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Peter Robert Casey: The King of Social Media Hoops


Peter Robert Casey is the undisputed king of social media hoops. I am writing his story to expose the world to him and how he is wired to change the game of basketball. If you are a fan, student or coach the game of basketball you must have heard about Peter. Peter was born with that New York hustle and his rise to social media hoops stardom is a testament to his passion, drive, and desire to carve out a space for himself in the game that he loves. His turn-by-turn navigation in his Personal Branding GPS required him to download a different map to live his dreams.

Peter is a great personal branding case study which is why I chose to kick off my “Personal Branding Interview” series with him. The build it and they will come concept doesn’t work in social media and certainly not personal branding. Come with me as I interview the new face of social media hoops.

Peter Robert Casey (@Peter_R_Casey) was the first media credentialed micro-blogger in college basketball history. Labeled a “pioneer” for altering the composition of St. John’s press row, Peter’s story of social media success was featured in the New York Times, and on the pages of ESPN.com, Sports Illustrated, Mashable, and AOL’s Switched.

Both a student of the game and the business surrounding it, Peter enjoys writing about the interplay of basketball, social media, and marketing. His work has appeared on the websites of ESPN The Magazine, SLAMonline, and Bounce Magazine. He blogs at the Huffington Post and PeterRobertCasey.com.

Hajj Flemings (HF): Define Peter Robert Casey in 140 Characters or less?

Peter Robert Casey (PRC): Peter Robert Casey celebrates and promotes the game of basketball as a lever to help others achieve their dreams.

HF: What was your inspiration for doing what you are doing?

PRC: I’ve been inspired by a lot of different people inside and outside of basketball.

I do what I do because I have a genuine love for the game, and because I think people can use the sport to influence others and accomplish great things in life.

HF: Tell us a little bit about the journey when you were under the radar, before St. John’s when you were doing what you loved without the big lights and the big stage?

PRC: I volunteered at the famed Rucker Park in the summer of 2008 to help Greg Marius (founder and CEO of the Entertainer’s Basketball Classic) and his staff draft corporate sponsorship proposals. I contacted Greg through Linkedin (fittingly, right?) and offered my services pro bono to get my feet wet. This was my segway into writing.

Before the summer wound down, I was already thinking of my next move. The EBC is only 8 weeks in length and you know how fast summers go by. With that, I introduced myself to the editors at SLAMonline and pitched the idea of covering the EBC Championship. To my surprise, they obliged under the condition that the quality of writing met their standards.

Here’s a lookat where my online presence all started. Notice I went by Pete Casey then, which proved to be too popular of a name to brand consistently and competitively in search engines and on social channels.

I wrote a second article for SLAMonline.com and was then offered a guest blog post on BounceMag.com. That was September 2008. I leveraged those small successes and framed a pitch to write for ESPN The Mag online. It sat on someone’s desk for a while, but I was ultimately assigned 5 separate articles.

In October 2008, I decided it was time to create a hub to archive my work in a central location, share future work, and to start writing regularly. The result was PeterRobertCasey.com. That same month I joined Twitter and reactivated my Facebook page. I would use both sites to establish relationships, join conversations, and outpost my blog’s RSS feed.

I spent hours upon hours (and I still do) commenting on relevant websites, creating content, guest writing, and building relationships. I put a lot of sweat and passion into it, but it’s what I love to do!

HF: Was the Peter Robert Casey personal brand created to get a job or does this come naturally out of your DNA?

PRC: My personal brand emanates naturally out of my DNA.

Though it would be hard to measure, I honestly feel that there’s nobody in this world that loves basketball more than I do. It’s a bold statement, but I don’t say it for shock value. I mean it. I’m an addict.

I extracted so much value from the game of basketball as a player, coach and student of the game, that I feel it’s absolutely necessary to put back in. More than that, I want to contribute. I developed lifelong friendships and memories. I learned real world values, including the importance of sacrifice, selflessness, and teamwork. The list goes on.

Basketball is simply a game, but it can also be a lever. A lever for growth; a lever for change; a lever for opportunities. I created a personal brand with the intention of spreading that message. Respect the game, but use the game to do bigger things. Great things.

HF: What is your basketball pedigree/background? What qualifies you to be the guy in this space? After following you online I believe you understand the space better than some of the professionals who went to school to do this?

PRC: My interest in basketball started as a player. I first picked up a ball in the 3rd grade, and was immediately hooked. By 4th grade, I was competing in leagues, and by 6th grade I was attending basketball-specific summer camps to refine my skills. I always considered myself a student of the game, wanting to absorb anything and everything that I could about basketball. I was the gym rat’s gym rat.

I played 3 years of varsity basketball in high school and one year of D-III JV ball at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY. After college, I called Tom Konchalski for advice and he encouraged me to get back into the game. Initially, I decided to do that through coaching. One of my AAU coaches let me volunteer with his HS program, S.S. Seward Institute in Florida, NY. That was the 2004-2005 season.

I had worked at many basketball camps while playing and during college, but this was my first formal coaching experience. I still go to clinics to learn about the game even though I don’t coach any more. So I transitioned from being a player to a coach, to a content creator and marketer in basketball, which I believe, are converging into becoming one and the same.

Being a student of the game will always be held constant.

HF: What advice would you give people who are going into a field with no road map?

PRC: “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.” I’m not sure who the original source for this quote is, but it’s true.

Sometimes, though, you have to experiment before you can clarify your destination. Ultimately, you will need to unearth your passion and what it is that you do that adds value or solves a problem, or both.

When you know what that is, it’s much easier to draw up a road map. There will always be detours, speed bumps, and tickets along the way. That’s life.

HF: How do you see technology changing the way fans, teams, and athletes experience basketball in the future?

PRC: We’re already there, and things are going to get even more interesting as time passes. Technology has enabled fans to share their analysis and opinions, connect with their favorite players and teams, and get information faster than ever before. We’re about to see what 3-D basketball looks like, and we’ve seen what USTREAM and Twitter can do for players, both good and bad. Technology is going to continue making the world and the basketball world more and more connected.

HF: How important is character and reputation in building your personal brand in the space you are in?

PRC: John Wooden once said, “Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.”

I’ve always agreed with this statement. A personal brand should always be an authentic representation of one’s character. I’m me, online and offline, consistently from person A to person B without wavering.

If you try to build a reputation (or perception) for something you’re not, eventually the truth will come to light. So I would say character is everything in personal branding while reputation is merely an ‘estimation’ of who you are. Estimations are rarely precise. Focus on exuding your true character.

HF: How did life change after ESPN and the New York Times covered you?

PRC: It didn’t right away. I still had to report to Columbia University on Monday morning after my mug appeared in the Sunday New York Times sports section and on ESPN.com.

These opportunities gave me positive exposure, which in turn, has led to more opportunities. I’m very humbled and thankful to have been given a press credential. I also can’t take credit for the idea. The genius behind the concept is Mark Fratto, the rising star Sports Information Director (SID) at St. John’s University.

A lot of times I get credit for coming up with the idea. That’s not the case. Mark saw something other athletic departments didn’t; at least not right away. It didn’t hurt, however, that I spent time building a brand across various social platforms. I was able to be found. The love from ESPN and the NYT has made being found even easier now.

HF: What are some basic tips you follow in using Twitter that has lead to your exponential growth in engaged Twitter followers?

PRC: First and foremost, listen. Survey the landscape, learn the norms and accepted behaviors of the Twittersphere. Think about how you could value to your niche community. What do you stand for? How do you want to be experienced? Find niche community members through directories, keyword searches and looking at who the influencers follow.

Be honest, be authentic, be human, and always be useful. Don’t be afraid to mix it up a bit (share quotes, articles, opinions and laughs). Give credit where it’s due through retweeting quality content and citing the original source. Don’t create noise. Use direct messaging (DM) in lieu of public @ replies when necessary.

Lastly, be active and interactive. Tweet daily. Don’t just broadcast. Twitter is not a bullhorn to blast your marketing messages. It’s a pool of online conversations with real people. Conversations require interaction. If you need advice, ask. Twitter’s filled with generous people ready and willing to share their knowledge.

HF: What tools do you use to monitor your Twitter activity?

PRC: I use Hootsuite and Tweetgrid the most.

Hootsuite is a web-based platform to organize your Twitter activity. You can create groups, search for keywords and trending topics, monitor your brand, view user info, track statistics, and of course, tweet. There’s a lot more functionality than I just described, but I’ll save you from being overwhelmed. Just check out their about page.

Tweetgrid is a real-time Twitter search dashboard. For example, during St. John’s games I track a variety of keywords, not limited to: St. John’s, Red Storm, Johnnies, Norm Roberts, #stjbb, @Peter_R_Casey and @STJ_Basketball. I also do the same for the opposing team. This gives me a pulse of the collective conversations taking place about the game and about both teams.

HF: How many hours a day to you spend watching games, tweeting, writing articles, following up with friends/followers (DMs, Text, etc)? (I want to get people to understand the type of commitment you have made to be where you are today?)

PRC: About 14 hours per day. I average 6 hours of sleep per night, and I try to spend a couple of hours of quality time with my wife. She’s the highest priority.

HF: The word expert gets thrown around a lot? What do you think validates someone being called or viewed an expert?

PRC: Expertise should never be self-proclaimed, and you will never catch me throwing that word around to describe my knowledge or skill set. I’m confident in my abilities, but I’m also humble enough to know there’s always more to learn about basketball, digital media, and business. And there’s always someone out there that’s smarter or more business savvy. An opinion’s an opinion. It’s all subjective, and therefore tough to validate.

HF: As a leader in this space how do you stay ahead of the pack?

I look at the pack as a community, and not competition. I challenge and compete against myself, and I measure my output against what I set out to do (my goals). We’re all in it together, and there’s enough to go around.

HF: Who are your greatest influences in the basketball space?

PRC: Hands down, Tom Konchalski. Tom has dedicated his life to the game of basketball and considers his ability to evaluate talent to be his retaliation for never being blessed with athletic grace. He’s built unmatched credibility through honesty, integrity, forging solid relationships, and by having the chops to accurately assess a player’s ability and forecast their growth. Thought I don’t have ambition to become a scout, Tom’s devotion to the game influenced me. He was the guy that encouraged me to get back in the game after hanging up my playing shoes in 2000. I owe a lot to him.

I would be remiss if I didn’t say my former coaches, teammates, and Dr. Naismith himself. There’s too many to name!

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It’s All in What You Tweet

Lego Ollie the Twitterrific bird, originally uploaded by Fredoichi.

There are many things you can do on Twitter to build your personal brand; however, when it really comes down to it, it’s all in what you tweet. Your content and activity represents you and what you have to offer others, whether they be potential followers or even prospective partners or employers.

Here are some great tips on how to enhance your personal brand with each and every tweet:

Be selective. Decide what type of content you want to promote and stick to it. Don’t tweet or retweet anything and everything. - Jennifer Turner, @Talagy

Be consistent. Use a similar format, or 2-3 formats, depending on the content, for each tweet. Become a brand people will recognize. For example, start each tweet with one word in CAPS, or always end with #jobsearch, or use personalized web address shortening services. - Jessica Silverstein, @AttysCounsel

Act selflessly. Give away useful, industry-specific tips 85 percent of the time; limit promotional tweets to 15 percent of your content. Invest your energy in connecting with your followers. - Laura Christianson, @BloggingBistro

Showcase your expertise. The best way to showcase your personal brand on Twitter is to publish “thought leadership tweets”. “Thought leadership tweets”, are personal quote tweets that demonstrate your knowledge or opinions on topics, key trends and events related to your industry or profession. - Marci Reynolds, @marcireynolds12

Be responsive. Use the @ symbol followed by the person’s Twitter name to directly address questions and /or comments to people and also respond to questions. Conversing with people via the public Twitter stream will raise your visibility and thus increase your online presence. - T.C. Coleman, @UpwardAction

Give credit where its due. Reply and RT to those in the industry or who provide relevant and insightful knowledge, what goes around will come around. Its too transparent to be fake on Twitter. - Charlie Riley, @charlieriley

Tweet with the reader in mind. Another tip I use is to seek out Twitter users who tweet with search terms similar to my blog’s audience. That way, I’m addressing folks who are most likely to find my tweets of interest. - James Dillehay, @craftmarketer

Automate value. We don’t all have time to be on Twitter 24/7. Save yourself a little sanity and use tools like SocialOomph to schedule your tweets in advance so you can share valuable and relevant content even when you aren’t on Twitter. In addition, you can use tools like Twitterfeed to automatically post new articles and updates from your blog, as well as from blogs and sites of other trusted thought leaders in your industry. - Chris Perry, @CareerRocketeer.

Special thanks to everyone who contributed to this wealth of personal branding insight!

Chris Perry, MBA is a Gen Y brand and marketing “generator,” a career search and personal branding expert and the founder of Career Rocketeer and Launchpad.

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Personal Brands - “Think Different”



In 1997 Apple Computers created the “Think Different” ad campaign. I was inspired to look at the video clip after reading a tweet by William Arruda the other day. When I saw this video it made me think about personal branding and I wanted to share a thought.

As a personal brand we have to not only act differently but we have to think differently. As you continue to develop your online personal brand think about how you can use Twitter and Youtube (and other social networks) so that people can experience you and experience what makes you different. Remember the tools amplify YOU.

It’s time to “Think Different”?

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Compare the 2010 Personal Branding Predictions of @HajjFlemings, @DanSchawbel, and @WilliamArruda


Let’s take a look at the 2010 Personal branding predictions from some of the industries top minds. I thought it would be interesting to do a blog post and include two of my colleagues Dan Schawbel and William Arruda both of which are well respected in the personal branding industry. Take a look at the world the way we see it and add your thoughts, comments and predictions.

2010 Personal Branding Predictions: Top-10 (A New Decade) (by Hajj E. Flemings)

Predictions: Video Version

Hajj E. Flemings is the Founder of Brand Camp University and author of ‘The Brand YU Life’. He has been featured on ESPN.com, BusinessWeek.com, and BlackEnterprise.com. His client list includes Walt Disney, Ford Motor Company, and numerous colleges and universities around the nation. His book was selected as one of Fast Company Magazine 2008 Readers Choice Business Books of the year.

Blog: Brand Camp University
 Book: The Brand YU Life
Twitter: @HajjFlemings

1. The Rise of Digital Personalities – With the rise of social search (Bing and Google search engines) brands will be directly impacted and forced to participate in the real-time conversation that is happening online. Personal brands will have to be active to be relevant which will provide an opportunity for their digital personalities (online component of your personal brand) to gain in influence.

2. Growth of Female Personal Brands – Males have long dominated or been the voice of the social media space. I believe that you will start to see the growth of female influence in social media and personal branding. The demographic data shows there are larger numbers of women online in Twitter, Facebook, and the other major social networks. It is a great time to be female and to be web 2.0 savvy. (Note: In Twitter and Facebook women outpace men (Twitter: Women – 60% and Men 40% and Facebook: Women – 57% and Men 43%). Female centric groups mommy bloggers, Blogher.com, etc. will become more influential and prominent.). Twitter List of Influential Women in Social Media Women

3. Sports Industry and Athletes seek Personal Brand Strategist – Some of the most interesting personal branding stories (Tiger Woods, ESPN and Michael Beasley) in 2009 were been centered around athletes and the sports industry. Athletes and their agents will start to identify social media and personal branding strategist to manage their online personal brands. The social media policies that impact the human capital of sports teams, commentators, and other personnel will evolve as well.

4. The Focus on Character will Increase – The importance of character gains momentum, the Tiger Woods saga reinforces the importance of character in personal and corporate brands alike. Facebook and Twitter will continue to be character references and will grow in importance in validating social behavior.

5. Education Influenced by Personal Branding – Personal branding and social tools will continue to impact the learning environment. The subject of personal branding will continue to evolve on college campuses. Workshops and classes alike will continue to grow on college campuses, like Michigan Technological Universities ENT3976 Personal Brand Management.

6. Privacy is Dead – The concept of privacy will go the way of the dinosaur, in other words it is dead. With geo tagging, status updates, social search anyone can identity where you are at and what you are doing at all times. Your online habits will communicate to an employer, potential business partner, or sports team everything they need to know about you as a person. Your life will exist in a stream.

7. Mobile Influence on Personal Brands – The hub of the personal brand will center around mobile devices like iPhone and the Android phone. These devices currently constitute 75% of the smartphone web traffic. The growing number of apps, social search, and the ease of content upload will stimulate personal brand interaction thru their devices.

8.Identifying your Inner Genius – Identifying your passion will be critical. With increase in unemployment, job downsizing, and workload increase people will be forced to identify what they truly love doing and what they were created to do. Success has was defined by high profile, high-paying jobs as those opportunities start to reduce people will be forced to think about what they love doing and will tap into their inner Genius.

9. Corporate and Personal Brand Conflict – Social media polices (David Armano six trends of social media 2010) and graying lines between corporate and personal brands will require individuals to navigate their activity in social networks more carefully whether their on the clock or off. The person and the corporation will have to be responsible in managing and monitoring online personal brand activity, this will be a hot topic.

10. Developing your Personal Brand with Full-time Job (Grustle) – Personal brands will be developed after hours or as entrepreneurial projects. With the decrease in employer loyalty people will start to focus on developing their personal brand passively while maintaining a 9-to-5 job, known as the GRUSTLE.


10 Personal Branding Predictions for 2010 (by Dan Schawbel)

Dan Schawbel is a personal branding expert for Gen-Y, author of Me 2.0 and founder of the Personal Branding Blog®, which was the #1 job blog by Careerbuilder in 2008. Presently, Dan is a Social Media Specialist at EMC Corporation, which is one of the leading technology companies in the world.

Blog: Personal Branding Blog
 Book: Me 2.0
Twitter: @DanSchawbel

Predictions: Video Version

1) Transparency across the web from social networks to search engines and back.

Social search, a term that represents the shift in search capability to include social network participation and engagement, is going to really heat up next year. Google has already announced that they will be partnering with both Twitter and FriendFeed, but not Facebook, to deliver “social search results” to the user. Facebook, on the other hand, will be tightly aligned to Microsoft’s Bing search engine, which is no surprise because they already had a partnership from before (and Microsoft hates Google). This means that Facebook status updates will appear in Bing search results, but only if the user’s privacy setting permit it. For instance, if you select to make your profile private, your status updates won’t appear in Bing and in other search engines in the future. Yahoo! will be in the game soon enough because competitively, everyone has to transition to what the market demands.

What this means for your personal brand: This is a sign that transparency will flow across the web. Your participation online will be seamless and widespread to a point where anything you publish will appear everywhere and have more eyeballs on it. You need to think twice before you publishing something as insignificant as a tweet now. Your job, your business and your personal reputation is at stake with every published status update, tweet, blog post, etc.

2) More people understanding their brand

What a lot of people don’t realize is that Twitter lists just made personal branding easier to understand. For example, if you review the 1,000+ lists I’m on, you’ll notice that most people categorize me in social media, HR, and branding lists. This means that people perceive me as representing these categories and that’s what I’ve projected to the Twitter community through my profile page and tweets. In Me 2.0, I explain that you’re doing a good job branding yourself when self-impression is equal to perception (how you describe yourself is how other people describe you).

What this means for your personal brand: Twitter lists is one way to verify that you’re coming off the way you had planned. If you want to be classified as a personal finance expert but everyone categorizes you into marketing lists, then something is wrong.

3) The new employment contract

Most companies are still trying to figure out social media, how it plays a role in company culture, if they should block social sites and how they should handle employees who have large followings. Recent data has come out to prove that personal branding can have a financial and branding impact on a corporate brand. eMarketer reports that 71% of employee bloggers have increased visibility for their company, 63% have converted prospects into purchasers through their blog, and 56% have seen their blog bring their company recognition as a thought leader in the industry. It’s obvious that visibility transfers from personal brand to corporate brand, but probably not as much the other way around.

Although, companies see the power of employees influence, they also are concerned that they aren’t as productive, that another company might snatch them and that it might infringe on employee legal contracts. Jeremiah Owyang (2008 Personal Brand of the Year) wrote an incredibly detailed post about how you should verify your employment contract because your company might own your social accounts. It just shows that the employment contract is going to have to evolve because the relationship between employer and employee is changing fast.

What this means for your personal brand: A personal brand is transferable, so that if you switch companies, your influence and network strength still hold. This also makes you more valuable and a “hot commodity.” Before you accept a job offer and if you currently have a job, you need to be sitting down with your manager and discussing how your brand can mesh with your role.

4) Your voice becomes stronger than your resume

The boundaries of online participation have fallen over the past five years, which means that your “current” voice is becoming more important than your previous experience. eMarketer reports that 25% of people have used their blog as a resume and have sent it to potential employers. If someone searches for your name online and they verify that you haven’t actively participated in industry discussions, then you are perceived as having less value as someone who has. A resume depicts where you’ve been in the past, with less indication for where you may end up in the future. Your online voice, whether it’s status updates or full blog posts, gives people a better sense of who you are, what you do and what you bring to the table. In most cases, your blog will appear higher in search results than your LinkedIn profile, so employers will be more keen on that resource than a “resume.”

What this means for your personal brand: Instead of concentrating on putting chrome wheels on your resume or adding a navigation system, invest time in sharing your voice online. Your voice can carry online and if you have good ideas, people will become aware of your brand and opportunities will be there for you.

5) People being forced to take niche’s

Anita Campbell of Small Business Trends recently pointed out how competitive it is to be successful in social media. She notes a 2009 Technorati State of the Blogosphere study, which shows that it takes three to ten posts per day to compete with the top blogs. The reason is because established blogs have created barriers to entry, such that they have a high Google PageRank and their brands are well-known. It’s hard to convince readers to go elsewhere when there are already trusted sources! Also, the sheer amount of posts the blog posts publish makes it hard to compete because Google values page freshness and it’s more content that people can spread through social networks.

What this means for your personal brand: You are going to have to be either very specific with both your topic and audience or you’re going to have to have a superior product. If you feel that you’re the Madonna of a certain topic, then you will eventually be able to compete with the big blogs because of your confidence, hard work and content that will spread.

6) Video becomes a brand-standard

According to “The Global Web Index,” from Trendstream, with research conducted by Lightspeed Research, early this year 72% of US Internet users watched video clips monthly—making video bigger than blogging or social networking. Video is being used for humor and music, but in 2010, we’ll see people use it more for job searching (video resume) and for their websites/blogs as introductions to their worlds. Michael Gerber is one of a handful of people who are using video as an integrated part of their websites. If you land on different pages of his website, a video image of him comes out to talk to you about that content. Video has many different uses, from employer branding to sales pitches to resumes. As more and more people become comfortable with it, it will end up becoming part of the career/resume arsenal.

What this means for your personal brand: Video is the best way to connect with your audience because people are getting to know you before meeting you. If you don’t get good at video then you will suffer a disadvantage because your competition will put out video.

7) Monetization through branding becomes clear

There are 325 million Facebook users, who use the site a combined 8 million minutes each day. 94% of the companies will be maintaining or increasing their investment in social media tools next year. In 2010, about 12 billion dollars will be spent on online advertising. These numbers should verify that people are going to start making serious money off of social networks and blogs in 2010 and beyond. Companies are allocating more of their budgets to online spending and the amount of users and readers that sites have right now are adding up to traditional mediums, but the online world is easier to measure.

What this means for your personal brand: It means if you’re entrepreneurial, even in the slightest, you have the ability to make money doing what you love online. It could be a blog or your own social network that could put you in a position, where you’re making money, while in bed, blogging.

8 ) Social media being used more for career development

A lot of studies have shown that social media tools and networks are primarily used for social conversations and less business and career type conversations. In 2010, there will be a lot of pressure on individuals to stand out (unemployment rate is at 10% right now). A lot of people are going to turn to the internet for support (and answers), which means that social media tools will have a clear purpose for any serious professional. Our society is going to start putting a lot more pressure on people that aren’t taking advantage of social media next year. We are past the early adoption curve and now the late majority will show up next year.

What this means for your personal brand: To stay current with your industry and to be found online, you need to become an active contributor. Social media tools will become your resume, your background check and a means for your to climb your own corporate ladder.

9) More people working for free to build brand equity

The NACE reports that companies are hiring 7% fewer College graduates in 2010. Any smart college student should be searching online for influencers, who they can support, without any pay. At the same time, students will have to have regular jobs in order to pay loans and any other expenses. Aside from students and recent graduates, if you’re unemployed or you’re looking to switch careers, working for free (even if it’s 5 hours a week) is something you should seriously consider. The experience isn’t going to come any other way.

What this means for your personal brand: Experience is more important than education and if you can’t get a job, you need to do whatever you can to gain experience, even if it means working for free. On your resume, you don’t list how much you get paid anyways!

10) Online identities becoming as routine as employer drug tests

In 2009, Careerbuilder reported that 45% of companies are using social networks as background checks. I’m going to go with 75% of companies for 2010 and then 100% of companies in 2012. Just like a drug test, going online to review an applicants brand is easy, cost effective and can save headaches later. There are issues that arise such as possibly losing good talent because of one Facebook picture or judging someone based on their picture and not on their credibility.

What this means for your personal brand: Everyone is going to have to be very careful with what they put online. Go through your online presence right now to make sure it best represents you as a professional. Try and see your profiles through a companies eyes too.

Personal Branding Predictions: Top 10 for 2010 (by William Arruda)

William Arruda is a sought-after speaker on the topics of branding, career advancement, social media and employee motivation. Combining his twenty years’ corporate branding experience with his passion for the people, he founded Reach, the global leader in personal branding. William engages, motivates and inspires audiences with his unique blend of wit, story telling and humor.

Blog: The Personal Branding Blog
Book: Career Distinction
Twitter: @WilliamArruda

1. Video, Video, Video

Thanks to greater bandwidth, cheaper storage, and a proliferation of products and services that make shooting, storing, viewing, and sharing video easy (Flip video, iPhone 3GS, YouTube, vimeo, blip.tv, vodpod, etc.), video will be king in 2010.

Video is ideal because it allows careerists to deliver a complete communication and convey their personality—a critical component of branding. More services like videoBIO (a Reach Personal Branding partner) will make it easier to cost-effectively build a powerful and positive brand image using video.

2. Hiring Process

Companies will be hiring brands rather than employees. They will use social networks and Google to source talent, filter candidates, and validate credentials.

“What’s your brand?” will become as standard an interview question as “Tell me about yourself.” Google is already a main reference check in the job-search process. Hiring managers and executive recruiters expect serious professionals to have a powerful online identity. Google and other social media will be an even greater part of the talent-search process.

As the number of candidates for each open position increases, Google and social media will be used more often to eliminate candidates. Lack of a virtual identity or poor-quality online content will prevent you from getting the job, regardless of your credentials, connections, and experience. In 2010, if you don’t show up in Google, you don’t exist!

3. Branded Partners

Often more traditional in their approach to marketing and delivering their services, professional-services firms (accounting, law, consulting, etc.) are going to jump on the “brandwagon” with reckless abandon in 2010.

Two years ago, I started working with the partners of one of the Big Four accounting firms, helping them build their brands. In the past year, two of the other three firms contacted me about doing something similar.

That trend is going to increase with big law firms, consulting organizations, and other professional-services firms joining the fold.

It’s a no-brainer: For professional-services firms, people are the product. But those firms (often, private partnerships) can be slow to innovate. In 2010, personal branding will be integrated into all levels in a firm—from hiring through becoming partner.

4. For-Credit Courses

Personal branding is a critical part of preparing students for successful careers.

Over the past year, I have worked with the career-services and alumni groups at many universities. Interest in personal branding will grow tremendously in universities, and for-credit courses in personal branding will be available as part of business programs and as electives.

With the jobless recovery and fewer job openings for college students, schools will focus more on helping students succeed beyond academics to find the perfect job. You will see more collaboration between university career-services organizations and academic departments as schools start to understand their role in preparing students to obtain jobs, not just skills.

5. Unified Search

We are already seeing many new services, such as addictomatic.com, that combine search results from many different search engines.

Such tools will become more common while Google, Bing, Yahoo, and other search engines will combine traditional search results with real-time content (from tools such as Twitter) and video results—making searching easier and more accurate.

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Personal Branding: Would your Personal Brand exist without social networks?

Would your personal brand exist without social networks like Facebook and Twitter? Most people would say no.

Let’s take a look at where personal branding started? The roots of personal branding are recognized to have started in 1995 and Tom Peters is known as the father of personal branding which is appropriate. However the historical roots of personal branding go much deeper. Actually we need to go back to the 18th century to look at a few of the pioneers.

  • Borden Milk Co. – Founded by Gail Borden
  • Sears and Roebuck – Founded by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah C. Roebuck.
  • Ford Motor Co. – Founded by Henry Ford

Do any of these names look familiar? People didn’t create names for businesses like Google and Yahoo back in the day they used their names. There was no separation between the person and the business; businesses were birthed out of the DNA of the person.

Personal Branding

In a nutshell your personal brand is your personal DNA it what makes you who you are.

  • Unique Value Proposition: I believe this is birthed out of your passion. It is what makes you different it is the value that you are able to deliver on.
  • Platform: Every person has an arena or space that they will operate. It is where you will make their mark.
  • Character: The real you, who you are when nobody is watching (not sure if that happens anymore), what you believe and your value system.

Personal branding is a process of exposing yourself to a large community in which today social media is one of the main channels. Every personal brand has the ability to develop a digital personality.

  • Digital Personality – It is the digital component of your personal brand that exist online in your various social networks and includes your online activity. It is the authentic you translated into the digital world it is the stream that runs through your tweets, your avatar, and your online content.

I believe Personal branding 2.0 in the future will not separate you from your competitor because it will be the norm. We are creating a mass army where everybody will march to the beat of the same drummer to be relevant. After everybody is on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin (and whatever the new social network is of the day), setting up a blog, tweets 15-20 times a day, engages their community, and produces relevant content that will be captured in social search what is next? I am not condemning personal branding 2.0 I believe it is vital, I would not be relevant without it.

Personal Branding 1.0 will be more important in the future than Personal Branding 2.0, guaranteed. Nailing the 2.0 component is critical in the day and age we live in especially to be relevant. The true separation will be Personal Branding 1.0 who you are and your values that people will be reading about and spreading to others. Remember social media and personal branding doesn’t make you a better person it amplifies your voice and exposes you to a larger network of people.

I would love to hear your thoughts?

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