart fellow has the use of the John Bertrand brand for a few dollars each year,  not the thousands of dollars conventional sponsors would pay.

He did this by registering the domain name JohnBertrand.com and put up a website at www.johnbertrand.com but the clever part is the website sells sailing equipment.

I’m obviously assuming that the person who owns the domain is not the famous John Bertrand, I have no way of knowing,  but the website doesn’t look classy enough to be owned by the John Bertrand, also a whois domain search shows it’s registered to someone in the U.S.

I  also assume the owner of the website is making money from the John Bertrand brand because it’s been online several years.

Be aware,  the owner of the domain may also be called John Bertram and just got lucky, there’s no law that I am aware of stops this kind of marketing, it’s a case of first come first served with domain registration.

So the moral of this story is to register your domain name if  it’s still available because it would be a crying shame to win an Americas Cup and have someone else profit from your great deeds.

His BarackObama.Com website is an outstanding example of personal branding in action.

It played a crucial role in getting him to the White House and it continues to support his Presidency.

Have you registered your name as a personal branding domain?

Have you registered the names of your children and grandchildren as personal domains for their future?

Check here to see if those names are available.

Maggie Beer

Her products are sold under her name and her brand is growing in popularity and has enormous creditability.

Unfortunately when Maggie created her website she didn’t provide any opportunity for visitors to engage publicly with her or initiate a conversation.

I would love to see Maggie set up a blog because I have no doubt that many people would like to stay informed about the many interesting things she is doing.  A blog RSS feed makes this very easy as every time Maggie provided an update her subscribers could read it in a Reader such as Google.

She does have a food club that people can join.

You and Sam Smartdude have equivalent skills, both fresh from Harvard with your marketing degrees under your arms, both feeling confident about winning the position.

You discover that Sam Smartdude has got a huge advantage up his sleeve, for the last two years he has been active on the Internet. Sam registered the domain SamSmartdude.com and created is personal brand website. The website served has a hub for his social network properties, he has:

http://www.facebook.com/SamSmartdude

405 friends who are interested in marketing, many of his friends are employed by influential corporations.

http://www.linkedin.com/in/SamSmartdude

Sam has published a professional profile on Linkedin and created a potent worldwide network of business people involved in marketing.

http://www.twitter.com/SamSmartdude

Sam has 2,506 followers on Twitter who he has access to anytime of the day.

http://www.youtube.com/SamSmartdude

He has a popular channel on Youtube where he has gathered together a useful collection of marketing based videos. He has hundreds of subscribers to his channel.

Sam’s website www.SamSmartdude.com has become a gathering place for people from around the world, Sam posts thoughtful articles on his website and people relish in commenting and creating discussion around Sam’s publishings.

All in all Sam Smartdude has already created a personal brand that is obviously respected in the marketing world. He obviously realised how important building a brand on the Internet would be for helping his career options. Compared to your own efforts on the Internet Sam runs first and daylight is second.

The head of Acme Industrials Human Recourse’s now has the ability to Google Sam Smartdude and pretty much determine if Sam is a suitable candidate for the job even before she ever meets Sam.

How do you feel about your job prospects with Acme Industrials, it’s a good bet Sam Smartdude has you running scared. But this is the way it’s going to be, it’s actually happening now, many corporations choose to Google potential candidates to decide if the person will be granted an interview.

Establishing your own personal brand on the Internet is no longer an option but a necessaty, don’t waste another minute and start now.

“Name your company after yourself.“

This got me thinking of successful entrepreneurs who did just that and went on to build successful personal brands.

Here are just a few that come to mind:

• LJ Hooker
• Ray White
• Marty Rodriguez
• Michael Hill
• Dick Smith
• Bing lee
• Gai Waterhouse
• Carla Zampatti
• Elle Macpherson
• Max Markson
• David Koche

I’m sure I could fill the website with more names but all the people listed above have one thing in common other than their personal brand and that is they recognised the importance of registering their name as a domain name.

If you are not already aware, domain names are unique,  so if you haven’t already done so you should secure yours right now. Even if you don’t intend creating a web presence in the near future,  you should secure your domain name before anyone else does.  If not you’ll be  denied the opportunity of establishing your personal brand online with your own xname as your domain.