A brand for a company is like a reputation for a person. You earn reputation by trying to do hard things well.
Jeff Bezos – Founder of Amazon
“Brand is everything, and everything is brand” according to Advertising for Humanity founder Dan Pallotta, in a 2011 article for Harvard Business Review: The title pretty much says it all. So, a little back ground may provide context.
The idea of corporate branding started in the 1920s with the rise of American consumer culture. The idea behind branding was to differentiate one product from another. Personal branding is how VUCANs establish and monetize personal competitiveness. The idea is to differentiate personal competencies, value-adds, and successes. Personal branding is shifting from work practices to issues of personal narrative and identity. Let’s look at social media.
Social media influencers have changed personal branding. Personal branding is all about your social media, selfies, and Instagram. It’s about your story on how you market yourself as a product or service to the world. It’s your compelling story or narrative of where you started, how you evolved, and how you got to where you are today. It’s about your struggles, what you learned, and how you applied the learnings. Think Work Lesson Earned.
Personal branding is global. One-name influencers. Nano-personas. Personal brand coaches. Much of the interest in social media and social platforms is based on establishing a personal brand and then scaling to a global influencer brand. And, successful social media influencers are brandpreneurs, who can make millions of dollars a year through social media.
At a work level, LinkedIn is a personal branding platform. Employers on LinkedIn can see your experience, identity, skills, abilities, strengths, and passions. They can see your work and track record to see how you overcame failure and obstacles to be who and what you are.
Work Lesson Earned: Your personal brand is your story. So if you have or had to develop a personal brand, it’s critical that you know what you compete on? Or, expressed another way: What’s your compelling value-add or unique selling proposition?