Prove your worth. In 2008, as director of communications at a community college, Sarah Evans met with her boss regularly to show what her online presence was yielding: postings that were reprinted, the number of student questions receiving prompt answers. "People were doubtful about getting into the social-media space, where they couldn't control the message," says Evans, who now runs Sevans Strategy, a Chicago new-media consulting firm.
Watch your language. Remember that people will see you as representing your employer—whether or not you are. Jason Kintzler, founder of PitchEngine, an online PR platform, began to realize he was self-censoring because "I didn't want to turn people off of the company." So he started a separate brand, New Media Cowboy, that is completely independent. There he can blog without, as he puts it, "sounding like a sales guy."
Attention can be bad. Consultant Patty Azzarello has a simple warning: "Make sure you are not annoying." Too often, self-branders use boorish tactics that overshadow their message. That applies in the office as well: Among Azzarello's strict no-nos: don't trap a superior on the way to the bathroom, and never go to a meeting just to be seen. "Doing something false, just for the sake of visibility, never works," she says.
Get credit —when it's due. If you don't make sure you and your team are acknowledged for scoring those trade-show leads, someone else will claim them; frequently the last team to touch a product gets all the credit for developing it. "Promote the good work you do," says Azzarello. "Don't take credit for anyone else's, but make sure you are not invisible."
By Josh Hyatt, contributor
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Building your brand (and keeping your job)
Case study No. 1: Don't be overeager
Case study No. 2: The brand rehabber
Case study No. 3: Branding, not bragging
Case study No. 4: Edit thyself
Case study No. 5: Be sensitive to changing priorities
The promised brand: How to get there
Case study No. 2: The brand rehabber
Case study No. 3: Branding, not bragging
Case study No. 4: Edit thyself
Case study No. 5: Be sensitive to changing priorities
The promised brand: How to get there
Marvin Smith, talent sourcer, Microsoft
Marvin Smith, a talent sourcer in Microsoft's entertainment devices division, is an expert on incorporating Web 2.0 tech and social communities into the recruiting process. He's also a major voice at recruiting-industry conventions, in trade groups, and on blogs. Yet until recently Smith, 60, didn't have a personal brand portal—otherwise known as a blog. "I wasn't sure what voice I wanted to put forth," he says, MORE
Jul 30, 2010 3:00 AM ET
Nick Goss, former corporate strategist, BMC Software
Nick Goss had an identity, all right, but it wasn't a positive one. "I was the annoying Englishman who says, 'This isn't going to work,' " he says. Goss, 50, started in 2003 as a corporate strategist in a division of BMC Software. At meetings he realized that his opinions were either ignored or greeted with skepticism; "The questioning got into incredible minutiae," MORE
Jul 30, 2010 3:00 AM ET
Mike Demler, former senior staff product manager, Synopsys
Three years ago Mike Demler was a senior staff product marketing manager at Synopsys, a $1.3 billion maker of tools used to produce integrated circuits. When the company asked if anyone wanted to blog, Demler enthusiastically volunteered. The now 55-year-old had earned his MBA a year earlier, and decided that for his career and the company's strategy "it was critical for me MORE
Jul 30, 2010 3:00 AM ET
Mark Pannell, former operations manager, Home Depot
Let's get this straight: Simply having a Twitter personality does not make you a good employee. As folks like Tila Tequila have demonstrated, just because you can use social-networking tools doesn't mean you should. It can be fatal. That's what Mark Pannell, 35, a veteran operations manager at a Home Depot store in Toledo, says happened in the summer of 2009. After a MORE
Jul 30, 2010 3:00 AM ET
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