Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success Paperback – 7 April 2009

Ideal for those at the starting point but helpful reminders when you're fully in your stride too. A nice, easy to read book.

Dan Schawbel's book teaches college students and those who are new to the world of work how to build and promote their personal brands so they can approach the job market with confidence instead of fear. While the book targets Gen Y, other age groups can benefit from Schawbel's detailed advice on building a personal brand by using various online tools. A personal brand not only helps you get hired - even for a first job - and move up the ladder, it also leads to opportunities and advancement. Even though people often regard a "me, me, me" attitude and self-promotion as negative, Schawbel assures you that it makes sense to focus on yourself as you build your brand. After all, you are the best person to advertise your abilities and expertise. getAbstract finds that this book provides in-depth instructions for developing your personal reputation and brand without making you feel like an egotistical self-promotion machine.

Great

Personal branding is described in the first few pages of Me 2.0 as the process of "unearthing what makes you exceptional and developing plans to use that to demonstrate value and achieve your goals." This is precisely the task ahead for individuals engaged in career development, especially those transitioning from one occupation to another. This book is targeted at college students and young professionals, so don't expect scholarly writing in this down and dirty, first-hand account of how one guy creates and uses his brand to reach his ultimate goals. Instead you'll get straight from the gut writing, highlights of branding success, and numerous methods and tips for moving forward with your brand. Schwabel is young, and that comes out in his writing, but that does not diminish the excellent ideas and suggestions he provides along the way. You'll find quite a bit of good advice on developing a personal brand, as well as how to sell your brand using the multitude of options on the Internet. Additionally, you'll learn why and when to use branding techniques. Me 2.0 is well worth the read as you work toward marketing yourself toward a successful future. And for the older readers out there, you'll discover all you you need to know about making the Internet work for you when you are re-entering the workforce, transitioning your career or just getting the next job in your career path.

I purchased Dan Schawbel's book, Me 2.0, in Spring 2009. Since that time, I've diligently studied and implemented Dan's advice particularly in creating and promoting a personal blog. Dan is the lead author and founder of the Personal Branding Blog and Personal Branding Magazine. He's a nationally recognized expert, and I avidly read his blog for helpful insights relating to online personal brand management. Dan also has a number of talented, contributing authors to the Personal Branding Blog such as Chad Levitt and Jun Loayza whose articles I regularly study.Me 2.0's target audience is the Generation Y demographic. The book provides excellent guidance on interview preparation, interviewing skills, and professional networking that I wish someone would have shared with me 20+ years ago. Young undergraduates and graduates competing in today's job market should heed Dan's guidance. These two Wall Street Journal articles provide sobering evidence: With Jobs Scarce, Age Becomes an Issue: More Young Workers are at Risk of Layoffs as Employers Grow Wary of Letting Older Employees Go and The Curse of the Class of 2009: For College Graduates Lucky Enough to Get Work this Year, Low Wages are Likely to Haunt Them for a Decade or More.Furthermore, 40-Something Working Professionals (like me) can tremendously benefit from Me 2.0's advice on online personal branding. According to Me 2.0, effectively creating and promoting a blog are foundation principles in successful online personal branding. Until I started studying Me 2.0 and Dan Schawbel's free eBook, Blogging Your Brand: A Complete Guide to Your Success, I had no idea about "the basics" and overall commitment required to effectively create, optimize, promote, and maintain a blog. These two resources educated me on purposefully:* Positioning my knowledge about a subject I'm passionate about (e.g., social media strategy)* Establishing my personal brand online (as evidenced by Google Search Engine Page Results / SERPs on my name)* Optimizing and promoting my blog via search engine marketing and by commenting on other bloggers' blogs* Evaluating and selecting a blog hosting service such as TypePad or WordPress* Claiming my blog on [...] (and other relevant steps to "owning" my online identity)I've been executing Me 2.0's lessons in professionally branding myself as an inbound marketer and social media / digital marketing advocate. In addition, writing my Social Media Reinvention Blog and earning the Inbound Marketing Certified Professional designation are cornerstones of this branding strategy. The online publication of my new blog, catalog of comments on other blogs, and tweets on Twitter will credibly present my personal wherewithal and knowledge in a Web 2.0 world.Studying and implementing Me 2.0's lessons provided me the "hands-on guidance" I required to purposefully build and shape that knowledge.

I appreciate what Dan does in this book. I think his insights are good. He is bringing the topic of personal branding to a new generation -- Gen Y. He uses some good, solid information to back up his claim. Dan clearly gets it in regards to bringing the concept of product branding to one's personal and professional life. In that way, the book is good.However, the book is so poorly written that I had to put it down. In my opinion it's un-readable. I'd stick with his blog, which is much clearer to understand."Personal Brand Guru" -- well, I'm not sure about that. Tom Peters is the personal brand guru. Dan is simply a guy who understands branding and marketing and is able to share his insights with his generation. What Schawbel DOES understand is how to get his foot in the door to get some press and then how to leverage that to get more press. We could all learn something from him in this regard.Sean HarryAuthor,  Career Crossroads Career Management Solutions of Oregon Career Crossroads

I received this book just the other day. Finally had time to sit down and give it a read, suffice it to say, I'm done. It's a well organized and thought out book.By the time you're done reading, it is as if you had followed Dan's journey every step of the way, leading up to the book itself.Me 2.0 is not about being selfish, but a way to understand the Web 2.0 world and how to revolve your career around it. Times are changing fast and you can attribute technology as one of the core reasons why. Your career must keep up.Me 2.0 is full of references and insights (from Dan's POV) on how one can stay current. How to always be on the lookout and when it is appropriate to market yourself.Although you can look at Me 2.0 as a "self-motivational" type book, I'd feel that would be undermining it's true value.Be transparent, honest and passionate about your career and good things will come about from it. But don't fool yourself, you must execute and continue working at it.It is an ongoing process, and this book provides good guidance.Brandon[...]

I am a 4th year university student from Australia and I purchased this book to help me understand how to position my myself for success. I found this book to be of two extremes, the first part being the ultra simple and the second very interesting. The opening chapters discuss items such as personal appearance and what to wear to an interview. I believe this is something that should be common sense for anyone who is finishing university/college (the books target audience). In that regard I feel that I gained little from the first few chapters.The second half of the book where the author discusses developing, marketing and leveraging you personal brand I found to be very interesting and rewarding. These chapters discuss how to build brand and networks (on-line and off) and then leverage them to be successful. As Australia is generally slightly behind America on the uptake of social media, it was interesting to read the authors thoughts about the use of social media tools and personal websites as a replacement to traditional resumes. This is something that I think is only just beginning to happen over hear.I have an IT and marketing background and I feel that this book still added to my knowledge about the subject of personal branding and blogging.Overall, I would recommend this book to students in their second or third year of university/college so they can start to build their brand and start networking with the right people before they start looking for a job.