Individuals with a strong personal brand are sought after to be included on critical and highly visible projects because of their distinguishing set of attributes, characteristics, behaviors, skills and competencies. Typically, these fall into 2 categories: Strategic Orientation, and Personal Credibility.

Strategic Orientation

• Consistently operate at a strategic level; have a clear understanding of the short-term as well as the long-term implication when making business decisions.
• Identify issues, establish strategy for resolution, propose alternatives, and take innovative, practical, simple and intellectual approaches to solve problems.
• Anticipate and influence change where necessary.
• Thrive on gaining and upgrading knowledge and skills portfolio
• Thrive on having a broad-based knowledge of the business, and is able to make the proper alignment and linkage; be well-informed and well-read.

Personal Credibility

• Foster effective, trusting relationships across the business
• Deliver on promise at the highest possible level
• Establish a track record of reliability, dependability, respect, fairness and equity
• Get result with integrity, partnerships and collaboration.
• Communicate effectively and persuasively, and with the appropriate candor.
• Have courage to tackle difficult problems.
• Easily enlist support from others, be approachable, and create harmony.

The good news is that everyone has a chance to stand out. Everyone has a chance to learn, improve, and build up their skills. Everyone has a chance to be a brand worthy of remark.

Tips on Developing your Personal Brand
Cindy Kraft, Career Coach and Personal Branding Strategist, says:
1) Be sure you understand how others in your circle of influence perceive you.
2) Learn to leverage your strengths in order to gain and maintain a competitive advantage.
3) Develop a plan (living document subject to change as you grow) to minimize any existing or potential weaknesses.

Tips:
•    Develop your brand from the inside out.
•    Create your own board of advisors of people you admire and trust.
•    Develop a reputation for honesty, integrity, trust and fairness.
•    Deliver on all promises you make.
•    Develop a reputation for being a contributing team player.
•    Never stop growing and improving, you will always be building your brand.
•    Be sure that your brand reflects who you are and what you believe – through what you do and how you do it.
•    Be sure to keep the company of people who have strong brands you admire.

Creating your personal brand may not happen overnight and it may be a work in progress throughout your career as you develop more strengths; however, the best way to start is to write down all of your strengths, including those related to your skills, those related to your personality and those related to your leadership style. You might ask your friends, family members, colleagues and supervisors for words that they would use to describe you as a leader and/or contributor. Highlight the ones that reoccur and that overlap with the ones you wrote down for yourself. You might also be interested in taking some personality/career tests to help you identify some words and phrases that describe and represent you. I would seriously recommend taking the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) test to identify your personality type and then search for more information online about people and professionals with this MBTI type. Often this information will include a brand-like title for your specific MBTI type and may inspire some ideas for your personal brand name.

Develop a Personal Audit
Ask yourself:

• What makes me different from others?
• How do I project myself?
• What is my value proposition?
• Am I sought after for visible, major difficult projects?
• How relevant and lasting is my portfolio of skills and competencies?
• What am I know for?
• What first impression do I leave on people?

Personal Branding on Social Networks
The amazing thing about developing your personal brand online in social networks and by blogging, is that you can hone in on connecting with those that have shared values and similar interests.
One of the best places to get started is a search engine. Start looking for blogs in your industry, and start following some of the more notable people on Twitter. After you get a feel for the type of content people are publishing, you can dip you toes into the personal branding waters by leaving comments on those blogs or spaces. You can even go neck deep and start your own blog to demonstrate your own, unique, perspective.
Personal branding and new media space create unique and mutually beneficial relationships. Anyone can express who they are to the world. And, if you're not sure what you have to say that is unique and different, just remember the immortal words of Oscar Wilde: "Be yourself, everyone else is already taken."

Read more:
http://www.personalbrandingblog.com/
http://personalbranding101.com/
http://www.chrisbrogan.com/free-ebook-on-personal-branding/
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/08/whos-telling-yo.html
http://www.hipo.ro/locuri-de-munca/vizualizareArticol/157/10+lectii+de+Personal+Branding
http://www.hipo.ro/locuri-de-munca/vizualizareArticol/157/10+lectii+de+Personal+Branding