For a personal brand name to be powerful it has to be both strongly focused and widely recognized.
A strong focus means that the personal brand name is synonymous with one concept. If you are into the tech world, a mention of” usability” will first bring to mind Jakob Nielsen for instance. If you think “operating system”, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs or Linus Torvalds might come to mind.
For the personal brand name to be powerful, it also has to be pretty popular. Many business people stand for very unique concepts but no one knows much about them. But flip through any tech magazine (to stick to our example) and you are likely to find Jakob Nielsen, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs or Linus Torvalds mentioned somewhere. Do the same with a web based magazine and you’ll come to the same result.
If you want to be powerful both brand wise and professionally, you will need a strong focus and a widespread exposure. Fortunately making both happen is not that hard although it does take some time. But, it is time well spent.
