Can You Be a Person and a Personal Brand?

If you want to see a reflection of who you are, your computer monitor and not your mirror may be the place to look.

There’s been a lot of talk about personal branding among my network.

I attended another Social Media Breakfast this week where it was the subject of a presentation given by my friend, Frédéric Harper, a Technical Evangelist at Microsoft Canada.

While listening very attentively (in case he’s reading this), it struck me how similar the process of creating and maintaining a personal brand was to creating a business one.

“If you don’t manage your brand, others will do it for you.”

Is there such a thing as personal branding?

According to Olivier Blanchard in his post: R.I.P. Personal Branding:

“Can you realistically remain “authentic” and real once you have surrendered yourself to a process whose ultimate aim is to drive a business agenda?”

This is where “branding” gets messy for me.

If you’re a public speaker, consultant or self employed, can you balance personal and professional?

Not long ago, branding was what PR firms did to package celebrity stars and athletes. They made sure their faces were on cereal boxes and gossip rags.
Spin doctors surgically removed “personal” scandals from the press.

As fans, we were teased with enough personal tidbits to believe that we had some insight into the private lives of these stars.

“It’s all showbiz, folks!”

When Frédéric listed some ways to define our brand such as asking who we are, what we want to be, what are our goals – they could apply to personal development or business planning.

In Frédéric’s case, his “brand” is his both. He’s known as much for his authenticity as he is for his reputation as a developer and HTML5 expert.

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If you’re the face of a company as I am with Communications NewRayCom, then brand recognition is important. It opens the door for more personal engagement.

On the opposite side of the issue from Olivier, is personal branding guru, Dan Schwabel whose new book; ME 2.0 (affiliate link) includes a 4-step process for building a powerful brand: discover, create, communicate and maintain.

I’m feeling déja-vu all over again.

Compare these tips from our experts:

Dan suggestions for improving your personal brand:

Create your brand
Business card
Portfolio
Social media profiles
Wardrobe

Olivier’s for being a real person and not a brand:

Talk less, do more.
Be relevant, not just popular.
Reputation is more important than image.
Speaking of image, find a good tailor.
Just be yourself.

And Frédéric’s list:

Be authentic
Define Your brand
Create and do stuff
Show people what you’re doing, who you are
Create profiles and be present on Social Media (especially Twitter)

Is the issue here one of semantics?

You say personal, I say, professional.
You say brand, I say reputation.
Shall we call the whole thing off?

I understand using the term personal branding in the context of marketing yourself for business, but then let’s call it what it is, professional branding.

In this “social” era where companies want “conversations” with their clients, where every business is a People to People (P2P) business, branding blends the personal and professional.

It’s interesting how we’ve switched things up.

At one time a person went through his life managing his reputation to find community and a company managed their brand to find customers.

For the time being, I will continue to build on my personal reputation and perfect my professional brand.

Is anyone else confused about personal branding?

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About Ray Hiltz

Ray Hiltz is a Social Media Strategist with management roots in restaurant, hotel and performing arts. A strong proponent for the power of collaborative communication and "humanized" digital networking, Ray writes about social media, social business and Google Plus. His clients include hotels, restaurants, consulting firms, entrepreneurs, writers and individuals just trying to make sense of "social". Ray is a popular speaker on Social Media, Social Business and Google+.

This entry was posted by Ray on October 12, 2012 at 20:05, and is filed under Social Business. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0.You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

PaulBiedermann

1 Like

Great post, @newraycom — I agree with many of your points and really don’t understand what all the controversy is about regarding personal branding. I’ve had the same debate with Olivier. Yes, I think “professional branding” is a better term as so much of the misunderstanding is largely due to semantics as people tend to get hung up on the “personal” part. But personal branding is nothing more than what companies do: distilling down a fairly large message into one concise, compelling message that is then communicated in various ways so that it is memorable. Otherwise, their messaging is diluted and then they have no hope of carving a path through all the other competition and noise.

Yes, any kind of branding is an attempt to influence, but that does not mean it is disingenuous. Rather, I see branding as a very pure and honest act: defining your true essence and then encapsulating that in such a way that it is clear and cannot be ignored. Sure, there are rotten eggs everywhere — brands and people who are dishonorable and display phony images of themselves, but that should not define personal branding in and of itself as being rotten too.

I think it is much wiser to focus on what branding should be and aspire to that, rather than disregard it altogether. Let’s face it, just hoping that others will understand what you’re about and letting them define you through their own misguided perceptions is not very accurate or helpful, and certainly not a reasonable alternative.

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newraycom

@PaulBiedermann Thanks for dropping by, Paul.

In some ways, personal branding just happens. The image we portray and the messages we convey combine to form a perception by which others identify us. Because we're human, we're rarely consistent. So I agree, as much as it is possible it better to manage your "brand" than it manage you.

Appreciate your feedback. Thanks.

5 comments

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jess_dew

I'm a raving fan of whatever I'm working on (blessing and curse ;)), and I've never really thought about a brand. Walking the talk, articulating nuance, and providing value - even before the social media era - is what built lasting relationships. Do people follow me or the brand I'm associated with? It depends on if my message still provides value to them.

P2P aspect still is what sustains and grows businesses. Technology is great - but there will always be technology. The connection is key to making a prospective client feel safe to try something new, which comes down to trust. Do people trust people or brands more?

People sure can (and I want them to) know a bit more about me: my work style, (some) opinions, and approaches. It opens the door to collaboration and empathy for opportunities and challenges that come up working together. It's the human element that makes stuff amazing and unique. Be yourself and the business benefits.

This is a great read!

Jeff_Taylor

I too am a little confused Ray. But, if I have to pick a way(s) to conduct myself as a person who happens to own a business, it would have to be as a kind, truthful, and honest person. However it translates is fine with me and I'd hope it rubs off on both reputation and brand/business. I think it's less about being authentic and more about authenticity. If you have to try, right there is your problem. Fred doesn't try. He just is. Same with guys like Julien.

The hard part for me is answering the question you've posed in your post title.

I don't think, that if you're putting yourself out there on one or many of these platforms, and networking events, and social events, and via your day to day business functions, etc..that you can afford to waste the time needed to keep those worlds separate. It might in fact put some people out of their comfort zone to have those two worlds meet/mix, but it's an inevitable reality whose line in the sand gets harder to see day after day.

@Jeff_Taylor You're right. The two worlds are meeting which makes the concept of branding or marketing yourself as a "person" confusing.

Olivier says "personal branding" is bullshit. That, in essence, if you're marketing yourself, you're actually marketing your business or you're simply a fake.

I think it's a blend of the two (how typically Canadian is that?) - that your personal reputation supports your professional brand. The two are inseparable in a world where, like it or not, we live pretty transparent lives.

Thanks for dropping by Jeff and for staying up way past your bedtime to leave me you feedback :-)

Have a great rest of the weekend.

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