Elements of Credibility in Personal Branding

I was reading Dan Schawbel’s blog entry ,“Your personal brand is greater than your blog posts”(personalbrandingblog.wordpress.com). In it he touched on the importance of credibility.  It is a critical subject that deserves more attention than it gets.

Credibility is defined as the quality of being believable or trustworthy. Credibility is your reputation. It tells the world that you take, or don’t take, personal responsibility for your actions. Without delving too deep, your personal and professional success will be a direct reflection of how credible people believe you are.

Consider: A bad credit score says you do not take personal responsibility for your debts. A criminal record or a failed drug test says you do not take personal responsibility for your conduct. It should be no surprise that more and more employers insist that job candidates avail this information to them as a condition of employment. It’s a great predictor of how much personal responsibility you will take in your work.

Credit scores and criminal records can be mended in most cases. It is a long, tiring process but they look good as new in the end. Your personal reputation with those whom you have a personal or professional relationship with is much more important and much more difficult to repair. It’s like a car after an accident, it’s never quite the same again. And, unlike a credit score your personal reputation is completely subjective. Any perceived material deception will turn you from credible to not credible in a blink. The public relations industry is built on protecting and repairing reputations. If you’re like me, buying PR representation isn’t really practical. But you can protect and maintain your own reputation to a large extent.

Remember: Outstanding personal brand development + bad reputation = an ineffective personal brand. If you’re reputation says that you don’t care then you’re potential audience won’t care either.

Elements of Credibility in Personal Branding:

1. BRAND PAGE – Dan Schawbel’s post discussed credibility in the context of blog posts. Your readers want you to qualify why your opinion matters.

·        You should have a Brand Page on your blog. This is essentially your resume formatted in a press release style that is an overview of the professional activities that offers evidence of your knowledge in a given field. Not having a brand page doesn’t mean you have a bad reputation but it does mean your readers have no basis to believe what you are saying.

·        Don’t lie about your experience. Your readers can Google some or all of your claims and you can be discredited by what they find or what they should be able to find and can’t. Also, lots of potential employers will search your web activity. If your brand page doesn’t square with the resume you gave them it could be trouble.

1. BLOG ENTRIES OR COMMENTS –
   • Again, don’t lie.
   • Also take care in what  and how you say things. Make sure what you’re trying to say is what you’re actually saying.
   • Avoid expressing political or religious convictions. It’s certainly you’re right to express your views but people take this stuff very personally and it may be held against you.
   • Poor spelling and grammar doesn’t make you look careless. It makes you look stupid. (Tip: Write posts on Word first, then copy and paste. Or use the spell check on the Google toolbar for comments.)
2. WEB PAGE DESIGN –
   • I have seen lots of  blog sites that have thoughtful concept and content packaged in a web design that looks like the aftermath of a 5 year old’s birthday party. Lots of big colors, funky angles, and flashing stuff. This kind of site’s personality is drowning out it’s functionality and make it’s owner look like a MySpace refugee (no offense to MySpace). A point of reference for site design is:

                                                               i.      1 bold color  that frames the site.

                                                             ii.      1 or 2 light, muted colors for interior framing.

                                                            iii.      2 different, relatively modest font styles.

                                                           iv.      3 levels of font sizes

                                                             v.      Nothing that will shout over the content.

                                                           vi.      Have someone you trust critique it for it’s professional appearance.

        

One final word. Your good reputation tells the world you take personal responsibility for your actions. It is why others are willing to engage with you and believe you. Everything attributed to you on the Web contributes to others perception of you, so take care with what they’re seeing.