I recently watched a somewhat dated Frontline documentary, “Growing Up Online”, which explored the impact that access to the internet and social media have on children. I say dated because, as it was filmed in 2007, the technology and concepts discussed in the film felt very out of date, with many references to kids obsessed with their MySpace pages. I don’t know about you, but I find it easy to forget that MySpace ever existed. In 2007 Facebook (which started up in 2004), had just over 50 million users (Number of active users at Facebook over the years, n.d.). Today there are nearly 3 billion users of Facebook worldwide.
In the film some children referenced the pleasure they felt from developing an entirely different persona online, and collecting followers (FRONTLINE | Growing Up Online | Season 2008 | Episode 3, n.d.). Back in early 2008 when this documentary aired this was a novel idea. But here we are in 2022, and the idea of a personal brand has evolved to the point that business articles and bloggers extol the necessity of having one, along with the detailed how to maintain that brand online.
Why Build a Personal Brand?
If you are anything like me, and shudder at the idea of taking a selfie, the idea of building a personal brand online might not be attractive. So let’s step back from the personal and the digital and take a look at what it means to build a brand.
There are many ways to define a brand in terms of business, but at its core it relates to how the public perceives the identity of a business, product, or person. Facebook offers a good definition that can be adapted to personal brand building, “a brand is the collection of associations that people have about a product or business. People have personalities. Businesses have brands” (What Is a Brand?, n.d.).
Brand building is shaping the perceptions of how others see you, your business or product. It works best with the application of focus (your mission), vision (your goals) and narrative building (your story). What is the mission of your brand? What associations should people have with your brand in order for you to best accomplish that mission? How will these associations help further your vision for how you want the brand to evolve?
Brand Building According to Aristotle
Aristotle is sometimes thought of as one of the earliest marketing strategists, because he published one of the first known treatises on the art of rhetoric, or persuasion. Aristotle felt that in order to persuade an audience, the speaker needed to build an argument on three pillars - ethos (character/credibility), logos (argument/logic) and pathos (emotion). (3 Ways Aristotle Can Tweak Your Content And Beef Up Your Brand, 2015). Applying these ideas to brand building, a brand needs to convey authenticity, backed by evidence couched in a narrative that inspires empathy with an audience. In order to convey authenticity, it’s a good rule of thumb to keep your brand positive - no wading about in social media muck for fun. The argument that supports your brand is evidence that your authenticity is legitimate, as conveyed by your behaviors, whether it is how you communicate online or the pictures of offline activities that you post. Sharing narratives that inspire empathy with your audience is a key factor in establishing who you are with your audience and reinforcing their perceptions of your brand.
Here’s the scary thing about living in the digital twenty-first century - even if you don’t think you need to worry about establishing a personal brand in the digital landscape, chances are you already have one and just aren’t aware of it. After all, what is the first thing many of us do nowadays when we are looking to learn something about someone we recently met? We google them. If you are someone who has not been engaged in business activities in the public eye, anyone googling you is likely to end up on your LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or whatever other social media accounts you might have. Like it or not, your digital footprint is the first impression you will make on many people.
Curate Your Content
The good news is, you can exert a good amount of control over that impression. For one thing, you can establish the brand identity you want by curating your content. Your content can convey the values that you feel are of primary importance to your brand. This means having a sense of your personal mission and values, and making sure that the things you post (or just as important, repost) are “on brand” in terms of the picture you want to portray to the world. In an article for Forbes, Caroline Castrillon discusses the potential importance of a carefully curated digital brand for job seekers, citing a study that showed 70% of employers check out potential employee’s online, searching Google and looking at social media pages (Castrillon, 2020). In the twenty-first century, where workers are more likely to change jobs often, the image you present online is vitally important.
All Eyes Are On You
Something folks tend to forget about social media - it’s a public forum. If you wouldn’t get up in front of a hundred strangers and read what you are about to post from behind the podium, chances are you should not be posting it on your social media account. The same thing goes for the posts that you choose to share from your account. It is important to fact-check news items before you share them, particularly if you don’t recognize the source. You might think twice before sharing content that has off-color humor or polarizing political content. Even if you have controls on your account limiting access to just friends, posts can easily become screenshots and go more public than you know. Even if you aren’t very active on social media, do you have friends who are? If you are out drinking at a bar, are your friends taking pictures of you and posting them to their social media accounts with your name? Do you want those images to be a part of your brand? Once there is information published about you online, it is difficult to isolate it from your overall brand. Reputation.management.com claims that “it’s nearly impossible to get something removed from Google completely.” (Reputation Protection - How to Protect Your Reputation Online, 2020)
So take a moment to check out where your current digital reputation stands. Remember you want to keep it positive, keep it authentic and look for opportunities to share stories that connect your audience emotionally to who you are as a person to better reflect the perceptions you want out there of your personal brand.
3 Ways Aristotle Can Tweak Your Content And Beef Up Your Brand. (2015, February 20). Zen Media. https://zenmedia.com/blog/3-ways-aristotle-can-tweak-content-beef-brand/
Castrillon, C. (n.d.). Why Personal Branding Is More Important Than Ever. Forbes. Retrieved February 27, 2022, from
Chan, G. (n.d.). 10 Golden Rules Of Personal Branding. Forbes. Retrieved February 28, 2022, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/goldiechan/2018/11/08/10-golden-rules-personal-branding/?sh=6f13583658a7
FRONTLINE | Growing Up Online | Season 2008 | Episode 3. (n.d.). Www.pbs.org. https://www.pbs.org/video/frontline-growing-up-online/
Number of active users at Facebook over the years. (n.d.). Finance.yahoo.com.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/number-active-users-facebook-over-years-214600186--finance.html
Reputation Protection - How to Protect Your Reputation Online. (2020, July 13). ReputationManagement.com. https://www.reputationmanagement.com/blog/reputation-protection/
What Is a Brand? (n.d.). Facebook for Business. https://www.facebook.com/business/learn/lessons/what-is-a-brand
Wheeler, K. (2020). How to Develop a Unique (& Memorable) Brand Identity in 2020. Hubspot.com. https://blog.hubspot.com/agency/develop-brand-identity
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