Reconsidering Personal Branding as a Concept and a Practice

A thought on personal branding from my friend Luis Sandoval, from his latest newsletter:

All of us have a level of personal value that in today’s connected community driven conversations, we can establish very quickly. This personal value relies heavily on the skills you hold and in how you use them. With access to social networks, online media outlets, and the ability to expand your network, personal branding can catapult you and the knowledge you have to new heights.

This strikes a chord with me, as I’m typically skeptical of “personal branding” as a discipline.  It always feels inherently phony; as something you do to hide anything that doesn’t fit in whatever box you’re carefully crafting for yourself.   But lately I’m giving in a bit to the personal branding evangelists, mainly because I’m gaining more and more confidence that who I am personally and professionally will, on balance, lead to more opportunities than disappointments if it is reflected online.

Part of what always bothered me about personal branding was a sense that you needed to be “on message” at all times. I first experienced social media in a purely social way as a college student on Facebook.  The evolution of social media into a tool for business, politics, and activism still hasn’t changed my prevailing view that certain social networks can and should remain social in nature.  Any friend of mine who seems “on message” on Facebook actually strikes me as being “incredibly dull.”  Thus, any attempt at message discipline on my part results in a bit of self-loathing: I worry that I’m becoming “one of those people” who seem unable to let their guard down long enough to genuinely converse with people online or publish an honest, unfiltered reaction to news or life events.

All of the personal branding experts (and blogging experts, for that matter) will tell you to pick a single topic and stick to it.  The word from social media “pros” is to develop expertise and build your reputation.  I’m interested in many different things, and I go through phases of intense interest in very random industries, issues, concepts, and hobbies.  I liken my consumption of online content to a continuation of the liberal arts education I so enjoyed.  As a result I have trouble focusing with any consistency on one topic, one angle, or one message.  Nowhere is this more apparent than, well, right here: the theme of this blog is “change.”  And to think, Jarred and I worried that would be too limiting.

But now I’ve come to view my own brand—and, by extension, the concept of personal branding—to be inclusive of both my authentic self (versus a caricature crafted for the internet) and of my varied, ever evolving interests.

What I now realize is that multi-disciplinary and dynamic passions distinguish all of the people I find interesting and want to be around; as the saying goes, it’s a feature, not a bug.  For all of the large law firms and medical residency programs that have my friends scrambling to wipe every trace of their less-than-buttoned-down selves from the web (good luck), I’m confident there are enough potential employers, business partners, and clients out there for whom my “brand of one” online will be viewed as an asset or at least a conversation starter.

For all of the risks of putting yourself out there, the potential personal growth, interpersonal connections, and gained expertise are tremendous rewards.  Because ultimately, don’t we all want to work with and for people who “get it” in the sense that they:

1. View online engagement—be it blogging, podcasting, tweeting, or simply reading tons of content—as evidence that someone is interesting, motivated, and passionate; and
2. Understand that a reasonable online presence (you won’t find me defending behavior that I would find offensive in life displayed online) need not be sterile or phony to be appropriate

So consider it a New Years resolution: build your brand online.  But, more than anything, be confident that by being yourself online and off you’ll gain more than you lose.

Image used under a Creative Commons License courtesy of Flickr user Joe Shlabotnik.