Stacey Cohen, CEO/President, Co-Communications, Inc.Personal branding is an activity we all must embrace.  It’s not just for celebrities like Madonna or business moguls like Martha Stewart – it’s key to any professional’s success.  From the blogger to the job searcher to the CEO, developing and communicating a winning personal brand is essential. The personal branding process allows us to clearly communicate our value and good fit qualities to our target audiences.  A word of caution:  Personal branding is not an overnight success; it requires planning, clarity of message, consistency, evaluation and adaptation.Conduct a Self-auditMany jump right into the tactical or fun aspect of personal branding such as creating a blog.  Slow down and first enjoy what I refer to as personal branding therapy.  You already have a brand.   How do you describe your personal brand?  What are you passionate about?  What makes you unique?  What are your core competencies? Why should someone buy your products or services?  Remember, you need to take ownership and accountability of your brand and the message it sends.  Your personal brand should be authentic and reflect your uniqueness, passion, value, expertise, and knowledge base.Look Outside Yourself Equally important to your self-assessment is to gauge and understand how others perceive you.  Ask friends and colleagues to assist with your personal branding assessment.  What do they perceive as your strengths?Look Outside Yourself Again We all have competition.  Identify and analyze your competition carefully.  Determine why your target audience should select what you’re offering over others offering similar value?  What is their brand statement?  What makes you a better choice? Investigating your competition will give you intelligence on how to best distinguish/position yourself.Define your Target AudienceTo whom should you communicate your brand? Identify what decision makers are looking for and how they prefer to be reached.   Segment your audiences into primary vs. secondary targets and allocate more time and resources to the former.  Assertively position yourself in front of them and capture their attention with your winning brand.Communicating your Brand  Whether reaching colleagues, existing clients, or prospects, communicating your value requires the selection of online/offline platforms which will provide the largest ROI.  LinkedIn is the tool of choice for business professionals yet many of us don’t leverage it as we should. It’s important to build a stellar profile and make every word count. Recent feature enhancements allow users to bolster their pages with images and videos. I recommend taking a LinkedIn workshop or purchase “The Power Formula for Linkedin Success: Kick-Start Your Business, Brand, and Job Search” by Wayne Breitbarth to enhance your LinkedIn presence.  I’m also a fan of blogs, webinars, whitepapers, bylined articles to position yourself as an expert in your respective field.  “Shark Tank” mogul Barbara Corcoran, who built a brilliant personal brand, reinforces this in her statement “When you are constantly quoted as the expert in your field, everybody believes that you are.”  Make sure to express your brand consistently across all communication vehicles.Monitor your BrandSo you’ve developed your brand and implemented it – you’re done. Right?  Not so.  A personal brand requires routine maintenance and monitoring.  Check major search engines (Google, Bing Yahoo) to gain insight on what is being said about you. Develop a trusted network of colleagues, friends, and family to regularly provide support perfecting your personal brand.  Make sure to set up free alerts through Google and/or Talkwalker.  Remember that many of your social networks show up in online searches so curate content with precision.Personal branding is not about creating a persona you are not.  Be authentic - - be you.  Here’s to personal branding success for all. [author] About the Author: Stacey Cohen is CEO/President of Co-Communications, Inc. and a Huffington Post blogger on Personal Branding.  She can be reached by email at Stacey@cocommunications.com or via Twitter @staceycohen. [/author]