Personal Branding Blog – Dan Schawbel

What a year it’s been for personal branding and for people creating “Me 2.0.”

Each year, I like to reward some of the standout brands by recognizing them with Personal Brand Awards. Last year, Rohit Bhargava won the gold award, which is the most coveted of all of them and this year Jeremiah Owyang was presented the 2008 gold award. A panel of judges were chosen this year and people were graded based on a few factors, such as value proposition, differentiation, and marketability. Below is a celebration for all the winners and they are also recognized in the current issue of Personal Branding Magazine, which is available for you today.

Gold Award

Jeremiah Owyang owns the #6 spot in Google for “Jeremiah” out of 18 million. He has over 15,000 blog subscribers and over 14,000 Twitter followers, with hundreds of blog posts. He’s been cited just about everywhere, including Forbes and USA Today. He probably has one of the best bio pages in the entire blogosphere and his influence is very hard to match. Bloggers link and comment on his blog as a routinely as brushing their teeth. Jeremiah is also a senior analyst at Forrester Research in social computing, so he follows social media trends as his job, thus he has found a way to monetize his passion; the goal of personal branding and life. It gives us great pleasure, after a unanimous vote, to award Jeremiah the gold personal brand award for 2008!

Jeremiah Owyang - 2008 Gold Award Winner

Silver Awards

Daniel Scocco started blogging in 2005, and the experience completely changed the way he interacted with the Internet. Through out these years he launched several successful blogs, and Daily Blog Tips is the place where he shares what he learned along the way. The blog was nominated under the “Best Web Development Blog” category on the 2007 Weblog Awards, and currently it is ranked number 29 among the most popular blogs in the world (according to Technorati).

Why he won: Daniel is certainly a fan favorite when it comes to blogging. Every day, Daniel gives precious blogging tips and strategies for beginners up to advanced bloggers. He holds one of the top spots in Technorati, yet he is a solo-blogger, which is remarkable. Daniel is certainly a go-to-guy for blogging, people trust him and he constantly rewards his community. For all this, we would like to recognize him with a silver personal brand award.

Laura Fitton has focused on reshaping society and business through ideas and information for over 15 years. She’s is a social media consultant and speaker who helps companies participating productively and proactively to be more competitive. Her clients learn to market dynamically by engaging with their audiences, listening and responding effectively to the new realities of business. Fitton writes several popular blogs, is an authority on business uses of Twitter and is in the vanguard of thinkers shaping how social media will reshape business.

Why she won: When it comes to building a powerful and recognizable brand through new communication mediums, few do it better than Laura. She is a Twitter star and as a result, she’s been cited in many of the top blogs and in mainstream media. Her face and name are synonymous with “pistachio,” In fact, she owns that word in your head! For all of this and more, we would to congratulate Laura on winning a silver personal brand award.

Bronze Awards

Jim Kukral is an award-winning blogger, speaker, author and business web coach. For over 10 years, Jim has been working with both small businesses and Fortune 500 customers to help them find success online. Jim is a graduate of The University of Akron. You can read about Jim and his many online successes by visiting www.jimkukral.com.

Why he won: Jim is a personal branding evangelist, who demonstrates his passion for all things affiliate marketing, social media and internet marketing each and every day. He communicates his brand through both video and written entries and is a common face at industry events. Jim brand thrives off of sincerity, transparency and authenticity, which is why he is receiving a bronze personal brand award!

Drew McLellan gets branding and marketing and he desperately wants you to get it too. Drew has not only survived 20 years in the advertising and marketing arena, he’s thrived in it. After working for several other agencies, including Young and Rubicam’s CMF&Z, Drew created McLellan Marketing Group in 1995. Drew is a highly sought after speaker and has given about a zillion presentations at national conferences, key note addresses, training for his peers in the profession, college students and even his daughter’s tenth grade class.

Why he won: Drew is most notably the nicest guy on the internet. Aside from being one of the most recognized and respected authorities on marketing and branding online, he is a savvy networker. Since personal branding is all about giving before receiving and not putting yourself first, Drew has become known as a connector and friend to all. For all of this, we would like to present him a bronze personal brand award!

Wendy Piersall has a long entrepreneurial career and has founded three businesses since the age of 26. Currently she is the founder of Sparkplugging, the most popular home business blog on the internet. She also writes for the Entrepreneur.com Blog Network at Inspired Business Growth – Exceptional marketing, branding and entrepreneurship. Wendy got her start in affiliate marketing as Business Development Director when she worked for Socrates.com, and continues to incorporate affiliate marketing into her blog and online business on a daily basis.

Why she won: Wendy is one of the most highly recognized female bloggers. She positioned herself early and have become a very well known face and voice in social media. When people see her face or hear the word “eMom,” they automatically think of her and that’s branding at it’s best. She was written up in the WSJ for being one of the top mommy bloggers in the world and has won a bronze personal brand award!