Slamming Personal Branding

Posted by Rahna on February 9, 2009 under Branding, Personal Branding | Be the First to Comment

There are some social media “experts” who are disdainful of personal branding.  It puzzles me why that is the case.  They scoff at the idea of social media helping personal branding.  From the way others talk about it, it seems as though they sees personal branding as a personae that you can adopt, a cloak you can put on and take off at will.  If that were the case, I would completely agree … But that’s not what true personal branding is. 

 

Your personal brand emanates from within.  

 

Authentic personal branding is being true to who you are, then setting a plan in place to shine a spotlight on what you are all about so that others can ore clearly recognize your personal brand.  Blogging, Facebook, LinkedIn and other web 2.0 tools are simply modern-day vehicles to convey that brand!

 

The disdain that some have for personal branding stems from the practice of manipulating one’s online image in an inauthentic manner.  Being true to your brand is not a new concept.  A mentor of mine once told me that the quickest way to kill a bad product is to advertise it.  The same holds true with people.  If you are one way online and another way in person, you will be found out—at the speed of the internet.

 

So those who curl their lips at personal branding conversations should re-think what they are deriding… It’s really a lack of authenticity that causes the sneer, not personal branding as a concept.