In the past few years there has been a great deal of talk about personal branding. The difference between now and when Tom Peters first broached this topic, is the rise of social technologies that have made branding not only more personal, but within reach.
Personal branding, by definition, is the process by which we market ourselves to others. As a brand, we can leverage the same strategies that make celebrities or corporate brands appeal to others. We can build brand equity in our personal brand the same way.
Your personal brand is about making this equation equal: Your self-impression = How people perceive you.
A quick way to get a feel for your equation scale, is to Google your name to view your digital footprint as others would see it. Here are a couple tools you can use to do some quick research.
The Online 
ID Calculator has a little assessment that will give you a basic understanding of your current online ID. If you use it before and after a major online personal-branding campaign, you can see how the campaign affected your score.
This is a useful tool that provides a comprehensive snapshot of how your brand shows up across many online search engines, including video search engines. Type your name in quotes (e.g., “Kim Mickelsen”) and see a custom page created just for you, with input from Google, Twitter, Bing, FriendFeed, Twingly, YouTube, Digg, Flickr, Delicious, Bloglines, Truveo, Wikio, Yahoo, Technorati, etc. You can also use Addictomatic to get a picture of what’s happening on the Web in your area of expertise.
