We are in the age of social media, it is sink or swim. A few months ago I found myself debating the purpose of Twitter, I had to jump on the bandwagon or forever get lost in the gap of technology. I chose to create a Twitter, tried a few tweets and then didn’t log back on for a few weeks. This sounds pretty typical of 90% of Twitter users, you know the saying “10% of Twitter users produce 90% of the content”.  I decided to give it another try after seeing other professionals finding usage of the tool.

Nowadays, I am on Twitter everyday, attend “Twitter” events around town and have increased my personal network both online and in person. This tool might suck up some of my time online, however the benefits have been astounding.

One thing I have noticed is how people utilize Twitter to brand themselves. This micro-blogging tool encourages brevity and personality to show. I have seen some good examples and some absolutely terrible examples of how people portray themselves. Perception is reality, right? One thing people need to learn is to keep personal and professional at a balance (we could all benefit from these tips).

After some research around the web from resources like Media Bistro and Mashable, I found some need to know tips to positively brand yourself.

1. Discover your brand and then create it: Your self-impression = How people perceive you
2. Claim YOUR Profiles: create a Google, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and any other social media tools. This will promote consistency and increase your SEO.
3. Personal Hub: Make sure you have a blog or personal website to link back to. This will align your brand with other outlets (social media profiles) and will show your expertise overtime if maintained consistently.
4. Consistency is Key: Update your social media profiles on a regular basis – engage your audience, post interesting content, show personality.
5. Build Credibility: It takes time, but if you follow the basic rules of social media and personal branding you will build up your own credibility. This does not happen overnight.

Building your personal brand takes time, actively engaging your local community and following these tips can help. One thing to remember is to be yourself. Surround yourself with the right people and you can learn a ton. Set-up that coffee date with someone interesting, go to that Twitter event, be ACTIVE!

Referenced: Mashable “Personal Branding 101: How to Discover and Create Your Brand” by Dan Schawbel

According to the Council of Public Relations firms, PR is on the rise this year. This leaves more room for growth in 2010. It is more important than ever for our bread and butter of the nation (small businesses) to keep their budgets in tact for marketing and public relations costs. Staying visible to consumers is key to maintaining a strong business.

Using social media is a free option to help your company stay visible. Although not everyone has an account, there are still ways to reach your target audience.

Using tools like Squidoo, Digg, and Twitter  allow many small business owners to promote their brand. Some users claim to be “social media experts”, however the truth is, anyone can utilize social media to promote themselves or business. In my opinion, social media is not rocket science. If you make enough time and effort, you can easily brand yourself!

Do not get me wrong, anyone can sign-up for a Twitter account, however it takes skill and strategy implemented by PR teams to help their clients. Working together, getting to know your client/product can prove to be successful with many of the free social media tools available.

With PR on the rise, it is great news for those of us investing our time building our careers in this field. The future seems bright for us young professionals, keep up the good work!

A few nights ago I saw a report on NBC Nightly News about Richard Branson’s new spaceship. Starting in 2011 you can pay $200,000 to go into space for 5 minutes. There are already 300 people who have paid. Once everyday man can enter the far atmospheres of our Earth what is next? If you really think about in a little over 100 years we have gone from riding around mostly in horse and buggy to having spaceships everyday people can ride in. It amazes me that all this happened in a lifetime.

My Grandpa talks about his days delivering newspapers around town, worrying about the papers getting wet because there was no plastic to keep them dry. We have to wonder what technological advances we have coming to us in five to ten years.

I wonder if I will reflect back in 40 years and not understand my grandchildren and tell stories of computers that crashed, cell phones that ran on batteries and cars running on gas. There is such a gap between my generation and my grandparents. My generation seems to quickly adapt to new technologies. We are able to quickly learn and accept new advances, that our grandparents (at least mine) are hesitant to join.

According to a Pew Research Center study, “About 75 percent of adults 18 to 30 went online daily, compared with 40 percent of those 65 to 74 and about 16 percent for people 75 and older.” I believe that 18 to 30 year olds will not decrease in daily internet use, if anything there will be more going online daily as the internet becomes a larger part of our lives.

I get excited about new technologies and interesting ventures, like the spaceship. As soon as the new Motorola Droid came out I was one of the first in line. I was stoked the day I got my first apple computer, and boy do I love my Wii. If I had $200,000 lying around don’t you worry I would have already put a down payment on that spaceship.

My grandparents on the other hand scoff at the idea of going into space and they could care less about my new phone. They say that is too hard to figure out or they are too old. I don’t believe that my interest in technological advances will change as I get older, I will still get excited about the newest innovations. I will learn with my grandchildren instead of getting left in the dust.

Today many of us are suffering from content overload. Tools like Twitter, Facebook, Google Reader have different interfaces, yet serve similar purposes. They help us digest our daily dose of information in smaller bites, with more options to choose. For one, we can choose which links to click on, quite different from random television commercials that almost force you to consume advertising.

The web is a bit different, PPC has taken over sidebars of websites and banner ads, yet we have developed controlled avoidance. Some days I do not even see the ads, in most cases I do not click on them. Most web users know what they are looking for and search for it. Integrating SEO into a website is the best bang for your buck out there, bring the content to your viewers, do not make them search for it!

With the decade wrapping up, it is important we identify the trends of the World Wide Web this past year so I decided to put together a Top Ten list of buzzwords from this past year.

1. Cloud computing
2. Web 3.0
3. Twittering or “Tweet”
4. Blogger
5. SEO
6. Social Media
7. “Wiki”
8. Crowdsourcing
9. Widget
10. Google

If you have any other words to add, please send them to us.