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Interactive strategist. Web guy. Digital whachamawhozee. It’s just all a bunch of blabber and what does it all mean, anyway? Not much, really.
In a fit of exasperation, I spent a bunch of quality time reading some “personal branding” blogs last night. That was pretty fruitless. The posts are too short, lack real depth and it’s just a lot of people sorta saying the same things over and over again, with folks in the comments going “yeah! I agree! We totally should be millionaires soon! I’ll keep working and you do it too!”
Umm..right.
At least my suspicions about that whole “field” were confirmed at an hour last night over tea. So where does that leave me? Who knows?
But I think the critical takeaway is that there are no rules to the business of personal branding. What you’re doing is literally marketing yourself, using whatever you have at your disposal to make it work for you. No big shock there, I guess. But how you do it makes all of the difference. Problem is, what works for one person and makes them successful might fall completely flat for you and leave you thinking that you need to switch your ideas needlessly. You can’t expect a one-sized fits all approach to capture the essence of the diversity of your ideas, passions and experience.
That said, I’m no closer to figure this out than I was when I started. At least, it feels that way sometimes. Upon closer examination, however, the stories lies somewhere in the margins. Knowing what you’re passionate about. The things that really get you fired up are nothing you can fake. Yet, before you know it you can find yourself chasing things needlessly.
The real problem for me, is the debate between blogging endlessly about the pursuit and just doing it. I tend to think there’s not a lot to gain from actually going through the process of telling other people what you’re trying to do. Not because it doesn’t have value. Problem is, if your audience isn’t honed in on what you’re talking about, then you’re just putting out stuff that doesn’t get you any closer than where you were when you began and worse, now you’re just spewed a bunch of private stuff for people to misinterpret and judge out of context.
I feel like so much of what we do these days is just talk around the topics that matter to us. How to build online influence. How to convince people to listen. Showing people what you’re about. So forth and so on. All of these, to me, are topics that don’t really discuss the real issues at hand. Perhaps the exercise of delving into these topics can burst light bulbs and get people really thinking actively. But I’m not convinced that it’s helping all that much, because they’re almost too general.
So what does one do? Well, that’s what I’m here to figure out. I feel like so things need to be more straightfoward, more relevant and make more sense for the lives of people who don’t have the time to immerse themselves in circular conversations about opaque issues that just don’t have any relevance to everyday life.
Maybe I just spend too much time with people who don’t get what I’m talking about and this is my way of coping. But I don’t think so.
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Comments
07.20.09
I've never bought into the 'personal branding' ideas much myself, but there is one thing I've taken away from it. Reputation. For those who are business professionals or other consultants where your name = your business, then your 'personal brand' is just an extension of your reputation. That seems to make sense to me. The rest? Not so much.
07.20.09
I'm also grappling with this issue. My coworker and I were just talking about so much of social media and personal branding is about creating illusions. It is easy to get caught up in all of the smoke and mirrors.
However, many of us are doing awesome things that we should be proud of and have really great thoughts that others appreciate, so promoting YOU is important. Arguably, personal branding is more important than ever in a bad economy. With all the lay-offs and business failures we've seen in the past few months, it is important to remember that you really only have yourself to depend on. I realized this when my company started laying people off. Being in a niche market, I felt like if I lost my job, I'd have nowhere to turn. I didn't know myself (professionally) outside of being an employee of my company. Now I'm working on finding myself professionally and I suppose, creating my personal brand...whatever that means.
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