Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Kairol Rosenthal, author of Everything Changes: The Insider’s Guide to Cancer in Your 20’s and 30’s.

I travel the country writing and blogging about twenty-somethings living with cancer, many of whom are facing astronomical debt. But, it does not take an illness as catastrophic as breast or thyroid cancer to rack up serious medical bills. Even healthy Gen Y’ers have ginormous amounts of medical debt from routine care. Consider these statistics:

• Out of every age group in the United States, 18-34 year olds have the most medical debt.
• More than 35% of all young adults have problems with medical bills including getting calls from collection agencies, paying off medical debt, or having to seriously alter their life to accommodate for medical expenses.

While researching and writing my book Everything Changes: The Insider’s Guide to Cancer in Your 20’s and 30’s, I collected myriad tips to help young adults – both healthy and ill – manage their healthcare and finances. Here are five:

Ask For a Discount

Fifty-percent of people who ask for reduced medical costs get them. Make the ask face-to-face rather than in writing or over the phone. Approach your doctor, or the office or billing manager. Red tape is infuriating and their response might be as well, but remember to be polite; hostility will get you nowhere.

A discount might not be granted with your first ask. Be persistent and don’t take no for an answer. If you are dealing with a hospital, work your way up the chain of command. Many staff are not familiar with their own hospital’s policies and will deny a request simply out of ignorance. With my own cancer care and medical disputes, I never had qualms about calling the CEO of a hospital. You should not either.

Build your argument. Obtain a copy of the hospital’s free and discounted care policy. Check to see if they have signed on to The American Hospital Association’s Billing and Collections Practices Policy. If so, they have agreed to assist patients who cannot pay for all or part of their care. Use this ammo to your advantage. If you are at a non-profit hospital, try contacting your State Attorney General, who can help enforce the institution’s commitment to providing charity care.

Scour Bills for Errors

Eighty-percent of medical bills contain errors. Read your medical bill carefully and dispute any incorrect charges. I recently received a comment on my Everything Changes blog from a breast cancer patient with a high tab that her insurance was not covering. When she investigated further, she learned they had accidentally used the billing code for a sex change operation.

Read carefully to find duplication of charges or charges for services not used. Check for simple accounting errors. If you have health insurance, make sure your company is accurately calculating your deductible and out-of-pocket expenses. If you find an error, dispute it relentlessly and keep meticulous records of your phone conversations with billing departments.

Avoid Credit Cards

The worst thing you can do with medical debt is to put it on your credit card. Once you put a medical bill on a credit card that bill is subject to compounding interest fees with no recourse for further dispute with your doctor or hospital. Hospitals are getting craftier at persuading patients to pay debts with credit cards. Resist their pressure.

Negotiate A Payment Plan

Instead of using a credit card, talk with the billing department to negotiate a payment plan. Hospitals are more receptive to this than you might think; they would rather work out a way to get some money from you over time than no money at all. Payment plans are so attractive to some hospitals that you can use them to leverage a deduction in your total bill, especially if you offer to make your payments in cash.

One of the people I interviewed was Nora, a 24 year-old cancer patient who could not afford her chemotherapy. She thought, “Wow, I’m going to die because I have no money?” Then, she sat down with the financial department of her hospital and was shocked when they suggested working out a payment plan. When you take the initiative to show that you want to pay off your debt, and are not just ignoring your bills, you can buy yourself a lot of leeway.

Get Credit Counseling Now

Billing departments, collections agencies, and bankruptcy lawyers can make the horrifically complicated world of medical debt even more stressful. Get counseling from a non-profit organization whose mission it is to advocate for patients. The National Foundation for Credit Counseling is an excellent place to start.

In the current economy, twenty-somethings are struggling even more so with joblessness, staggering COBRA payments and premiums, and high deductibles. As we wait around for government and industry to resolve the healthcare crisis, we needn’t sit idle succumbing to medical debt statistics. Fighting large medical institutions is a time consuming drag. But so is a future with the ball and chain of medical debt.

I should be writing about my recent trip to Cancun, and my safe return without the swine flu. Or how I need to update this blog more often.

But instead, I’m writing about this stupid person who hacked my Twitter account and started following hundreds of spammers who started sending me hundreds of direct messages with hundreds of stupid links that I’m afraid to click. So I can’t tell you where those links go.

What I can tell you is that the incident completely freaked me out. First, because I was only gone from social media and internet access for one week, and someone managed to violate my privacy in that time frame. Second, because I had to unfollow everyone to get rid of the spammers. And I was afraid to unfollow everyone because I know lots of people have auto-unfollows and I knew my followers count would drop. Fast. Wait. It’s still dropping. Like hundreds of people every few hours.

Then I realized I just don’t care. Seriously. I know that people who would only follow me if I was following them are using me to boost their egos. And I know that cleaning out my Twitter following was unmanageable without starting from scratch. And I know that I need to get over the idea that numbers define something about my online presence.

I feel a lot of things right now. Mad at the hacker. Annoyed with the source of the originally hacked account. Annoyed with myself for using the same password for both accounts. And then, relieved that I have an excuse to unfollow everyone and delete the noise in my Twitter account. And then, back to annoyed, because I will probably spend a lot of time adding people back.

But. I can breathe again. I can hear myself think. And if that costs me a thousand followers, it’s probably still worth it.

Here’s what to do if your Twitter account is hacked:

1. Change the password.
2. Identify the source, so it doesn’t happen again.
3. Unfollow the spammers, even if you have to unfollow everyone.
4. Use this How-To to delete your DMs.
5. Be patient. You can’t fix your account in one day.

If I owe you a follow, let me know. And be patient. Because it’s going to take me awhile to get back on track on Twitter.

If you haven’t heard yet, I launched my new website called the Resourceful Marketer on Sunday night. I wish this were a happy post to tell you how excited I am. I mean, I am excited, sort of. But I’m also very tired and very annoyed, because I did not want to start another blog when this one is finally seeing some success.

So here is the convoluted version of why I started my new blog, in the form of mistakes I made when starting this one:

I highlighted my age. Wait. I harped on it.

If you want to harp on your age and inexperience, it doesn’t get any better than declaring yourself a twentysomething or Gen Y blogger. I needn’t remind anyone that there is very real discrimination against young people in the workplace. It’s fine to pigeonhole yourself as “young and bright” when you first enter the workforce; but 3-5 years in, you’ll be begging for people to stop looking at you as “one of those millennials” and start taking you seriously.

Chuck Westbrook says it best: “Rather than trying to be the Penelope Trunk of Gen Y or the Gary Vaynerchuk of the next generation, the real accomplishment is to start showing up on ‘Best Bloggers’ lists, without generational qualifications.”

I agree. Growing into your profession means gaining respect as peers. Which is nearly impossible to do if you classify yourself as a Gen Y blogger.

I thought blogging was just a hobby.

Blogging is a wonderful hobby, don’t get me wrong. But look. When you build a blog of nearly 1,000 subscribers, you don’t have a hobby anymore. You have something that you should take more seriously, because you might be able to take it further.

When you first start a blog, you have no idea how popular you might get, so you should plan ahead 5 years just in case. Okay. Don’t really plan that far, but at least consider where you might be 5 years from now. Because now that I have a moderately successful blog, I can’t do anything with it because I messed up when I chose my focus on Gen Y personal development, which morphed into just personal with a dash of Gen Y. Which brings me to my next point.

I wrote about twentysomething careers instead of my career interests.

First, the Gen Y train has left the station. The market for more bloggers on this topic is small, the B2B business is going to already-established Gen Y companies, and even the bloggers who started the Gen Y train are struggling to make money from it. So please do not start a blog about twentysomethings in the workplace, or any other place. It’s done.

Second, I think twentysomethings get very mixed up about blogging being good for your career. It is, but mostly when you write about topics that are relevant to your field. (You know, establishing yourself as an “expert” in your industry, and all that.)

Sure you can learn a lot about yourself and grow as a person, personal development, yada yada, from any blog you start. But if you want to take a long-term view, you shouldn’t write about the ins and outs of your actual career unless you want to be a career coach or human resources professional.

I didn’t blog on my personal domain.

I am so thankful I bought http://monicaobrien.com when I did. Because it wasn’t available one week, and then it was the next and I snatched it. And now I’m using it to write about marketing, because the domain “Twenty Set” just doesn’t make sense for that topic, and I want to be fair to my original subscribers here.

But there’s more. If you want people to know you, no matter what you write about or what your career is, you should be blogging at yourname.com. On blogs, people buy you more than your topic. And besides, it’s likely that as a twentysomething you don’t know what you want to do and will change careers often, and the one thing that is fairly constant is your name.

I have two blogs! Don’t have two blogs. Just don’t.

I will try to keep up with Twenty Set and grow Resourceful Marketer. But to be realistic, it is very difficult to grow even one blog to 1,000 subscribers, and trying to manage two blogs will probably be a nightmare.

Plan ahead so you don’t ever need two blogs! There are a million problems that come with it. Aside from having double the work, you have the trouble of building a following on two separate domains, from subscribers, to links, to content, to comments, to traffic. The thought of starting a second blog made me so crazy that I put it off for 5 months, hoping to find another solution. I kicked myself when I realized that I would be so far by now if I’d been building my second blog for the last 5 months instead of going nuts.

I hope you won’t make the mistakes I made. Thanks to everyone for supporting Twenty Set thus far, and a special thanks to those who have helped me launch the Resourceful Marketer (I am especially happy to finally have something to put on my business cards).

As you may have guessed, Twenty Set will officially become my personal blog, if it hasn’t already. The writing style and content of this blog will stay the same, so keep reading and check out Resourceful Marketer if you ever want more. I hope the topics I cover on Resourceful Marketer will peak the interest of some of my longtime supporters of this blog too!

I am good at giving advice. This is not to say I’m good at giving good advice. Honestly, I’m just good at giving advice I like.

Jamie Varon recently wrote a post about reading bad advice in the blogosphere that inspired me to elaborate on my thoughts about advice-giving.

The hard thing about getting advice is, as humans, we have a tendency to ignore and discredit advice we don’t like, while heavily weighing advice we do like. The dangers of this approach are that we still don’t know what to do and end up just doing what we want, which may not always be the best decision.

Here’s a checklist I go through whenever I need to disseminate what is good advice and what is BS.

Has the adviser done this before?

Experience is king. The best advice givers write and speak about things they know. Trust the person who has experienced something similar to your problem or has achieved a goal you are aiming for.

How well does the adviser know me?

Blanket advice is rarely useful to understand situational problems. The best advice is tailored to your specific situation and who you are as a person. Weigh advice given by someone who asks you questions more heavily.

What are the adviser’s motivations?

Beware of the tendency of humans to give advice that benefits them. Everyone does it. If you are working with a career coach, remember they are trying to sell you something in the end. If you are working with your boss, remember he wants to advance his own career too.

How much can I trust this adviser?

Even if someone has experience and seemingly good intentions, if he has a questionable character, I still might not take his advice. Look at the way this person has handled situations in the past. Are this person’s techniques consistent with your own values?

What else is important to cutting through bad advice? Leave your thoughts in the comments section.

I regularly answer reader questions on my blog. If you have a question you can submit via twitter (@monicaobrien) or email me m@twentyset.com.

This question comes from @andydrish:

“I’d like to hear what it’s like to build a community around shows like gossip girls…Howd you get into that niche?”

Andy is referring to my other website, Media Lookbook, which is an affiliate marketing site for the fashion seen on Gossip Girl.

I don’t talk about this much because I’m worried that the story isn’t very exciting. Back in 2007 I stumbled on ProBlogger and thought I could make money blogging. So I started several sites, and one of them was a fan site for a new show coming out called Gossip Girl.

The show was getting a ton of buzz, and my fan site did okay, producing a couple hundred bucks of Google AdSense revenue a month. Of course, a hundred bucks is not enough to make the business of publishing daily news and recaps about the show profitable.

But then I kept getting emails from fans asking me “What did Serena wear in this episode?” “Who designed the dress that Blair wore to the ball?”

I soon realized that the business of telling people where to buy items from the show was lucrative. First, the information was of high value to a group of trendsetters, and it was hard to find online. Second, the target audience for the information had tons of disposable income. (When you can spend $700 on a Marc Jacobs purse just because you saw it on a TV show, you have a ton of disposable income.)

So I got into affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing is when you post a link to another site that’s selling the item, and then you receive a commission if someone uses your link and makes a purchase.

Reality check: the commissions are not huge. 5-10% maybe. But on a $700 purse, that’s $35-70. So if you are even thinking about trying this, you have to find a niche where the purchase price is very large, and to be honest, most of these markets (including mine) are already saturated.

Getting back to the story, I started a new site that was focused solely on Gossip Girl fashion and monetized it with banner ads and affiliate links. Even without any new posts, the site accumulated traffic like none other. Within a year the website had 50,000 visitors per month and 500,000 pageviews. By the way, this is a lot for a blog with a very niche focus and no external promotion.

I could go on about the website, but the point is that I created a valuable niche business with very little capital because I paid attention to the trends and explored a new direction to exploit an unmet need in the marketplace.

The takeaway from the experience for me is that the way most successful entrepreneurs find business opportunities is serendipitous. You come up with ten ideas and maybe one is worth exploring in depth. For every 10 ideas you explore in depth, only one is worth putting significant capital behind. And so on. And then sometimes your original idea sucked, but it led to insight that gave you a better idea.

By the time you put all the filters in place and work backwards, you probably need 10,000 good ideas and several iterations of innovation before you stand a chance of creating the next Facebook. That’s okay, because we don’t all need to create the next Facebook to be successful entrepreneurs. But the point is that there is an opportunity cost of not exploring new opportunities. If you aren’t constantly exploring new ideas and learning new things, you will miss the profitable businesses that come to you by chance.

I’m going to start answering reader questions on my blog. If you have a question you can submit via twitter (@monicaobrien) or email me m@twentyset.com.

This one comes from @davidgallant :

“I am very interested to hear what you have to say about college grads finding their first job.”

Okay. So this isn’t really a question, but it sort of is, so I’m going to answer it anyway.

When I graduated from college, I went straight to Caterpillar, a Fortune 500 manufacturing company. It was an awesome experience for a first job and I learned so much about working in corporate and I would recommend it to anyone; but my guess is that many college grads are not going to get that opportunity because most large companies have hiring freezes right now.

The reality for the Class of 2009 is if you don’t have a job lined up yet, it will be very difficult to get one before graduation. I spoke to my sister-in-law who was Class of 2008 over Easter and she said that most of her friends were still having trouble getting jobs a year later, especially if they didn’t have very specific career degrees, like a business degree or a software engineering degree. This is probably even more true for current graduating seniors.

There is not much you can do to change your degree at this point. So here’s my advice:

1. Create your own internship

My friend Nisha Chittal, a political science major, did this. She spoke to some contacts she met on a trip to Cambodia and she is now going to spend 4-5 months after graduation helping start a business there.

You may ask how to get an internship, and the answer is to first figure out something you might like to do. (This is probably the hardest part.) Try to come up with an industry, a target company list within that industry, and a function within each company (like marketing, or sales). Once you have that, start contacting these companies and explain to them how you can add value to their operation.

You may have to offer your work for free. Yes, it sucks. But it is better than spending all summer doing nothing plus a job search. Now you can be gaining valuable work experience while you do a job search.

2. Be willing to move anywhere

There are much fewer jobs in a recession, so in order to find one that’s a good fit for you you must cast your net wide. That means you have to be willing to relocate.

You can take an opportunity somewhere without having to commit too heavily to the location. Most of Generation Y leaves their first job within 2 years of starting. So if you take a job in a crappy place know that it’s not going to last forever, and think of it as an investment in your career.

3. Take your part-time college job full time

Getting a job in a recession is hard for generalists, which is what all entry-level workers are. Every position that’s open is looking for the perfect fit, from executive positions all the way down to the waitressing level.

Yes, waitressing. Right now, you cannot get a waitressing job without having recent years of waitressing experience.

Wait. That’s perfect for college students though. So if you can, take your job as a sales associate, or a bartender full-time to pay the bills while you search for a real job.

4. Do project work

There is a talent agency headquartered in Chicago that I am in love with, because it understands what twentysomethings want, and it is legitimate. It’s called Brill Street. The idea is that you join Brill Street and they find project work for you in your areas of interest at large and mid-sized companies.

And they are looking for social media and tech-savvy types. Like you probably.

It is a contract-to-hire agency that essentially let’s you test drive different jobs and different companies until you find one you like. Perfect for Gen Y. And the company is open to college juniors and seniors as well, so if you are looking for part-time work or want to recession-proof your future, now would be the time to start.

What do you think college grads of 2009 should do on the job-front? Share your thoughts in the comments section.

There are a lot of questions I have regarding the merit of Gen Y blogging. Is Gen Y a valuable niche for bloggers? Does “Gen Y blogger” fit me? Does “Gen Y blogger” fit my target audience?

And here’s what I’ve noticed: there are plenty of Gen Y bloggers, but the best Gen Y bloggers don’t fit the Gen Y stereotypes. And the Gen Y bloggers who do fit the Gen Y stereotypes are obnoxious. To everyone, not just me.

So here are some things you can do to become a less annoying Gen Y blogger:

Pay your dues. At least for a little while.

I am amazed to read about Gen Y bloggers who give up on the workforce shortly out of school. The truth is you rarely learn enough in a couple years to go off on your own and create a stable, profitable business.

Please do not send me emails about all the 22 year-old guys who quit college and became multi-billionaire entrepreneurs. First of all, this is an impossible outcome for just about everyone, and you have to be insanely smart to even have a shot. Then, even if you are so lucky to start your own company and end up as the next Facebook, it is rare that you will end up retaining any significant control. Just ask Steve Jobs – within a few years of founding Apple he was kicked out of the company because he couldn’t get along with the new CEO the VC’s brought in.

So stay at your job, even if you hate it and feel that your talents extend way beyond the job description. Two of the most important skills for entrepreneurs are implementation and taking direction, and a job in corporate can teach these to you.

Admit it when you’re wrong.

I am all for Gen Y bloggers who want to share their opinions and experiences and advice. Everyone should be able to write what they want; that is the beauty of the democracy of the internet.

At the same time, you come across irrational when you get negative feedback on something you wrote and then refuse to admit you might have been wrong. Gen Y bloggers should use blogging as a vehicle for learning, and people do not learn unless they can get feedback on their thought process and make incremental improvements. This requires putting yourself out there and revising your opinions over time.

So if five people give you an answer you don’t like, it’s not them. It’s you.

Enjoy your cubicle.

Here is a secret about working from home: it sucks. First, it requires an amount of discipline that most people don’t have. Second, people severely underestimate the power of face time. In the early stage of your career, a lack of face time is going to cost you no matter what company you work for; even if it’s your own.

Third, it is almost impossible to avoid the fridge. If you are doing difficult work, your emotions will run high and the temptation to snack during the work day will drive you insane. And distract you. See point #1.

By the way, traveling for work is not much better. After awhile, every hotel looks the same and you get sick of eating out at restaurants and living out of a suitcase. So be glad that you have a cubicle job because happy, productive people are people with consistent routines.

Get married.

When Gen Y bloggers write that they are not mature enough for marriage, all I hear is that they are not mature. Period.

Maybe that’s not fair. I don’t think you should get married before you’re ready, or that marriage is for everyone. I do think that Gen Y bloggers who aren’t in serious relationships write a lot of pointless blog posts about how marriage is like a death sentence for Gen Y.

Look at the Gen Y community. The majority of truly insightful Gen Y bloggers are married. Probably because marriage forces you to grow up and gain self-awareness, in addition to eliminating the drama and time suck of dating. And self-aware bloggers in committed relationships have more interesting things to say and more time to say them.

If you are not in the market for a marriage, take a hint from the rest of the insightful Gen Y bloggers. They are not married, but they do not write annoying anti-marriage blog posts. So stop.

Get off your computer.

Social media is a wonderful vehicle for networking. But let’s face it: most people still do not use social media. In fact, most CEOs do not use social media for major networking because they have to run a business instead of twittering about their lunch. Which means there are plenty of important people who could help you with your career who you will not meet online.

10% of people get jobs through internet listings, while 70% get jobs through networking. (The other 20% is split evenly between recruiting and job fairs.) So given that eating lunch with a new contact is one of the most productive things you could do on a job hunt, wouldn’t it follow that shutting off your computer could also improve your career after you get the job?

Do not live with your parents!

Please do not take this the wrong way. If you are in a financial bind, it is nice to rely on parents to help for a few months. But please do not brag about how you live with your parents when you have graduated from college already. It is not just old people who think this is nuts. Your peers think you are crazy too.

Living with your parents when you have all the tools to support yourself is the equivalent of saying “I cannot handle adulthood.” So if you are able to get a job, do not put off adulthood in favor of self- fulfillment. Because really, that just becomes self-absorption. And the world does not need any more self-absorbed Gen Y bloggers.

As the recession looms, many people are clinging to their jobs like a life raft in a hurricane. Plans to start a new business or grow a business are put off in favor of playing it safe.

I disagree with this approach, because I believe an entrepreneurial mindset can a good thing in a recession, and actually bolster careers. Here are five reasons why:

Job security does not exist, even in growth periods

As technology innovations increase productivity, many jobs have become obsolete or automated. Since the 1980’s, goods-producing jobs have shifted to service-providing jobs, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts this trend will continue through 2016. Thus, workers will likely change careers into service-related fields, many of which don’t currently exist.

Because of this phenomenon, today’s worker does not have the luxury of simply going to work and collecting a paycheck anymore; professionals must constantly network and learn new skills because changing jobs regularly is imminent. Those who don’t will find themselves unemployed.

While it is obvious from unemployment statistics that job placement is at an all-time low these days, let’s be clear. True job security has been a myth for awhile now, even before this messy recession took place. So why wait for the economy to get better before taking the plunge? Why let recession fears hold you back from entrepreneurship?

Recessions create opportunities for necessity-based entrepreneurship

Research shows that no matter what the economy looks like, entrepreneurship as a job category holds steady. This is because in good times entrepreneurs create opportunity-based businesses due to excess of cash flow, and in bad times entrepreneurs create necessity-based businesses due to lack of cash flow.

So do not think that just because companies are downsizing there is no room for new businesses. The opposite is true; the country needs small businesses because the larger ones have stopped innovating and fulfilling niche needs in order to cut costs. Furthermore, during a recession, consumers focus spending on need-based products, are less willing to pay brand-name prices, and are always looking for the more frugal alternative. All of these spaces are opportunities for entrepreneurs to create need-based solutions.

Lay-offs do not mean there is less work to

As companies lay people off, it is usually not because the work those employees were doing has disappeared. In fact, companies turn that work into project-based work which gets outsourced at a higher price than if a full-time employee were to do it. Why? Because companies can still save money on the project by not paying out 401k and health benefits.

Savvy professionals know that even in a recession, they can get work in their field as a freelancer or consultant as long as they are willing adopt an entrepreneurial spirit. The internet has lowered entry-barriers for starting and marketing a freelance or consulting venture. Today, you can set up a basic website, print some business cards, and hit the streets to find high-paying project-based work.

Entrepreneurship fills in gaps on your resume, making you more marketable

Even if your end goal is to get another job, there is nothing that says entrepreneurship and job-hunting are mutually exclusive. This means that if you get laid off from work, the best thing to do is immediately start a company so you can spend your unemployed time wisely.

It took me some time to figure this out when I quit my job back in October 2008, just before the stock market crashed. The plan had been to take a well-deserved break for 2 months before starting a short job-hunt in January. Of course, as short turned to longer, I realized my traditional job options were pretty despairing.

I wanted to reclaim my power over my career, so I decided to do some online marketing consulting work on the side while waiting for job offers, which I eventually received. After turning down several unappealing job offers though, I realized that I already had a job – my marketing consulting business!

You should never have gaps in your resume, because you can always create work for yourself as an entrepreneur. Now, when I meet with CEOs of prominent Chicago businesses, they are impressed with my resume because I can bring something to the table, even in the face of adversity.

Entrepreneurship teaches you to be a better networker

It is no secret that the people with the most security are also the best networkers. This is because 90% of jobs are not advertised to the public, which means that the professionals who know the most people get first dibs on the least competitive jobs. Less competition combined with personal connections makes for a short job-hunt.

It is also no secret that entrepreneurs have large networks out of necessity. Entrepreneurs have a knack for building strategic alliances and using quid pro quo to come up with scrappy, workable solutions when faced with misfortune. As such, the real learning that comes out of entrepreneurship is not actually how to run a business; it’s how to build a network that helps you reach your goals.

So if your long-term goal is security, entrepreneurship is actually a good career route to consider. The fastest way to get a job is to become a great networker. And the fastest way to become a great networker is to become an entrepreneur.

Dan Schawbel is kind of a big deal these days – he has a book Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success that just came out (today! go get it), tons of press publicity, his award-winning blog, and his reputation as the #1 personal branding expert. But while Dan’s articles can teach us a lot about how to use social media to brand yourself, I actually learn more about personal branding just from watching Dan work his magic.

Here are some of things I’ve learned:

Dan gives a lot of himself

As one of the Personal Branding Blog writers, I get the opportunity to talk to Dan on a fairly regular basis about everything he’s doing in his career. What I’ve found is he has a huge heart and gives so much of himself to everyone he possibly can. He speaks at local colleges and organizations, he writes articles all the time, he shares interesting information through his twitter account, he does press interviews, he answers questions via email, he writes LinkedIn recommendations for everyone he knows… the list goes on and on.

I recently wrote a post about How to be Popular on Social Media, and Dan is the epitome of one of the points – to make the conversation about your followers, not yourself. It’s no surprise that Dan has a great following, because he truly gives more than he ever asks.

Dan keeps track of his online brand

Dan uses every outlet he has to promote good content of others, but he never misses a chance for self-promotion. I think this is a great thing, because nobody is going to toot your horn for you. Promoting your own accomplishments gives you credibility among your followers and sets an example for what people like you can accomplish.

In Dan’s case, he always shares every article that is written about him, no matter how large or small the publication. The situation is win-win – Dan gets publicity and the publication gets traffic, an incentive that encourages other publications to interview Dan.

Dan writes a ton of articles for various publications

Dan is known as the personal branding expert, but he knows that personal branding is not a vacuum. That’s why Dan applies his subject (personal branding) to broader subjects so he can write on a variety of topics.

Dan also knows that in order to grow a reputation, you cannot invest too much time into one community. He knows that every networking connection is a series of transactions rather than an intense, ongoing conversation. Instead of becoming just another member in several communities, Dan builds his own community around his work. He accomplishes this by gaining more reach – tapping into other communities through his writing, and bringing a portion of those communities back to his own blog.

Dan takes his network with him

The great thing about Dan is he uses his own status to elevate others in his network with him. He is constantly sharing press and speaking opportunities with the people who support him and his career.

For example, the week before Dan launched his book Me 2.0, he emailed the entire Personal Branding Blog team to thank us for making his book launch so successful. In other words, he let us know we were contributors to the Me 2.0 launch and could share in its success. I know that as Dan’s career skyrockets, he will bring his network with him.

Dan wrote a book to move his personal brand forward

I recently wrote that blogging to demonstrate “expert” credentials was sooo 2007. That’s not really fair, because Dan became a personal branding expert largely due to branding himself through his blog.

Not that Dan’s blog is his biggest accomplishment – not nearly. He simply used it as a stepping stone to make an even bigger career jump – writing his book.

While Dan did not get article in Business Week and the New York Times through his blog, he did get them because he had a book deal. So if you really want to become an expert, write a blog about a particular subject, and use your blog to sell a book.

But first you have to find a great hook that sells. And “personal branding expert” is already taken, unfortunately.

Dan is a Google Reader rockstar

I recently dusted off my Google Reader, and as I started using it, I was shocked to discover that Dan Schawbel shares, like, 50 articles a day. How the heck does he read that much, I thought?

But then I observed Dan’s shared items, and found a lot of truly great content. And I realized quickly it’s all in the title – you can skim article titles in Google reader and tell what’s going to be interesting and relevant to you and what’s not.

Now, I have over 200 feeds in my Google Reader. I give basically anyone who communicates with me in any way a chance, whether through commenting or sending me a message on Twitter. I add feeds to my reader without fear, because I can scan 500 posts, pick out and read the best 10 (based on titles), and share the most relevant 5 on Twitter and my blog in about 10 minutes.

I know this has to be how Dan Schawbel finds great content to share with his following, and has built a loyal fan base that makes him the personal branding expert he is today. And I love reading Dan Schawbel’s shared items because they are usually intelligent, insightful picks. And I think if I can share good picks with people, I can brand myself as someone in the know too.

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PS. I highly recommend Dan Schawbel’s book, Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success, which I have already read and found very impressive.

Have you heard of the Old Boys’ Club? In the twentieth century, this was a group of privileged men vying for management positions. In the post-feminist age, this is a group of high-performing, stellar networkers in the boardrooms and executive suites.

Yes, the Old Boys’ Club is still alive and well; the difference is that women are now allowed to join, if they can demonstrate leadership and toe the fine line between feminism and masculinity.

And yet, instead of joining the club, women have created their own clubs – New Girls’ Clubs – which are all-female professional groups trying to use the power of numbers to compensate for gender disparity in the workplace. For the most part, these clubs don’t work. Here’s why:

Joining ‘the Sisterhood’

New Girls’ Clubs typically host overly girly networking events. I know, because I am a board member of a new girls’ business club. Here is what our event calendar looks like:

We’ll put on a spa event instead of a sports event. We’ll do a wine tasting instead of a bar crawl. We’ll host yoga classes instead of going golfing.

Realistically, none of these events would ever be settings for a gender-neutral, business networking event. So while we women think we’re learning how to build a professional network, we are actually just engaging in a sorority-like slumber party slash gossip-fest that reinforces the girly habits that don’t get us ahead in the workplace.

Shorting Your Network

On average, women speak 20,000 words per day while men only speak 7,000. Yet women do not have as large of networks as men, even though they talk more. Where women are conversational, men are transactional. Men are more likely to use who they know to open doors, and they are more likely to ask for help despite not having helped someone previously.

If you want a larger network, you must not only network with men, but become a more transactional networker; both of which you won’t find at a New Girls’ Club.

Starting a Cat Fight

There are so many things to say here. First, I hate hate hate that when men get into a fight it’s a fist fight, but when women get into a fight it’s a cat fight. Second, cat fighting usually comes with sexual connotation, as if the two women might start making out after ripping handfuls of each other’s hair.

Third, and most important, women are taught at an early age to be jealous of other women because we base our own self-image on what other women have that we don’t. Career columnist Penelope Trunk says, “Everyone is competitive, but there are more problems between two women than between two men or between a man and a woman.” So chances are women are not always your best allies in the workplace. Why limit your networking to just women in the New Girls’ Club?

Signaling a Pay Cut

Research shows that female-dominated fields have lower average salaries than fields where the ratio of men to women is equal or higher. In fact, as a profession goes from male-dominated to female-dominated, the worth of the profession actually drops. This phenomenon is so prominent that it shows up everywhere, from business to college basketball.

This begs the question: why would we purposely aggregate ourselves into female-dominated groups? In any business, factions of females send the wrong signal to their male-counterparts: that the girls can’t eat at the big boys table, so they had to form their own.

And really, if you want to make more money as a woman, you should be in a male-dominated field. It forces you to let go of the New Girls’ Club crutch because there are so many men that all-female networking skills become irrelevant. Which means the New Girls’ Club doesn’t work – it actually holds women back in the end.

Further reading: The G-20 is Complete BS for Women