‘Personal Branding’ isn’t worth the time

I’m a big fan of social media. It keeps us connected with our contacts and can be a great career tool. But it’s not without its downsides.

You’ve probably recently read an article somewhere encouraging you to develop a ‘personal brand’. It’s not a new phenomena – but it is taking the career-minded blogosphere by force. We’re being encouraged to ‘create a personal elevator pitch’, ‘dress for our next job’, or ‘read the CEO’s paper of record’. In fact, a recent FT campaign focussed on the publication being the ‘paper of Barack Obama’.

In principle, adopting some of these behaviours could have a positive effect on your life and career prospects. But the trend is becoming too forced for my liking. Nowhere is this more evident than on social media.

What’s wrong with being yourself; letting your personal best qualities shine through?

‘Diet Coke, please’

Politicians are notorious personal branders, and provide an excellent example of its dangers.

During the 2010 General Election, the Conservative Party went to great lengths to position Gordon Brown as ‘dour’, ‘angry’ and ‘shouty’. These adjectives echoed the public’s perception – and were enhanced by ‘Bigotgate’. Labour did its share of opposition branding too – George Osbourne was often portrayed as ‘young’, ‘inexperienced’, and ‘smarmy’.

I’m sure Mr Brown would counter that he is ‘serious’, ‘passionate’ and ‘firm’; whilst Mr Osborne is indeed ‘young’, but also ‘fresh’, ‘innovative’ and ‘well-educated’. These perceptions are, however, not shared by the general public.

That’s the problem: You can spend years successfully building your personal brand, but the more you are defined by artificial behaviours, the more open you are to efforts to undermine these brands.

People tend to remember the bad times more vividly than the good – you can eat in the same café for years, but will you come back if a friend gets food poisoning? A hard-won positive impression takes time to build, but an instant to destroy.

That’s why I think of ‘personal branding’ as a weak position. Adopting artificial behaviours to distinguish yourself is the ‘I’ll have a diet Coke with my pizza’ equivalent of personal development.

Humbly acknowledging your weaknesses and playing to your strengths is a much more sensible proposition. Behavioural change is possible – I’ve been at the gym four times in the last week – but it takes time and consistency. You can’t fake it for an immediate return.

Fakers ahoy!

Reading material If someone turns up to a meeting with a paper under their arm, ask them about the leaders, yesterday’s issue, and their favourite columnist. If it’s unrumpled and neatly folded, it’s probably there for you to notice. Other obvious props are ‘intellectual’ books, expensive pens in the jacket pocket, or an upscale shopping bag.

Yah, dahling If someone spends time flaunting their knowledge of an affluent part of your city, dig a little deeper. A lack of local knowledge probably means that they flatshared there for a few months when they were new to the city, and like to show off with the post code.

‘Everest, you say?’ People list ludicrous interests on their CVs. When was the last time they went sailing/skiiing/mountaineering/hot ballooning? How did they get into it?

LinkedIn Groups & Twitter Following Count LinkedIn Groups and Twitter are tools of the trade nowadays – but their utility comes from actively monitoring them. If you’re looking at a hugely slanted ‘following count’, they are probably trying to up their own standing through ‘follow backs’. If they are a member of every LinkedIn group you can think of, they probably aren’t active in any.

Social Media Updates We all have a friend or two who spams our online feeds with ‘Working on something really great! More soon!!’. If this is regularly not followed up, it’s safe to say they were/are sat on the sofa with very little to do.

Parting Shot

Next time you go to an interview, meeting or pitch; think about who you actually are, and how that relates to the other participants. Find common ground – but never fake it. Don’t walk around with the FT under your arm all day – read the bits you want and throw it away. Don’t spend hours reinforcing your achievements – be busy working on the next one. And on social media, stop tweeting about it – just get it done.

The web is constantly evolving and iterative.

To keep up with the times, I’ve switched my home on the net from the iWeb-powered site I had been using to this WordPress-powered CMS.

I’m still working on much of the content: bear with me in the meanwhile.