Who Am I Talking To: Paulmacp’s Intended Audience.

This blog is about discovering the proper use of “Social Media” to accomplish the goal of “Personal Branding”. That is a fairly broad topic, giving me more than enough to blog about to a very wide audience. To create more of a niche for myself, I have already narrowed my audience in one of the key statements I made in my intro video (you can watch there on the left side of this blog), I want to discover and discuss the “art of self promotion and self preservation” (aka “Personal Branding”) on the internet to my fellow Gen-Xers. That statement itself, says my target for my musings on this blog are for people (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_X) who are currently range in age from 29 to 46. I am not saying a Gen-Y could not learn something here or should not participate in my blog, far from it. What I am saying, I am blogging about solutions to problems for my contemporaries. I am here to help people like me (I am 42).

I personally believe, when devising a personal branding plan, you need to determine who your audience is. You can’t be all things to all people. If you try and speak to everyone, you end up taking to no one. The fewer people you try and talk to (target), the more likely you will be heard by someone.

Cutting My Target Audience In Half

I am going to take my original message, “I blog about solutions for my contemporaries” one step further. My intended audience is men, not women. I am not even going to try and say my message is gender neutral…. “For People”. I am here, online to talk to “Gen-X Men”. I am not saying a women does not have a lot to offer, or that a woman would not profit from some of the advice and knowledge that can be found within paulmacp dot com. It is just that I am a man. I have grown up being a man and I am not about to stop being one here on this blog, not even for a moment.

Why I plan on only talking to men?

From my perspective a lot of the components of personal branding are about self promotion, in short, bragging about yourself and your accomplishments. Women have a harder time with this concept than men do. The women of Gen-X although liberated, were brought up in a society that for a large part taught them “Don’t be a show off”, “Don’t upstage your brother”, “Don’t talk about your own accomplishments, that will make your boyfriend/husband look bad”. Because of this, Gen-X woman are less likely to take ownership for their success. They tend to attribute their accomplishments to family or a larger work team.

Men on the other hand, women jokingly mock with statements men are born with the “Bragging Gene!”. It is not that we are born with this gene and women are not, it is just since the sixth grade most men have been looking for dates. Even at that young age boys started to learn the value of self promotion (read bragging) to separate ourselves from the competition.

So, the net of it is, I am speaking here online to people who can understand where I am coming from and appreciate where I want to go here on my blog. I am speaking to Gen-X men, like myself, who have had, since the age of twelve the practical desire, if not proper guidance in the art of self promotion or now as it is called Personal Branding.

Where I think most boys blew it when they where twelve, like myself, is the same way most Gen-X men blow it now. When they try and use social media to promote themselves… they are just talking about themselves “Me!, Me!, Me!” You have only successfully promoted yourself (and your personal brand) when other people are talking about you.