. .

social media

Personal Branding?

June 22, 2010 7:29:54.349

Doc Searls has been talking about the limitations of "personal branding" for awhile now - this morning he linked to two people on the subject. The "manifesto" post by Maureen Johnson is the one that caught my eye - her message about "social media experts" is something I'm familiar with.

I don't know that I've given the "personal brand" thing a lot of thought over the years. I avoid some subjects on my blogs (partisan politics), simply to avoid having disagreements over things I'd rather not talk about in this particular forum.

I think the big divide in this area is between normal people and the advocates who spend all of their time telling you to "promote your personal brand". You know what? This isn't really that complicated. Write about what you're interested in. Even if - like me - what you're interested in crosses over into commercial promotion, that doesn't mean that you have to become a mindless shill. Listen to our podcast for awhile, and you'll see that Michael and I haven't been shy about noting various flaws in Cincom Smalltalk. We love the product, but we know where the bodies are buried, too. Lots of promoters like to pretend that their favored product/solution/brand has no flaws - that way lies the "mindless shill" tag.

Ultimately, you want to come off as believable. There are going to be plenty of people who disagree with you, and that's fine - no one has a monoploy on truth, or even on a better point of view. The best you can do is to have people realize that you stand behind your words.

posted by James Robertson

 Share Tweet This