Personal Branding: How far will you go?

There’s a thought piece on Seth’s blog – its a rather short exercise on choosing your profile photo for a social network such as Facebook. Whether you agree or disagree with what seems to be a trivial pursuit of credibility, he speaks truth in the overall scheme of marketing.

What I’m trying to say is that before we dive into the deep (“duc in altum!”), have we determined how far we’re willing to go? There are two kinds of bloggers — those who blog for the sake of keeping a journal, and those who are in it to market themselves in some form as a means to building a business. The latter brings in a greater sense of responsibility in keeping a certain demeanor online. Should this brand that we’re developing for ourselves emanate in Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube? How far are we willing to share of our personal lives? Will we put photos of family on Facebook, or will we keep our profile as a professional brand. How personal should our Tweets be? Do we add everyone on Facebook to increase our “net worth” or do we limit it to actual people that we know?

Of course, you have the outliers — those that can manage to merge their online work and personal life together so well, their personal life becomes part of the brand.

Something to think about: it’s how much we are willing to sacrifice that may determine how far we’re willing to go with branding ourselves online.

6 thoughts on “Personal Branding: How far will you go?

  1. As for myself, I like staying kind of anonymous. Let alone sharing personal lives and family pictures on Facebook, I don’t like sharing my picture even. But I know some small-scale bloggers like me who have gained huge success by sharing their personal lives and info, they even share with others which car they drive etc., and people start trusting them and taking their advice.

    But for the business’ sake one got to sacrifice a bit of privacy, I think I will be adding my picture and a bit of insight on me(:p), but not more than that.

  2. While I am new to the blogging world with an interest in branding myself I need to look at my own past actions. I confess I have never purchased something, subscribed to a blog, etc because I saw pics of the family or the blogger had a personal phone number posted. I tend to respect professionalism with creative authenticity. I guess what I mean by that is character matters to me. Nothing wrong with knowing someone that I’m falling is married with 3 kids and a dog but don’t twitter your kid just got sick at Chuck E. Cheese. As I use social networking to brand myself and website those social networks are now more reflective of my professionalism rather for family and friends. My family and friends will understand and respect that.

    Great article, thank you and great food for thought as I attempt to brand myself as well.

  3. I think if you are seeking celebrity then you have the issue of potential intrusion into your personal life. It is possible to build a brand in several other ways which is well known, attracts lots of traffic, and does not depend on any one character.

  4. Rather than how much you are willing to sacrifice I think it can be seen as how well you have integrated your professional and personal lives. My father was a professor and that integration was very high. It is not a sacrifice when this is the case.

    When we were on vacations we would sometimes (rare but still happened several times) go by a factory. I can imagine many would see this as a sacrifice, I never did (the idea never crossed my mind, it was interesting, and limited – though I now can understand many would see it that way). He would also accept a consulting job in order take a few days in some nice location with my Mom.

    I can see their would be a trade-off when the integration was not natural and you were balancing how much to share (that you would otherwise not share) to gain some benefit.

  5. Should your personal brand and that of your company be the same as in your business logo, or is it important to distinguish between the two and have a picture of yourself when you post on a blog, facebook or other site.

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