Personal Brands (again)

So much has been written recently about personal brands recently, that I hesitated to add to the pile. Tom Peters wrote an article called  The Brand Called You in Fast Company. His call to action:

Regardless of age, regardless of position, regardless of the business we happen to be in, all of us need to understand the importance of branding. We are CEOs of our own companies: Me Inc. To be in business today, our most important job is to be head marketer for the brand called You.

He's right on. Great stuff. We have to think of ourselves as "brands" and develop and market and position ourselves just as if we were a product. Cool!

But wait. On November 6, the frighteningly bright Geoff Livingston weighed in with his own thoughts on personal branding, in a blog post called "I Don't Care About Your Personal Brand". I subscribe to Geoff's blog and you should too. He wrote:

Quite frankly online marketing is not about silly personalities with motorcycles (me) or rubber ducks or even pole dancing. If you want to defend your right to be stupid — all in the name of a personal brand — go for it. But while momentarily interesting, your personal brand won’t build real value for the market – unless your personal reputation revolves around delivering consistent regular value to your community.

Absolutely right. Without substance, a brand is nothing more than an empty promise or logo. Zilch.

And just today, Steve Woodruff penned a great post on "What's Your Value Add" on the personal branding issue for the Marketing Profs Daily Fix. Steve is not quite ready to pitch the notion of personal brands, but states emphatically:

You don't have a brand worth a nickel unless you are clear in what value you have to offer. That's true of personal branding, corporate branding, political branding, and whatever other type of branding du jour we'd like to dream up.

Absolutely dead-on.

Reconciling all these points of view, Geoff sees reputation as different from, or much bigger than, a personal brand. And he's right, it is bigger and more important. But I think Tom, Steve and I see one's personal brand as inclusive of reputation.

But can't you have a brand without any substance or value? Aren't there Paris Hilton's in Social Media who are nothing more than sham consultants - well-known but devoid of real substance? Sort of like the real popular, pretty kids in high-school that were on everybody's party list, but really dumb as a box of hammers.

Of course there are flakes, but reality catches up to them sooner or later. Or sometimes, they end up being able to BS their way to a lucrative career and end up driving a nicer car than you have.

All we can do is be the best that WE can be, and believe in karma!

The Place of Personal Brands

Maybe one day this term will find itself occupying a space on "Buzzword Bingo", just like the has-been actors used to appear on Hollywood Squares. But I think that looking at oneself as a "personal brand" is here to stay, especially since social media is forcing disintermediation in the business of marketing. It is a handy framework for helping people understand themselves as a business, and for making them think about WHO and WHAT they are, and what value they can add to their communities. 

But Geoff and Steve are right.

You HAVE to focus on adding value first, not your shine.

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Comments

[mack collier]

As with anything else involving social media, I think when you start thinking about Ok...what do *I* get out of this?, then it all starts going to hell in a handbasket. Same thing with personal branding, its becoming an excuse by some to shine the look at me! spotlight on themselves. And lord knows we already have enough overly-inflated egos in this space (present company excluded, of course!).

[Amber Naslund]

Frank - your points, as always, are salient. I think where it gets stuck is the word brand and whether youre defining a brand superficially, or as the very *essence* of a thing or person.

Im willing to concede that your reputation is part and parcel to your personal brand, if you like that term. And yep, I think brands can lack substance (which is why they flounder). I think what I resent is the idea that because I declare my legitimacy by calling myself a personal brand (vs. a shilling, good for nothing vapid waste of oxygen that I might truly be), Im giving people the idea that because Ive used the word brand, Im worth paying attention to. Perhaps Im being protective of the use of the term brand to applying to something of substance, and now youve got me thinking about whether or not thats accurate, or fair. Hmm.

Thanks for continuing the discussion.

[Ann Handley]

absolutely Frank. This issue feels like less a debate to me than a clarification... But it nonetheless needs to be said.

P.S. Whos the pole dancer, anyway? : )

[Jane Chin]

My personal brand comes wholly from what I have contributed and produced, whether to my profession or in healthcare. I often look to others as a better interpreter of my personal brand than what I think it may be, because they are the real judges in what value I have or may have produced to society. People dont care about your name until it comes to stand FOR something, THROUGH your actions.

[Frank Martin]

@Mack, excellent points. We HAVE to put the people who trust us first - in the end, thats what I want said about my personal brand.

@Amber - To me, the brand is both the superficial and the essence. We can just more readily see one than the other. And I dont think *brand* implies necessarily anything of substance; I can think of several *brands* that are negative and off-putting because of their behavior or antics, such as the Oakland Raiders. Martha Stewart, or Carmike Cinema. When I see that logo, the bile rises in my throat, just as I smile when I see your Altitude Branding logo. On ones I dont know - it conjures nothing!

And @Ann - yes! All of Geoffs points need to be made and remade again and again to hold us all accountable for the adding of value. The pole dancer? Youll have to ask Geoff that one! ;-)

[Lloyd Lemons]

Well said. And your line-- It is a handy framework for helping people understand themselves as a business, and for making them think about WHO and WHAT they are, and what value they can add to their communities. --sums it up perfectly.

[Sonny Gill]

Right on Frank. As Amber eluded to in one of her recent posts, you have to be able to GIVE to your community. Doing so will help show the value that you can provide to your network and help grow that along with your reputation and brand.

[Karen Swim]

Frank, I really enjoyed this post and the discussion of the various perspectives. Helping people with their personal brands is a key part of my service offering but I have always chuckled at the term. We have always been a brand. Your mother was your first branding expert, she admonished you to deliver quality, leverage your value and taught you that image and reputation were your calling cards. Years later we coined a term and figured out that we could market and monetize that brand. The older I get the more I realize that my parents really did know it all!