Is Your Personal Brand Ready for the Digital Universe? | Personal Branding Blog - Dan Schawbel

Each year IDC, an IT think tank, in sponsorship by EMC puts out a report on the state of the Digital Universe. This year’s report has just been released and there are some interesting trends that personal branders can draw from the report.

Here are some of the interesting findings from the IDC report:

Between now and 2020, the amount of digital information created and replicated in the world will grow to an almost inconceivable 35 trillion gigabytes as all major forms of media – voice, TV, radio, print – will complete the journey from analog to digital.

Last year despite the global recession, the Digital Universe, set a record. It grew by 62% to nearly 800,000 petabytes. A petabytes is a million gigabytes. Picture a stack of DVD’s reaching from the earth to the moon and back.

This explosive growth means that by 2020, our Digital Universe will be 44 times as big as it was in 2009. Our stack of DVD’s would now reach halfway to Mars.

Most of the digital universe begins with an action by a consumer – an email typed on a laptop, a digital photo taken at a wedding, a movie downloaded from Netflix. In fact more than 70% of the Digital Universe this year will be generated by users – individuals at home, work, and on the go.

The social media invasion of the enterprise has just begun. IDC estimates that by 2020, business transactions on the internet, B2B and B2C, will reach 450 billion a day.

That is some blow your hair back data, beyond the realm of human understanding because we have no real reference point for numbers so large.

But, how do personal branders rise to the top when the waves of information keep crashing on our head’s.

Key takeaways:

1.) Begin to create content so that you can get found in search engines, social search, and the blogosphere. Do not get lost in the tsunami of digital information that is growing everyday.

2.) Learn a thing or two about SEO (search engine optimization) so that your remarkable content can be made sense of by search engines and given to the people looking for you. You want to be a search engine and opportunity magnet.

3.) Start digital networking everyday. There is more digital content available than ever before. If you read an interesting article about a company reach out to the CEO and other employees on Linkedin. If you meet someone interesting reach out to them on social networks and begin a digital conversation that can turn into a real relationship over time.

4.) Stop waiting to get into the personal branding game. The amount of content being created everyday is almost incomprehensible. The personal branders that are striving to solidify their personal brands now, will be the staples of their niche tomorrow.

The big question….

Is your personal brand ready for the digital universe?

Author:

Chad Levitt is the author of the New Sales Economy blog, which focuses on how Sales 2.0 & Social Media can help you connect, create more opportunities and increase your business. Chad is also the featured Sales 2.0 blogger at SalesGravy.com, the number one web portal for sales pros, the professional athletes of the business world. Make sure to connect with him on Twitter @chadalevitt.