Are you selling your personal brand or are you part of the Big Ho-Hum?

Much has been written about the importance of personal branding and how the Internet is an important tool to promote it … and occasionally crush it!

But one of the things I observe as I look at everything from LinkedIn profiles to Twitter backgrounds is that so much of it just THE SAME.

Many people seem to be following either implicit or explicit rules about how to present yourself on the social web and that results in a surprisingly drab experience. I think a lot of this is due to the fact that many people aren’t telling the story of their brand, they’re telling their story — within “accepted” guidelines and frameworks — they think others want to hear.

This results in The Big Ho Hum. If you really want to see what I mean scan the LinkedIn profiles of your friends <yawn> and ask yourself — Is that really their STORY coming through? Is their true BRAND coming through? Or, is this basically a resume posing as a personality? Even all the pictures look the same.

What does resume-speak do for you as a personal brand? Nothing … unless that really is your personality! Resume-speak only makes you blend in with all the other resume-speakers.

Take a fresh look at the images, profiles, graphics, and stories you have populating the web in the context of your personal story.  Do you stand out?   Is that really you out there?