One of the many questions that I get about personal branding is "how do I know if my efforts are working?" While the low hanging fruit there would be, if you get a genuine sense that more and more people are hearing about you and your activities. People with strong personal brands seem to be everywhere. They seem to be engaged in the conversations of people with smart SMEs and high thought leadership. This takes time and a boat-load of work. Needless to say, people still want to know if they are improving based on their efforts.

Here is a quick list that you can benchmark test your personal brand:

• Conversational threads on your Facebook "page" are continuing independent of your engagement.
• Do a Google search for your name:
  • Do you own the first page?
  • Does Google images index you or multiple folks with your name?
  • Are the images of you consistent, or do they range from various locations/times that you built profiles over the course of your digital experience?
• If you're using tools like HootSuite, sprout social and or others a standard thumbs up is a consistent percentage growth in your followers, subscribers and communities.
• Google analytics shows more people on your website or blog. "Dwell time" ( the amount of time people spend with your content) is an important metric to show, even if in a small way, the sentiment and value to your audience.
• Do a backlinks check on your blog.
• Do a free SEO ranking.
• While I'm not 100% sold on it for a great number of reasons, monitoring your Klout.com account will also give you a qualifying rank that you can use as a benchmark to improve upon.
• If you utilize live streaming or community-based services such as periscope, meerkat or conduct life are you noticing growth in the following that attend?
• Do a Google search for the title of any of your blog posts:
  •  Did you get the number one hit? If not, start to construct (while still injecting SEO keywords) more creative titles that have unique value.