I’m starting this blog on Personal Visibility because I had a flash of inspiration the other day.  It was one of those moments when things I had seen, heard, and done over the past few months came together in an “Aha!” moment.

As I shared on my Fun With Networking blog, I recently gave a presentation on effective use of LinkedIn for networking and personal branding.  One of the audience members sent me an e-mail later, asking me if her profile should be about herself or about her company.  While the obvious answer is that your LinkedIn profile is about you, it also can be a valuable tool for marketing your company, if you do it right.

A friend later asked me if I could help train the recruiters in her office on using LinkedIn.  Yet another friend asked if I could help coach him on marketing himself as an actor and as a life coach.

It suddenly struck me that the growing use of social media tools like LinkedIn and Facebook are creating a world where “marketing” and “business” will be driven more and more by personal relationships, personal networks, and personal visibility.

My background is in public relations, and, if there’s one thing I know, it’s how to increase visibility.  But I’ve also learned that you have to increase your visibility the right way.

This blog is about how to make yourself visible the right way in this new social-media, friend-of-a-friend, I-have-27,328-friends-on-MySpace world.  I don’t mean 15-minutes-of-fame-viral-video-on-YouTube visible.  I mean the sort of visible where you are known as the go-to expert, who knows everything and everyone in your corner of the world.  Sustainable visibility.

I see this as a companion blog to my FunWithNetworking.com blog, which is about reaching out to people and establishing new connections and interconnections.  For the most part, FunWithNetworking is about face-to-face networking, with discussion of how the Internet can help you do it.

This blog is about using the Internet, your face-to-face networking, and your expertise to position yourself as a person of power and influence – to increase your visibility.