After reading the book Crush It! by Gary Vaynerchuck, I was inspired to investigate the benefits of social marketing and creating a personal brand.  As business evolves, a larger segment of marketing is shifting into the online arena.  Internet content and social networks are being used with increasing frequency in both small and large market businesses. 

What I find truly interesting is that the position of Social Marketing Manager is popping up in various industries.  The responsibilities of these individuals include (but are not limited to) creating, updating and maintaining corporate profiles on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.  In addition, the Social Marketing Manager is typically responsible for maintaining a company blog and potentially the public-facing website.  (Note: To any HR or personnel managers who may stumble upon this post, please consider this my application for the aforementioned position.)

The concept of a personal brand is also interesting.  Every individual has an outward representation of themselves, similar to the way a corporation does.  While corporate branding has always been important for business and sales, the popularization of social networking has made the personal brand equally visible.  By using the Internet-based tools available, personal marketing is now not only possible but relatively easy to do.

My recent increase in exposure to these two topics has sparked an interest in digging a little deeper.  In particular, I’m interested in the contrast between the two.  At what point does a career in social marketing inspire one to improve their personal brand?  Or vice versa?  It would seem that the two are linked, but very few people enjoy taking their work home with them.