On A Lighter Note - III

Hey There Everyone, Hope you all are doing good.?

Luckily we live in a region where Inflationary pressures may squeeze the budgets of some but it won’t have much of an impact.?

Stay Fit & Stay Healthy.

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On A Lighter Note - III

This week I have one major theme that I had been thinking for too long to write about. Last week a young lady on Linkedin was talking about Likes, Engagement and Authenticity on social media platforms instead of a focus on the quality of content / knowledge & the message.?

Cats, Cute Children & Emotions go Viral on Social Media. Can we all start sharing it & build authentic brands?

A Quick Point to Think About:?

A new brand is launched and has a 7 figure promotional budget to splash. It buys space on strategically placed hoardings, Places ads in Print, Radio, TV, Gets free PR & Buys ads on Digital Platforms and Engages Social Media Influencers to Promote it.

It builds an image & establishes itself as a Brand based on the increased visibility & positive perceptions in a very short time.?

Is it Authentic Or do we say since they paid to gain visibility & became a brand, it is not Authentic.

New Age Gurus, Get Your Fundas Right.

Think whats Authenticity in Branding? The fundamentals of marketing don’t change & apply to the digital world too.

PERSONAL BRANDING

The buzz on all social media platforms is you should create a personal brand otherwise you are missing something.

The debate on Personal Branding is going on for long. It started in 1997 when Fast Company published an article titled “The Brand Called You”.?

Then in 2012 a Satirical Piece in The Onion titled?'I Am A Brand,' Pathetic Man Says further pushed the debate on personal branding.

BBC WorkLife carried an article titled “A case against personal brands” in 2017, in which the lady who is in a big way responsible for creating the Personal Branding Fad on Social Media says?

“Don’t package yourself” - Sheryl Sandberg

“Crest has a brand.?Perrier has a brand.? People are not that simple. When we are packaged, we’re ineffective and inauthentic.”

What we each have is a voice, she added, which can be complex, contradictory and sometimes wrong.?

Her advice? “Don’t package yourself.” Just speak honestly, factually and from your own experience.

Traditional branding paints a picture of products that are flawless and consistent – think of famous brand slogans from “Never knowingly undersold” to “The best a man can get.”?

Humans don’t work that way, as Sandberg acknowledged. We are complicated and fallible. There’s a risk that creating a “perfect” personal brand comes with enormous pressure to live up to it.

Social media's made it easy for people to curate and share aspects of their life which are in keeping with the image they'd like to project.

There has always been some unease with the idea that humans can be packaged, and personal brands often come under fire for being artificial portrayals of self-indulgent people.

Think & Reflect: Worried You are not a Brand. Worry Not. You are missing nothing.

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My Linkedin Journey Am Not A Brand / I Will Never Package Myself

As usual I get a lot of experts contacting me to share advice on how to brand myself and increase my Marketability or Saleability.

Am ranked mostly among the top 1% or 2% on Linkedin in my domain and it gives me a score of 25/25 for relationship building but gives me only 12/25 for not building a professional personal brand.?Whatever that means.

I created my linkedin account in 2009 but only in 2019 I started actively engaging online more to give some visibility to the Tech work I was keenly interested in pursuing but as the Pandemic came about I felt it was necessary to go beyond the tech work visibility goal & to focus on global issues that can make the world a better place for all.

As a lifelong Marketing Student, I always found the idea of Personal Branding as narcissistic and dehumanising which Social Media Platforms have in many ways normalised it to serve their interests.?

Digital Platforms need continuous user engagement so they create competition & aspiration in other users by choosing & promoting few influencers with right set of attributes in each market out of thin air - a dance queen from US - Charlie D’Amelio (138 M Followers), or an African/Italian Silent Comic - Khaby Lame (135 M Followers) on TikTok and so on. You mostly see funny stuff succeeding and few talent based real influencers (Sports) etc never Knowledge/Education because its boring and not cool.

So Social Media is all about Entertainment.

Do read as I make a Case Against the Personal Branding Paradigm Promoted by Social Media as it is not necessary.

We do branding to package a set of attributes of a product / service or a Person in a way that is easy to communicate the brand values & build bonds and present it to the world for Association, Image, Consumption, Experience, Enjoyment, Use etc. etc.

A personal branding guru writes in Forbes?

“A personal brand is the unique combination of skills and experiences that make you who you are. It is how you present yourself to the world.?Effective personal branding will differentiate you from the competition and allow you to build trust with prospective clients and employers”.

You Package yourself to make it easier to Communicate your Value Proposition, to Put a Price, Market it for others for Use & to Discard it.

So essentially we Create a Personal Brand, to reduce your multi faceted persona, diverse set of skills into a tiny package of few easy to communicate attributes for others to understand, compare & buy into. hmmm

I may create a Branded Product but I will never Create a Personal Brand because I will never agreed with Capitalism and its self serving ideas where a Person is reduced to a Thing to be Packaged, Marketed, Used and Discarded just like products & services.

A person is much more than a product to be bought and sold for a price. Isn’t it??

How many successful Personal brands do you see in the market?? How long does a Personal Brand Last.?

People Get Real.

They say the World is moving fast. Where to: Forward towards Knowledge, Enlightenment & Progress or Backwards to the lawless world of the Jungle?

I came across a young man going at high speed. I stopped him and asked, where to.?

He said I don’t know everyone is going fast & furthering their personal brand so I thought I will go too otherwise I may miss something.?

I told him relax. Enjoy the journey, take in the sights, drink a cup of coffee. You lose nothing much if you don’t join the rat race.?

Slow Down. Think Smart. What is yours you will get it eventually and anyways you don’t need much.?

He looked at me skeptically. I said I have been a teacher for 25 years & am sharing my two cents from experience.?

He said, but you are not a Brand & nobody gave you any recommendations on Linkedin. So I won’t Trust you.?

I Smiled. What a Funny World we have created.

Think & Reflect Building a personal brand is becoming common practice - but what if you want to get ahead without curating and sharing a particular version of yourself?

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Must Read

I cannot say it better than this Satirical Piece in The Onion?

'I Am A Brand,' Pathetic Man Says

Sad, pathetic local web developer and blogger Phillip Cathin, 34, told reporters today that he sees himself as “a brand.”

The pitiful man, who works in development and design at the Seattle-based software company, told reporters he takes time out of every day to “promote and further [his] brand” and to extend his “social and online presence.”

“I am my own product,” the little worm said while staring at a laptop and depressingly shuffling between his Twitter,?Facebook , LinkedIn, Google Plus, and Tumblr accounts, which he claimed are “essential tools for growing [his] personal brand” on a daily basis.?

“I think of myself as the creator, developer, and marketer of Brand Phillip Cathin. And the ideas I come up with are products produced by that brand.”

I am having a very hearty laugh. hahahahahahaha

My sincere empathies to young people born in the social media age. It is not your fault. It is societies fault.

Must Read: https://www.theonion.com/i-am-a-brand-pathetic-man-says-1819574256

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A case against personal brands

I think many marketing managers in the region will also attest to the “Un-Authentic Personal Brands” built on social media & their freeloading & unprofessional behaviours.?

Industry & society should stop supporting it & help young people focus on the things that are important.

Do Read: https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20170723-the-case-against-personal-brands