How I Learned to Stop Worrying + Love My Personal Brand
"I know the idea of a brand is something that I'm not supposed to care about...but I do think it's a part of my life, and I'm trying to just be in control of it, as opposed to ignoring it." Anna Kendrick
This hilarious, “cool girl”, double/triple/quadruple threat articulates how many of us feel about personal branding. We're supposed to be too cool for that. We're supposed to be able to just magically gain lots of avid "fans" without caring a wit or trying too hard. Clearly, personal branding is a loaded phrase for many.
There are plenty who would threaten to vomit on you if you uttered this word in their presence. Ironically, many of these folks already have a large following on Twitter or their blog. A high percentage of them would disavow any knowledge of a "strategy."
I don't believe them.
Rarely can someone grow a following of 10,000 or more without thinking about to how present themselves. Perhaps they're like Anna Kendrick, uncomfortable admitting that they have a strategy for being well-liked or even well followed. I suspect many would like you to think they don't care whether they have 15,000, 34,000 or 10 followers.
But here's the secret: they do care.
Even the people who admit to wanting to have some sort of strategy to grow their audience say it apologetically as if they've made a faux paus. Why are so many of us ashamed to admit that we:
a. Have a personal brand
b. Actually care about it?
Why We're at War With Personal Branding
Social media deserves a big heaping of the blame plate. In an age where selfie was named the word of year for 2013, we can all feel a bit insecure. Everyone looks so glamorous + put together. All these selfies, ebooks and humble brags disguised as tweets has allowed impostor syndrome to spread wider and faster than the virus in the Matt Damon-helmed film Contagion. It’s easy to think that you have nothing of value to offer and really, why would you want to add to the tweet storm of bullshit because somewhere deep down you know that all is not sparkly + wonderful all the time.
For others, a personal brand feels inauthentic. It makes us feel like a phony. We think: having a strategy = being a fake. You’re not supposed to care what people think right? Personal branding is so anathema for many in part because having a strategy seems to mean that you’re as fake as Barbie’s wildly distorted proportions.
Then there’s the “I can be anything I want crowd” and its the hatred of being put into yet another box. We're unique damn it! Not only do we want to be outside the box some of don't even recognize the box at all. Ahem, says the woman who thinks in circles, swirls + starts.
Here’s the Reality
You have a personal brand, whether you realize it or not.
Ignoring personal branding because you think it’s fake is a sure way to ensure failure. Of course having a facade or acting our a role is no way to long-term sustainable success. Or happiness for that matter. Especially happiness. But having a well-articulated personal brand doesn’t mean you’re a sellout. It doesn’t mean you have to be a chameleon or anything other than you.
Being yourself is like taking the speed train to success, happiness + everything else that feels like running naked through a field of flowers while clutching your favorite book. I grew up with an engineer + mathematician so let's express this in a formula:
If you pretend to be (snarky, perfect, disinterested) it will be hard to maintain the facade when you (want to connect, fail or fall in love, sprinkle sappy emotions across the planet) which will lead to (loneliness, less business, sadness—maybe even despair).
A Love/Hate Relationship With Branding
When I was two-and-something years old my mother woke at 2 a.m. to find me in my sister’s crib. I had dumped out the entire contents of my dresser onto her bed. My mom found me trying on outfits and asking my sister her opinion. Though my sister couldn’t quite talk yet I persisted in my fashion show, determined to figure how to best present myself. By the time I turned four, my wardrobe was decidedly blue and I had shunned pink + purple entirely as they were too girly for my tomboyish self. That Christmas I designed my own costume for a Christmas play my brothers, sister and I put on at home. I’d say thinking about how to best present myself started young for me.
That's me with the dishcloth on my head.
But. There was a time when I turned my back on personal branding after perusing a few profiles of popular personal branding haters (one called it a circus, another vowed they'd unfollow you if you ever uttered the words).
I admit it.
I wanted to be liked.
I wanted to be cool.
I shrank away from myself.
It took me several weeks (ok, months) to pull myself out of the narrow space I crawled into and come out of the personal branding closet. I remembered that I have never been cool--and probably never will be. And what was as important in life as being myself? Not much. As I left my branding closet, I began to look around and saw that these haters were actually employing the very strategies that make branding effective:
Have an articulated, genuine voice
Be passionate about a topic
Tap into the zeitgeist of an audience
Be real
In fact, one of the biggest seeming detractors, author Chuck Wendig actually articulated in a blog post, Don’t Get Burned By Branding, the biggest tenet of true personal branding. "Own your voice. Live up to your name." I found many "branders" who doth protest too much. In a sense, their criticisms were right: adopting a fake persona is never the way to lasting success. But that doesn't mean you have to eschew all strategy.
Listen, artifice is never a good thing.
Sooner or later you’ll slip up and go back to being who you really are. The jig will be up. You’ll have to go back to being the nerdy developer who snickers at Star Wars jokes, the sensitive soul whose feelings get hurt or geeky person who loves to read rather than go out on a Saturday night (ahem, me). Or, you’ll have to find a new persona and start the whole shindig all over again.
How tiring is that?
Yes, there are far too many people trying to game the system with their 6 Ways to…posts that are fluffier than cotton candy and fake personas but let's not throw the marketing baby out with the stinky bath water, shall we?
Having a strategy for reaching an intended audience doesn’t have to mean that you’re fake or have to put on some funny persona you think people will like better. Your real self is all you have to be. When done right [read: effective] branding isn't about creating artifice--it's about revealing yourself.
In 5 years everyone will have a personal brand they can articulate and in 10 years people will wonder that we even trifled over the term. Personal branding isn’t just about how you project yourself IRL anymore as we project ourselves into far more virtual spaces than ever. You can get ahead of it or you can allow others (even a machine) to take over your identity. You can pretend it doesn’t matter or you can get over your bad self and get ahead of the curve like Anna Kendrick and give your brand (and yourself) a little love.