Comments on: Personal brand?

By: File it under crazy S*&^: Fan Pages for PR Firms! Mom Blogs’ PR Boycott? | Marketing Roadmaps

Tue, 14 Jul 2009 21:43:01 +0000

[...] That’s the gist of a conversation thread on Twitter over the past few days. Good friend Geoff Livingston (@GeoffLiving) thinks it is silly for PR firms to have Facebook Fan Pages, in part I imagine (and I don’t want to put words in his mouth, this is my impression of his comments) because it smacks too much of “personal branding,” a concept we both loathe. [...]

By: Brand and Reputation Are Not Synonymous » The Buzz Bin

Brand and Reputation Are Not Synonymous » The Buzz Bin — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 11:12:42 +0000

[...] the problem: Brand and reputation are not synonymous. Social media experts with huge personal brands and followers number in the tens of thousands may [...]

By: Interview with Susan Getgood of Snapshot Chronicles | Radical Parenting

Interview with Susan Getgood of Snapshot Chronicles | Radical Parenting — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 14:22:52 +0000

[...] “I do not think of it as a personal brand so much, I think about it as a reputation, brands are created and reputations are earned. Reputations incorporate your ethical being as well. You want it to reflect the person you want to be, which means thinking about how you are perceived and how your actions will make you feel when you go to sleep at night. A brand is a perception of you, not really who you are. So, my piece of advice, is to not be fooled by the brand, think about who you are underneath all of that. This is about the ethics of what we do.” Here is an article Susan wrote on Personal Branding. [...]

By: Susan Getgood

Susan Getgood — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 20:47:23 +0000

Thanks for all the comments. When it comes right down to it, I just don’t get why we need the concept of “personal brand” at all. What unmet need did it fill?

I’ll probably be hung in effigy somewhere for what I am about to say, but “personal brand” always struck me as new age mumbo jumbo designed to sell books to people with more money than sense.

By: Andrea Weckerle

Andrea Weckerle — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 19:00:09 +0000

Certainly a brand is a shared construct, and more focus should be placed on personal reputation. But even then, reputation is created by a combination of factors, some of them external - not all of which are going to be factually accurate or even what the person in question actually agrees with. It is this external and influenced-by-others vs. internal and created-by-oneself dichotomy that is challenging. Perhaps this quote by Lois McMaster Bujold starts to get at the issue: "Reputation is what other people know about you. Honor is what you know about yourself." Andrea Weckerle´s last blog post..Consumers Gain Impoved Nutritional Insight Through NuVal Nutritional Scoring System

By: charles

charles — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 17:36:48 +0000

Ralph Waldo Emerson had it right:

“What you do speaks so loud I cannot hear what you say.”

By: James Wester

James Wester — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 16:51:28 +0000

Good post, but I wonder if you don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.

If you look at the links on the google search page you provide through the “personal branding” link, many echo your point that a person’s brand should be about his/her reputation or accomplishments. (cf “A ‘personal brand’ is in many ways synonymous with your reputation.” or “Creating your personal brand may not happen overnight and it may be a work in progress throughout your career as you develop more strengths”) So not everyone trafficking in personal brand advice is necessarily full of poo.

Don’t get me wrong: I too am highly annoyed by self-proclaimed ‘experts’ who loudly proclaim their expert status through tweets, blogs and facebook pages with little to prove their worth beyond their own proclamations. Social media seems to attract these folks because of its relative newness. That being said, how else do people promote their reputations than through what can only be described as a personal brand? I too have a blog, Twitter account and facebook page. Sure I can show where my work has resulted in real value to my employers or clients, but is a CV really a good way to create a first impression? Do we just call it something else to avoid the taint that “personal branding” has developed? Even if we call it something else (how about “reputational footprint?”), it still requires some amount of work that is akin to branding, right?

Again, good thoughtful post.

By: Adam Zand

Adam Zand — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 16:42:30 +0000

Susan,
Great post! Reputation is a great extension/expansion of the branding discussion. It’s really the foundation for judging people and companies following our interactions with them.

By: Kami Huyse

Kami Huyse — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 16:24:31 +0000

Amen Sister! Kami Huyse´s last blog post..Social Media Provides the Tools to Make Positive Change

By: Dominique

Dominique — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 14:20:19 +0000

Great Post. I agree with what you DO that matters. What you say can be taken either positively/negatively depending on the other person's pre-perceived notions. I too have been deliberating about this notion of self branding and also believe that building up a stellar reputation is more important. Dominique´s last blog post..TT- Prizes/Ryan swimming