Multiple Brand Disorder...

I was talking with a friend (we’ll call her Mary) recently and she really worried about what she perceived to be another friend’s (let’s say...Julie) faux pas on Facebook. Julie is a writer, and she posted a fairly revealing and intimate ‘break up’ post. Mary was worried that this would damage Julie’s reputation in some way and advised her not to continue to publish this sort of material.

I had a very different reaction.

“What does Julie write about?” I asked Mary.

“Oh, she writes all about relationships. Intensely,” she responded.

“So - what she wrote on Facebook was very much in line with who she is and what she writes?” I prompted.

“Yes.”

“So why shouldn’t she extend who she is online?” I asked. “I think it reinforces her brand.”

The idea of a personal brand has gone mainstream recently, but it dates back to 1997, and started to gain legs around 2005 with the inception of LinkedIn. But, 2007 is when we started to see articles about it in Fast Company and hear from ‘personal brand’ gurus like Chris Brogan. Now, people talking about online identity management are everywhere. There’s even a site - PersonalBrandingBlog.com.

The basic premise is this... personal branding is essentially all the ways you create a web presence for yourself online that distinguishes you from the maddening and ever growing crowd. This can be done intentionally or unintentionally. It can also be done by omission. If you aren’t participating online in this day and age, that also sends a very distinct message.

Online - you are what you publish. Your ‘brand’ is created by all the content you put out there... pictures, comments, links, etc. (Go to www.pipl.com and search on your name... see what comes up. This aggregated content gives you a snapshot of your ‘brand’). Your online personality evolves over time through the interactions you have with people via social networks, your avatar (the picture or animation you use in your profiles), the information you share, the groups you join, the causes you support, the people you follow and who follow you and anything else you send out into the online universe.

Your online brand should be worth something. The stronger and more dynamic it is - the more it’s worth. Marketers are used to thinking about brand equity - but there is such a thing as personal brand equity as well. If you fully embody your own personal brand, if you are someone online that others respect and follow, if your voice is heard in certain niches, or with certain groups of people, that has value to potential employers. Your successful online brand will elevate their brand (it could also kill it - so do keep that in mind). A strong personal brand can also position you very well to be your own boss. The idea of the valuable rolodex that a person brings to a for-profit or nonprofit business has expanded exponentially.

Your personality and your ‘brand’ are really the same thing, or at least I think they should be. Currently, our culture embraces openness, transparency, and authenticity. The people who have the strongest online personalities are those with acute self-awareness and the ability to just ‘be who they are.’ They love to share information, don’t hold back with their opinions about things, and are often passionate about it. Belief in your own voice is critical to personal branding success. So when you’re wondering if you should ‘share’ something be self-aware. Would you share it in a room full of casual acquaintances. Who are the people in your network? How much would you share with them if you were all at a big dinner table? Then, once you’ve figured that out, just be you.