As the economy twists and turns with more layoffs mounting – having a strong personal brand is becoming ever more important from a career perspective.

But what does that mean? Do you launch a blog? Do you start a Twitter account? Do you launch your own Vlog? Or maybe some combination of all of the above.

To get some more clarity on this I interviewed Dan Schawbel the author of the Personal Branding blog. He will also be releasing a new book called Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success (due out with Kaplan in April 09). In my opinion, Dan is also the hardest working guy in Social Media posting 10 times a week on his blog, publishing his own magazine and book as well as having a full time job as the social media expert for EMC!

How to create your own Personal Brand?

About Dan

Dan Schawbel is the leading personal branding expert for Gen-Y. He is the author of “Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success (Kaplan, April 2009).”

Presently, Dan is a Social Media Specialist at EMC Corporation, which is one of the leading technology companies in the world. He has helped revolutionize the way EMC communicates and collaborates with all stakeholders. He has spearheaded the company’s Twitter, Facebook, social media press release/newsroom, social bookmarking and blogging strategy in the past year.

Dan has introduced a whole new generation to personal branding, as he opens up new opportunities and strives to elevate the practice. His Personal Branding Blog is consistently ranked in the top 70 marketing blogs in the world by AdAge, and has achieved syndication from Forbes, Reuters and Hoovers. Dan publishes Personal Branding Magazine, is the head judge for the Personal Brand Awards and directs Personal Branding TV.

He has written articles in major magazines and online resources such as BrandWeek Magazine, PRWeek, About.com, Web Worker Daily, T & D Magazine, Small Business Opportunities Magazine, MarketingProfs, Advertising Age, TheLadders.com and The American Marketing Association. He is a frequent media commentator, cited in such outlets as Fast Company, ABC News, Boston Globe, Monster.com, Young Money Magazine, BNET, ReadWriteWeb, Providence Business News, Marketing News, Brand Strategy Magazine (UK) and Yahoo! Finance.

These days many professional services and technology firms looking to differentiate themselves lean on an age old technique of creating thought leadership. But truly differentiated and provocative thought leadership is actually hard to come by. Most of the time, it is just interesting theory without any proof. Moreover, does the thought leadership actually drive the business and create sales or is it just content for content sake.

To get a better understanding of this space I decided to interview Bob Buday the co-founder of The Bloom Group whose firm specializes in the creation of cogent and well differentiated thought leadership. Bob is also the co-author of a new book Thoughts on Thought Leadership which is a great resource for anyone working to create thought leaders in their organizations.

How to develop Thought Leaders

About Bob

Bob Buday is a co-founder of The Bloom Group and has been a researcher, marketing strategist, and writer for consulting and IT companies for 15 years. Prior to launching The Bloom Group, Bob for 10 years was director of marketing communications at CSC Index. He played a leading role in making the consulting concept of “business reengineering” a household word, directing Index’s extensive publications, PR, and survey research activities.

From the development and marketing of reengineering, Index’s revenues grew from $30 million to $250 million in less than a decade. Bob was instrumental in the development and placement of two Harvard Business Review articles. He launched and directed the firm’s popular Insights Quarterly management publication, its annual study of information systems management issues, and its 1994 study of reengineering initiatives, which The Economist said was the most extensive study of reengineering to date. He also played a key role in promoting three best-selling books.

Transferring the lessons learned from marketing consulting concepts to the marketing of other complex products (particularly IT), Bob co-authored “Marketing Breakthrough Products,” published in the Harvard Business Review in 1999. His most recent Harvard Business Review piece, “A Consultant’s Comeuppance,” was published in the February 2003 issue.

Bob’s passion for research and writing about the business implications and applications of IT began in 1985, when he joined InformationWeek magazine as a senior editor. At InformationWeek, the No. 1 magazine on information technology for senior IT and business executives, he led coverage of the strategic use of IT and the software industry. Before joining InformationWeek, he was a business writer at The Orange County (Calif.) Register, where he wrote news and feature stories on companies in the real estate, consumer products, health care, IT, retailing and other industries. He has a B.A. in communications studies from Penn State University and did graduate work in an MBA program at California State University, Fullerton.