I decided to move the conversation happening over on Facebook (surrounding personal branding) regarding my post on Dan Schwabel’s Personal Branding blog: From Identity to Personality. Be Remembered.
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Dave Bennett:
Dear Social Media Expert, twitterific and facebookish Kyle Lacey,
First off let me say that I respect what you’re doing in marketing, you’re pushing the edges of the field, you’re making people money, and you’re (hopefully) doing something that you love. All things I respect and root for in this world.
I have some issues, a few philosophical peccadilloes that I need to pick with you and the industry you participate in. So from one double major in philosophy to another (I think I remember you being involved in AU’s philosophy program) let me start my being acerbic and dispensing with pretense.
What you call identity and personality seem to really be pretentious self-projections. Don’t get me wrong, they might be really successful self-projections that gain favor, popularity, and a following but they are far from human dignity.
What you see as the point of self expression is external recognition. But the self is something internal and independent from what others think of you, if you are basing who you are on how to attract others, then you really are nothing at all. You’re a pretentious clone of perceived likes and dislikes, a customer service invertebrate bending to the latest marketing trends.
My issue isn’t really with customer service or with marketing, its with the collusion of these two and personal identity. When in reality your virtual representation is really the most controlled and least personal representation you can come up with. That is something I am ok with, but call it what it is: namely an advertisement, don’t continue to add to the massive amount of illiteracy out there.
What I mean is that there are many people who can read, but few who are literate, few who mean what they say and understand what is meant when they read. Don’t add to the misuse of language and self-understanding in your furthering of marketing, viral marketing, etc.
Branding myself is the biggest pretense yet, and while successful, crosses into the unethical when it associates the person solely with the symbol. As if a symbol could ever really encompass a person, especially when personal branding doesn’t really represent the person at all but the concoction of personal investment in an idea or product.
I guess what I really want to know is: when you leave an emotional response on twitter or facebook, create a following, if your emotional response is raw. If it is independent of your desire for a following. And if it isn’t then is it you or a self-projection of you? A dumbassed question really, but it begs the ethics of human dignity.
Where is human dignity in self-branding when self-branding doesn’t allow for unpopular responses? I hate the idea of selling your “self”, because what is sold isn’t “self” but what the customer wants. Call it what it is.
Basically, I’m wondering, where do these things fall into twitter and facebook marketing? How does self-branding differ from self-projection?
Me/Kyle:
Let me first state that the idea “from identity to personality” is loosely based off of a excerpt from Emotional Branding by Marc Gobe.
“Identity is descriptive. It is recognition. Personality is about character and charisma. Brand identities are unique and express a point of difference. But this is only the first step. Brand personalities, on the other hand, are special. They have a charismatic character that provokes an emotional response. American airlines has a strong identity, but Virgin airlines as personality.”
One other thing to think about in terms of my post:
The things I write about are not suppose to based in any type of philosophical nature… it would be like scientist arguing my logic using scientific reasoning. I write and discuss concepts in business communication, period.
The post you read and responded to… was merely an idea behind personal branding. I am not arguing the point of self discovery and emotional response in terms of inner angst (or beauty). I am plainly talking about the concepts of a story… the emotional stimulation a customer or client will receive when they connect with something you write or say..
I write what I think because it is reality.. it isn’t steeped in some inner personal conflict or unrealistic interpretation of identity vs personality. It is business plain and simple… I will give more soon. Thank you for your thoughts. I love debating and trying to solve issues in communication!
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What do you think? Is it worth furthering the conversation on this blog?
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Interesting. the key thing I gather is that personal branding in itself isn't about self promotion anymore, it is about creating something of value for the communities you live in and are a part of. Through giving and building relationships, your brand, or how others respond to you, think about you, and talk about you is forged. I think character is revealed through these interactions. Is a person trying to get something from me or rather help me and the community.
Rightly said Kyle,I also read the post on Dan’s blog and that was quite inspiring because if we think we can make a brand out of ourselves we got to understand the difference between identity and personality and as far as the philosophical side of it is concerned, I am sure that the people who read it gave this particular thought some time in there minds.
What is disappointing to me is that regardless of how true, how worthy, or how good a certain message may be, if it is spread in terms of "social media/personal branding" than it must always relate back to the one who is doing the spreading. No matter how hard we try to dissasociate ourselves with the messages we spread, for fear that our goal will be outwardly portrayed as self-seeking or narcissistic, we cannot help but draw attention back to our own selves. The business aspect, whether it is "plain and simple or reality" matters little. I expect you to tell the truth and talk about business, regardless. What matters, and what I believe Mr. Bennett to be getting at, is that there is an inner conflict between spreading a message because it is worthy of being spread and spreading a message because it will bring me more attention, grow my fame, and give me more "social power."…
The motivation behind spreading a message or building a following is what I attempt to genuinely look into. No matter what, the motivation behind why you do what you do cannot be separated from what it is that you do or what messages you decide to spread. We all must ask ourselves. Why do we do what we do? Fundamentally, we say, "In order to help others." However, how do we continue to do so when so much of our so called helping others actually helps our own selves to build fame and acquire a larger following. In helping others, we are actually helping our own selves, and thus the potential is there for our outward service to become some kind of facade, built in order to disguise our true inner longings to simply acquire followers and serve our selves. One cannot full-heartedly serve others when inwardly his hopes are to also help his own self. If service is not done with selfless intentions; if we expect to gain from our service, than it is for naught, and our service is in vain. The inner struggle exists, and if it doesn't, than I would love to hear how it can be ignored.
My much deeper obligations, however, are more than branding my own self in order to spread my message. I hope that as my message increases, I decrease, and that the attention is consistently more and more on my message and less and less on me so that my fame may dwindle to nothing, yet my message be greater all the more.
Our "personal brand" is just a corporate-style term for a summation of who we are as viewed by the external world. If I want to get a sense of my personal brand, I can go ask a variety of people who know me in different contexts to give three adjectives to describe me. Pulling all of those together, I'd find commonalities – that's my brand. We all have a personal brand. The first question here is whether our personal brand (external) aligns with our true self (internal). Then the second question is whether we choose to embrace our personal brand and capitalize on aspects of it, which is nothing more than thoughtfully working to align our professional world and our internal and external selves.
All that being said, I agree with both Dave and Kyle. My interpretation of Dave's point is that he is arguing against developing an inauthentic brand and questioning how ethical it is to do so. I completely agree with this. We generally have more fulfillment and find more success when 1) we have deep self-awareness (a continual process) and 2) are able to consistently put forth ourselves authentically. Can you think about an encounter you've had with someone who is not authentic? It's all very subtle, but these people tend to make us distinctly uncomfortable. Leery. Skeptical. We signals we get from them that don't line up. It's disconcerting. I have never seen Kyle advocate for creating within social media a non-authentic version of ourselves just to please customers. Rather, he is teaching people how social media presents new opportunities to convey ourselves. We've been taught how to dress, speak and write in traditional formats, but we're just learning about the new communication vehicles present in the social media world.