Being a personal branding book author and speaker, I get a little protective of the term. I always want to roll my eyes at people who claim “I’m not a brand, I’m a person,” or at people like Olivier Blanchard, who call people with personal brands fake, saying the personal brand is an artifice.
Personal branding is really just the fancy 21st century word for “reputation.” It’s how people perceive you.
Do you do what you say you do? More importantly, do other people say you do what you do? Are you a kind and helpful person? Do other people say so? Then your personal brand — your reputation, if you must — is that you’re kind and helpful. Do people think you’re an arrogant jerk? Then your personal brand is that you’re an arrogant jerk.
We call it personal branding for two reasons:
A brand is an emotional response on the part of the people who see it.
It’s much more than just a company’s logo and a tagline. It’s how you feel when you see that logo and tagline.
Think of your feelings toward McDonald’s, the Chicago Cubs, and even BP Oil. Love them or hate them, that is what you feel, and that’s how you react when you see symbols of that corporate brand. You won’t eat at that place, you’ll remain a fan for life, or you refuse to buy gas from that company. That’s your emotional response.
Basically, what other people feel, and how they react, when they hear your name and see your face is your personal brand. Does your face make people happy? Or does the mere mention of your name make people make gagging noises? That’s their emotional response, which makes it your personal brand. (Again, we can still call it your reputation.)
A brand is what people say it is.
The control of marketing has been seized from the professionals by real people. It’s no longer in the hands of the trained marketers to say whether a product or company is good. We now trust the say-so of people, often friends, but sometimes strangers.
Think about the last time you bought a piece of electronic equipment or a book, or even visited a new restaurant. Did you check the reviews or ask friends what they thought of it? Or were you persuaded by the marketing copy, the photos, and the search engine placement?
Like most of us who are plugged into this Web 2.0 world, you took the unsolicited and unmoderated recommendations of friends (and even strangers) over the hard work of the trained professionals. And that equipment, book, or restaurant was as good or as bad as your friends said it was.
In other words, the marketing message of a particular company or product has been seized by the people who will react to it, share it, spread it, buy into it, boycott it, or denigrate it.
People control the brand now. The marketers may be able to control the information, but people control the reputation.
How does this affect your personal brand?
This is true of people and their perceptions of us: right or wrong, we have become the sum of what people think of us. Their “reviews” of us come in the form of responses to our tweets, comments on our blog posts, even things they say about us when we’re not around.
In many cases, the thing we’re selling is us. We’re selling ourselves when we apply for a job. Or when we’re pitching a project. Or getting a speaking gig. Or selling a book. People are buying us, and if they don’t like who we are, based on our reputation, we won’t get the “sale.”
A personal brand is not an act, it’s not a character, it’s not a fake you. It’s the real you that wants to be seen and respected by other people. It’s the person you want to be, not the person you want people to think you are. That’s fakery — acting like a jerk to people in private while trying to be sunshine and light in public.
Being true to your personal brand means that you’ll act the same way in public as you do when no one is looking, or at least no one with a decent Klout score. If you’re kind (or a jerk) in public, you’ll be kind (or a jerk) in private. That’s the real personal brand.
It comes down to this. I don’t care what you call it: call it a personal brand, call it your reputation, call it your image. But whatever you call it, be true to it. Don’t fake it, and don’t try to pass as something you’re not.
Just know that most of the people around you are going to call it “personal branding,” whether you like the term or not. Fighting this battle is about as fruitless as people not wanting to call blogging “blogging” anymore, or think that “social media” just needs to be called “media.” It’s all just tilting at windmills while everyone else is actually doing the thing, regardless of what people call it.
It’s really true. Personal Branding is just your reputation and people perception towards a certain brand or product would really affect the success of such product. But how do you build your reputation over time?
Great intellectual discourse there!
-Charity
I totally agree with this post. Your personal brand is incredibly important. What employers find on your online can make or break you when getting a job.
Thank you for this post, Erik. You hit the nail on the head! It doesn’t matter whether people like the term or not.
Building and maintaining one’s reputation, specifically online, cannot be ignored. There are those who are obnoxious via social media just like there are those who are over the top in person. People are not stupid. They can tell who is real and who is fake. Love it!
Thank you, Tish! I really appreciate that.
You’re right about people being over the top in person as well as social media. We’ve had obnoxious and fake people since before computers were ever invented. Social media just makes it easier to see them.
This post caused me to pause and consider my personal brand, my reputation. I, like most people, am multidimensional, complicated – I’m a nice caring helpful person and an arrogant ass. Am I a phony if I don’t share my arrogant ass side on social media? (Well at least not very often) Is it fakery if I don’t share my alter ego that gets upset with drivers not meeting my expectations, yells at the TV during sporting events, and does not understand republicans in general? What clarified this for me was, “It’s the person you want to be, not the person you want people to think you are.” The former is what I strive to be and although I do occasionally slip (No one is starting a religion after me) I believe the striving is what matters. Great post – Thanks Eric.
Randy,
I like what you said about the striving is what matters. I think if I have an ideal I’m trying ascribe to, I need to live that kind of life. It also means that if I AM an a-hole to someone publicly, I need to be willing to own it if I’m ever called out on it. I shouldn’t lie about it, hide from it, or pretend it wasn’t me.
Thank you thank you!
I too read, and commented, on Oliver’s recent post, RIP Personal Branding. The relentless comments show what a raw nerve he’s touched with this one. As a personal brand coach, I have to say I count myself as one of them! ;-)
I felt that he really has missed the point and has not fully understood what a brand actually is – the place you occupy in the minds of others – and was getting all tangled up with how this manifests for a company or a product. This reinforces my view perfectly, that the term Personal Branding is the problem here. If self-proclaimed marketers and branders don’t understand the term branding how on earth are regular peeps going to? The problem we have is that up until now, branding has been something that we’ve understood in the context of a product or company, so for many branding will mean the logo, the packaging, the strapline etc. What few realise is that these are the touchpoints that companies, products etc use to help create associations so that they do indeed find a place to live in your mind. However, if a person wants to do this then they will not necessarily employ the same tactics (logos, straplines etc). Instead they will ensure that the way that they present themselves online and offline is consistent according to their values and what they stand for. And this goes back to what Personal Branding is all about – knowing who the f*ck you are and expressing it clearly to those who matter in your world. If you can’t do this, and instead “create” a persona for yourself, then that most certainly is NOT great personal branding, it just shows you up to be an idiot, which, people will always figure out eventually.
We might have to just deal with the fact that the term personal branding is here to stay, but if the concept continues to confuse in this way, it’s growth is limited. Maybe “personal branding” does need a rebrand after all!
thanks again Erik!
Alexia
You’re welcome, you’re welcome!
Part of the problem I think people have is that they think “brand” is logos and taglines. Six or seven years ago, we were calling that “marketing.” The brand was the name of a product or a company, like “Levi brand jeans.” You bought “designer brand names.”
But language, like everything else in the entire world, changes and grows. Soon, branding became the fancy-schmancy business word for creating an identity for a product or a company. Like you said, it was all about expressing who you are to those who matter in the world.
Then, someone else hit on the idea of using the word to describe creating their own identity, and the term was born. Then it became the term we use to describe who WE are to those who matter in the world.
Olivier’s confusion seems to lie in the fact that he’s arguing two points. One, he doesn’t seem to quite understand what personal branding refers to, and two, he doesn’t like creating artificial characters. He has equated the two in his mind, and doesn’t realize they can be separated.
I can be completely fake and artificial, but never promote myself on social media. I can just put on an act for people I meet in every day life. That’s not personal branding. And, I can be sharing and kind, and be helpful to people online, because I want to be recognized as providing value to people. That IS personal branding.
Blake, thank you very much. I appreciate it.
Bobbie, I agree that there are shysters and hucksters in every industry. And I also believe that social media has made it easier for people to fake who they are. I also wish that it would come to an end as well. But I don’t see that as “personal branding.” I see it as fakery and bad behavior. The mistake lies in calling the bad behavior with the wrong term, which is what some of the term-haters are doing.
I read Olivier’s post the other day and I think you BOTH have valid points. No, the term Personal Branding will not go away – in fact you merely mentioned him and I not only know who he is but follow him as well. I would say he’s built a good reputation for himself. And he’s done a great job at sharing that expertise online (much as your book suggest).
But some do not think personal branding is building a good reputation – many take it to mean spreading schmuck and back links and offer no real value – and for that I agree with Olivier and wish it would come to an end.
ABSOLUTELY LOVE THIS BLOG POST. Incredibly well crafted and superbly written.
Completely claiming my cold lightening bolt spewing, blaze your butt DRAGON brand.