$1 Million Blog Blunders and Other Personal Branding Mistakes That Could Damage Your Business

When an affair is labeled "black tie optional," it means that everyone but George Clooney had better show up in formal attire. And when a marketing strategist tells you that personal branding is optional, it means that everyone but Fred Flintstone needs to get a strategy in place.

Because unless you live in the fictional Stone Age -- or maintain no online presence at all -- you are branding yourself, like it or not. And without some sort of strategy, you could be unwittingly harming your business.

Every time you tweet, post, comment or upload anything on the Internet, your actions affect your personal brand. And it doesn't take a major faux pas such as posting nude pictures to Instragram or racist rants to Twitter to cause you and your business irreparable harm.

Here are three common personal branding errors business owners make and what you can do to avoid (or correct them):

1.  Blog Blunders

Blogs are a critical part of your digital marketing strategy.  Blogs give sites 434 percent more indexed pages and 97 percent more indexed links than sites without blogs, and companies with active blogs report 97 percent more leads than companies who let their blogs go stale, according to ContentPlus.  And blogs are the basic entry fee for promoting yourself in social media and writing guest posts and articles.

But blogs are both difficult and time-consuming to maintain.  And, if you want to maximize your blog's value by increasing traffic, some studies say you should post at least 15 times a month and others say you should post 20 times a month or more.

Unless you have 45 to 60 hours to spare in your monthly schedule, you'll probably assign blog-writing duties to someone on your staff or an outside contractor.

Take care in hiring a blog writer and take the time to read the blogs before they're posted because it's your name at the top -- and your reputation at stake.

I know the CEO of an enterprise technology company who lost a $1 million contract because of a blunder in a single blog post written by an inexperienced writer.  And it cost him more than $50,000 to repair the damage to his personal brand.

2.  Flawed Photos

None of us is picture-perfect every day.  But don't take the photo for your About Us page or your Gravatar on one of those days.  Make sure you're properly rested and groomed before you put your face all over the Internet.

You don't have to spend hundreds of dollars on a studio portrait.  Your iPhone or HD camera will take beautiful pictures for free.  So snap a few dozen and ask some people whose opinions you trust to help you choose among them.

Think about what message you're sending.  An entrepreneur who will go nameless likes to think of himself as the Mick Jagger of the business world.  But, in his photograph, he looks more like Dwight Schrute from "The Office" than he does a rock star.

Your photo should resemble you.  Don't PhotoShop away every wrinkle or the love handles that anyone who meets you in person will see.  And aim for a photo that makes you look approachable -- not like a prison warden or like someone who just got stood up for the prom.

For best natural lighting, take your photo an hour after sunrise or an hour before sunset.  Make sure there's nothing distracting -- like your car seat headrest or abstract art -- in the background.

Think a photo doesn't seriously affect your personal brand?  Scroll through your LinkedIn contacts.  Based on the photos, who do you think is credible?  Whom would you not want to meet in a dark alley -- or anywhere?

3.  Pretentious Profiles

A profile is not the same as a resume.  If you only post your work history to your profiles on LinkedIn, Google+, Facebook and elsewhere, you're doing your personal brand a disservice.

Your profile should tell your story.  What you've done -- titles you've held, awards you've won -- deserve mention.  But while a list of accomplishments looks impressive on a resume, it often sounds pretentious in a profile.

Use your profile to give your target audience at least a glimpse of your personality.  Demonstrate that you're likable as well as accomplished.

To get ideas about how to include a storytelling element in your profile, sign up to Forbes.com to create a profile there.  You don't have to complete the process, but check out the questions.  The Q & A asks traditional questions about your greatest accomplishments and current projects.  But it also asks you to complete prompts such as "What I'm Currently Addicted to..." and "This is Annoying Me..."

Because people -- your peers, clients and industry influencers -- want to know these things.  Personal branding is tricky, which is why some CEOs hire experts to help craft their personas.  But the basic premise of personal branding is simple: It answers the question, "What's your story?"