I wonder how many people realize what Facebook is doing to their reputation (personal brand). I think most people who use Facebook and play games (add applications) and don’t realize that some of these applications actually notify their entire network, invite them to play or join in an attempt to build traffic.

A great example of this, is when someone sends an announcement  “soANDso has challenged Lotus Ravenmoore to a team battle! soANDso needs help taking down Lotus Ravenmoore!” I understand the kind of critique I’m opening myself up to here. Stuff like, “that’s what you get for having 930 ‘friends’.” I’m fine with that, and I have no issue hitting the “ignore” button for invites or causes that don’t make sense to me. My concern is that the people who are sending these messages out may not even really understand that they’re doing this. You know, pre-checked boxes that say things like, “notify my entire network”.

Bottom line: this is building the Facebook game developer’s brand… and killing your own reputation. Whether you do it knowingly or are an unwilling accomplice, I see streams of messages and invites from people and I find it annoying at best.

I’ve read all about adjusting my security options so I don’t get these messages/invites, but that’s not the point either. I want the people who are “sending” them to be educated. I want them to know how badly it’s hurting their reputation. I want them to better understand how these channels connect and the image they are projecting looks like to others.

When Tom Peters started the Personal Branding craze (over thirteen years ago now), there was no way he could have seen how social networking would change one’s ability to quickly develop and define your own Personal Brand. With the amount of Facebook spam floating around these days, my guess is he’d be equally mortified on how quickly it could hurt one’s personal brand as well.

photo credit: @boetter

I have been online for the past few months, analyzing how many people like Dan Schawbel, Chris Brogan and Guy Kowasaki have developed their personal brands. The key common thread I have observed in each of their successes stories is; all of them make everything about the people they are connecting with and not about themselves.

In re-reading that second sentence, it’s easy to see the true paradox in developing your own personal brand. In the end, it’s not about you, but rather what you do for others that will help you share, grow and learn. If I have to highlight one common mistake I have observed within the blogosphere by people developing their personal brand is making it all about themselves. They focus on how they can leverage people they know and what they can extract from those people to accomplish their own goals. They seem to talk at people, broadcasting their message instead of answering questions and addressing other people’s needs.

It is not about me. It is not about you. It is about us… the community

A personal brand is truly defined when like-minded individuals congregate and form a community and they look to you (and your personal brand, your reputation) for help or guidance. The amazing thing is that we don’t need a physical location anymore for this to happen. That is the true power of the social networks that we are all gravitating towards these days. Suddenly, like-minded individuals can socialize, share and connect free of geographical limitations. It doesn’t matter if you share your thoughts via your Blog, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, or LinkedIn. If you are sharing your ideas with the intent of being recognized as an guru in your niche and perpetuating your personal brand, do it from the perspective “it’s all about you.” not “it’s all about me” . Real thought leadership and guru or expert status is attained when others look to you as and describe you as such.

“Brands are built on what people are saying about you, not what you’re saying about yourself.” — Guy Kowasaki, Original Apple Evangelist

photo credit: Hamed Saber

All of the content a Blogger creates (post, tweet and comment) is a reflection of their personal brand and, for most, the only reflection of who they are in everybody else’s eyes.

Blogging is still a relatively new communication channel. All of this content being created becomes part of your Personal Brand’s Long Tail. It will exist forever when somebody does any kind of search on you, and can be accessed by anyone looking for specific content that you Blogged about. I am reminded of a short blog post by Seth Godin called “Personal branding in the age of Google” that I read over a year ago:

A friend advertised on Craig’s list for a housekeeper.

Three interesting resumes came to the top. She googled each person’s name.

The first search turned up a MySpace page. There was a picture of the applicant, drinking beer from a funnel. Under hobbies, the first entry was, “binge drinking.”

The second search turned up a personal blog (a good one, actually). The most recent entry said something like, “I am applying for some menial jobs that are below me, and I’m annoyed by it. I’ll certainly quit the minute I sell a few paintings.”

And the third? There were only six matches, and the sixth was from the local police department, indicating that the applicant had been arrested for shoplifting two years earlier.

Three for three.

Google never forgets.

Of course, you don’t have to be a drunk, a thief or a bitter failure for this to backfire. Everything you do now ends up in your permanent record. The best plan is to overload Google with a long tail of good stuff and to always act as if you’re on Candid Camera, because you are.

With this in mind, I’m beginning to see some trends in the Blogs of Marketing and Communications professionals that are making me nervous.

A lot of people who would be called a “communications professional” are Blogging from such a emotional level that their professional insights are being overshadowed by these emotions and their lack of industry experience. I used to follow their Blogs for professional insights, links to other relevant content, and to feed off of their passion. And now, I feel like I am following a soap opera that revolves around challenging what another Blogger has said/done or generalizations about their peers’ business model or approach being inferior to their own.

The art of telling a story and skills of journalism don’t come easy (or cheap). In recent months, I’ve been tracking Blog postings where so-called Marketing and Communications Professionals have used sensationalism-like headlines to either draw a bigger audience or link bait. Both are worthy pursuits to grow an audience, but there is a warning here: if this is the type of stuff you will publish on your own personal Blog, to what depths will you go in your professional life to get ahead?

The other big point is to have a little humility. Just because you have a Blog with traffic does not mean that you are at par with people like Seth Godin, Guy Kawasaki, Tom Peters or Chris Brogan. Yes, you have the same ability to reach the same audience with the same volume, but it does not mean that you have the experience or insights. You have your own perspective and they have theirs. Both are worthy and should have a public voice, but I don’t kid myself into thinking that I stand on par with Seth Godin because we both have a Blog. I keep this in mind when I Blog. This way I’m not fooling myself (or you) into thinking what I say is as valuable as someone with Seth’s experience. The truth is, when you see a Blog, it’s hard to gauge the Blogger’s level of experience. This is good because it does level the playing field, and it’s bad for the exact same reason.

Bottom line, Bloggers need to be a little more careful when they post. Clients, future clients, employers and future employers are reading. It’s easy to say, “I would never work for anyone who does not like what I have to Blog about,” but go back and look at some of the stuff you wrote five years ago. I know that my opinions at that moment may not reflect my current state of mind (I cringe when I look back on my stuff). People change, people grow, and people gain experience. I think that everyone should Blog. Everyone should share their thoughts and their insights. At the same time, be careful: everything you say can (and will) be used against you in the court of public opinion… forever (hint: that is a long time).

Herman Melville put it best when he said, “We cannot live for ourselves alone. Our lives are connected by a thousand invisible threads, and along these sympathetic fibers, our actions run as causes and return to us as results.”

photo credit: jurvetson

Do you remember the story of “The Little Engine That Could”? The train had a resounding mantra in it “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can!” This book is used to teach children the value of optimism and hard work.

We are living in a very exciting time, if a relatively unknown, young, single term black senator with funny ears and a funnier name can become president of the United States, I can become a successful author and blogger. I plan to use the same paradigm shifting techniques that the President of the United States used to conquer his first rival the Goliath that was the better funded, better known Hilary Clinton political machine… to successfully promote myself and my ideas online.

Regardless of your political views, you must appreciate the marketing principles used by Barack Obama in his 2008 presidential campaign. He was a brilliant example of how to use the power of the social-media and Web 2.0, to beat bigger, better funded rivals.

Because he had less funding initially, Barak could not compete with Hillary on the same playing field, because the field would have been slanted her way. Instead of playing by the old rules, he made different rules all together. Many of these rule changes revolved around viral marketing, or inbound marketing. Inbound marketing is having your client find you instead of you finding the client. “The Aim of our online campaign”, says Chris Hughes, co-founder of Facebook and Obama’s internet strategist, “was to help individuals understand the values of Barak Obama and of our Campaign and then to make it easy as possible for them to actively engage with the campaign’s work. We tried to open as many direct channels of communication as possible – using email, text messages, online networks – and then equip them with the tools to spread the campaigns message using networking technology such as My.BarackObama.com and Facebook”.

The strategy worked. Amercians where able to connect with Barack via his blog, Facebook page, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube. The rest they say is history.

I know just because I have a Facebook page and a Twitter account does not mean I will be successful at promoting myself, my ideas or be considered a valued contributor to the conversation.

Jon Clements blog post “A Frenchman at the #fodm” (#FODM = Future of Digital Marketing conference) compiled comments from Eric Frenchman, John McCain’s online consultant and Chief Internet Strategist for the online political agency Conell Donatelli Inc. He quotes Eric as saying “one place where you can compete or even beat your competition with less money”. Jon goes on to say in his post:

But some online tactics can backfire. So popular was the click through rate on a “hippy Hilary Clinton” ad used by the Republican campaign, it had to be switched off for being too successful.
As for Obama, he had 90 staff working on his digital strategy – according to Frenchman – and managed to tap into Facebook and online video in a way the Republicans failed to. Creating useful tools, such as “register to vote” widgets on Facebook helped Obama to reach 3.1m followers against McCain’s 610,000. And the Yes We Can video clocked up 18.2m views, alongside the millions of views for “home made” Obama films – equating to an alleged $40m equivalent of TV advertising spend.

Eric also made a point that you must also use the media in the way it was meant to be used, not necessarily the way you feel most comfortable. John used Twitter as a “one-way communication vehicle”. In other words he was not listening to his audience; he was talking “at” them.

The moral of Barak’s campaign story is this: Personal Branding online when done right, is a very effective way to reach a perspective audience. How to promote myself, my ideas and properly engage in the ‘conversation’ that is Web 2.0 is what I plan to learn, perfect and discuss in upcoming post.

I think I can I think I can I think I will make a difference!
–
photo credit: jetheriot

Yesterday I talked about the need for me to decide how I want others to perceive me. I think inside and out, we all are many people, I am a:

• dad to my daughter,
• a friend to a select few,
• a complete asshole to my ex-wife

… just to name three people simultaneously I am at this very moment. But what face do I really want to show the world?

It is said we are all three different people: the person we think we are (the one we have invented), the person other people think we are (the impression we make), and the person we think other people think we are (the one we fret about).
– Stephen Bayley

A good way to figure that out, is first to determine how the world already sees me, the impression I have made. To do this non scientifically, I asked my Facebook friends via my status line to answer a simple question, “give me three adjectives that you would use to describe me”.

Six people responded:

• Jason Orme: abstract, friend, confident
• Robert Whitford: eggish, obsequious, absorbent
• Ken LePage: driven, thoughtful, technical
• Dawn Henderson: insightful, keen, reliable
• Carmen Bottaro: hilarious, dirty, witty
• Victoria Lynn Sodora: ubiquitous, generous, verbous

The people who responded were an interesting cross section of my life:

• Victoria: We went to high school together.
• Carmen: I have known Carmen for just over a year now.
• Dawn: Dawn and I were inseparable for a few months a few years back, but still keep in touch now.
• Ken: I have known Ken for about four years, we used to work together.
• Robert: Robert and  I only really know each other on Facebook.
• Jason: Jason I have known for just over ten years now and is one of my closest friends.

I wasn’t surprised by the answers, and it’s great to see what was said. I maybe rationalizing, but I see a consistency within the group of words used. I personally would have gone with (the person I have invented): driven, thoughtful, and generous, which to me seems in alignment with each other, so I guess I have nothing to fret about.

I think personal branding is unavoidable, it just may not be a deliberate act for many. As others interact with you, they’ll automatically form mental associations that connect you with certain labels (or adjectives), often within the first few seconds. You can’t avoid being labeled, and other people can’t avoid labeling you. It happens automatically because our brains are wired to recognize patterns and form associations. The labels people attach to you become part of your personal brand whether you want to recognize you have one or not.

I have now concluded I know how people naturally perceive me, and I am OK with it. So I have no real damage control to take care of with how my personal brand as it is perceived today. The next step in the process is to determine where I want to take me… What are my goals?

More on that in the coming days.

This exercise is intriguing because it helps you determine if people are perceiving you the way you want to be perceived.  You might try this exercise yourself with your family, friends, and co-workers.  Often people’s responses are more a reflection of themselves than you; it’s interesting to see what lens people are seeing you through.

photo credit: bogenfreund

Much of my thirties was spent making up for my twenties, playing maybe a little bit more than most people would consider prudent and writing about it on the web. All the foolishness aside in that eight year period I learned a great deal about the internet, blogging and branding online. Then I turned 40ty, and looked in the mirror and my lifestyle of the moment no longer really interested me. So I walked away from the Web for a time, and began the process of ‘re-inventing’ myself. Since that day a little over two years ago now, I have been on a journey of discovery of just what do with myself when I finally grow up. That is really how this website and blog came about. It is an extension of my personal journey.

In the past six months I have read many books and read a great deal more on the internet about personal branding, reputation management, marketing and the psychology behind how and why people buy things. On this journey I have observed that members of Gen-X and the members of Gen-Y, take two very different approaches to the definition and propagation of their Personal Brand. Gen-X is almost completely offline and old school. Gen-Y on the other hand is almost completely paperless and online, completely embracing social-media and social networking technologies.

In my time spent learning and observing the process of “personal branding”, I have seen, observed how these techniques can help re-define and re-align a person and help people like myself attain their long term goals, and propel them towards success. As I stated in a previous post “What Am I Talking About : Paulmacp’s Content Plan”, I have defined a “Personal Branding Process” that I have broken down into phases:

1. Conceive
2. Compose
3. Convey

Today, I am breaking away from the research, the intellectualizing and putting my skin in the game and getting on with it for myself, and inviting you along for the ride.

Phase 1 – Conceive

Conceive, is the time in the process where I need to be most honest with myself. Fooling myself, exaggerating or undervaluing me will do me or the process any service. To not be 100% genuine and committed  here at this stage of the game only puts garbage into the system. And as they say, “Garbage In” will only lead to “Garbage Out”.

So how do I see myself?

The process of “Conception” is like an artist doing a self portrait of him or herself. Picasso, for example, created more than 10 self-portraits in his lifetime. Some are so stylized that he’s unrecognizable. Others emphasize his nose and de-emphasize his eyes; others make him look more handsome than he really was. They’re all different; all representations of the varying ways Picasso saw himself. Though all the images represent the same person, they encourage us to view the man through a different lens each time. The first phase of the process is all about first deciding which version of “me” do I want people to see.

Pablo Picasso -- Self Portrait With Cloak -- 1901

Pablo Picaso -- Self Portriat -- 1907

Pablo Picasso -- Self Portrait -- 1972

More tomorrow.

photo credit: dan paluska

Images of the art work of Pablo Picasso Copyright 2000 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Update: I originally wrote this post on February 7th, when I first returned to the net. In January and February of this year, I started and closed five blogs, trying to find my voice and my calling online. This post is what eventually led me to the concept that is now paulmacp.com.

The concept of personal branding (according to Wikipedia) has been around since 1980 and was introduced in the book: “Positioning: The Battle for your Mind”, by Al Ries and Jack Trout. Specifically in “Chapter 23. Positioning Yourself and Your Career – You can benefit by using positioning strategy to advance your own career. Key principle: Don’t try to do everything yourself. Find a horse to ride”.

What is Personal Branding: Most teachings around self-help, personal and career management are centered on self-improvement; the personal branding concept suggests that success comes from self-packaging. Basically your ability to succeed is based on how you are perceived as a total package; physically (body), appearance (clothing) and the expertise (knowledge) contained within. This all leads to a perception that is uniquely distinguishable as you.

Where am I today?

Looking at the current state of “Paul MacPherson version 3.0”; I do not have a consistent message. Today, all of my internet touch points would show authentic depictions of who/what I am, but they cover to wide a spectrum. My perspectives on everything from politics to sex and relationships are accessible. Although they are my honest spins on life they collectively would confuse my over all message  and brand. I could easily be marginalized as a entrepreneur because of my opinions on other topics like marriage and divorce.

The long and the short of it is I need to consolidate how I depict myself on the web (Facebook, twitter, my own websites, etc.) to propel myself  toward my version of success.

What is my version of success?

Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.
– Albert Schweitzer

• Being known / remembered as an entrepreneur, author, writer, blogger, capitalist adventurer.
• Being known / remembered by my daughter as a good person and the best father I could be.
• Being known / remembered as an accessible person who people want to talk to.
• Being able to work whenever, wherever, however I want. Not to be independently wealthy but comfortable. I think wealth is like power, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely (Bishop Mandell Creighton).

My call to action.

Starting today, I will be cleaning up all my points of contact on the web. Removing or editing what is not in alignment with the direction my personal brand is heading. By the close of the week I want to be delivering a cohesive message from all the touch points that is or will be Paul MacPherson version 3.0.

The Sound Bites (in the third person).

In one or two sentences:
Paul MacPherson’s is an aspiring entrepreneur, author, writer, blogger and capitalist adventurer. He has a overwhelming desire to obtain a location independent  lifestyle.

In a paragraph:
Paul MacPherson has always lived on the fringe of technology and career aspirations. He has already been a successful manager, creating and running a 3 plus million dollar consulting business. He currently has the type of job many technicians would kill for; with greater freedom than most enjoy in their chosen careers. But he still aspires for something more. He dreams of a lifestyle without the constriction of a required location. He desires to be a successful entrepreneur, published author, respected writer and popular blogger. He wants to live the life of a capitalist adventurer. 

Keywords/Tags:
lifestyle design, digital nomads, entrepreneurship, location independence, internet marketing, internet branding, work from anywhere, freelance abroad, expat living, freelance, location independent

Twitter Bio (140 characters or less):
Paul MacPherson is an aspiring entrepreneur, author, writer, blogger and capitalist adventurer.

–

A brief history of the branding of Paul MacPherson:

• Version 1.0: before my first websites, 2001.
• Version 2.0 – 2.5: my first 8 or so years on the internet, 2001-2009.
  • 2.0: first hacked websites on various public hosting facilities.
  • 2.1: workingwithpaul.com, was my first domain and E&N (everything and nothing — pre dating what has becomes the blogs of today) site.
  • 2.2: workingwithpaul.com became a repository of mostly copyright infringed plagiarized content
  • 2.3: workingwithpaul.com got cleaned up (sometime in 2003), I got my own digital camera and focused on what was unique about me (deleted all plagiarized content on the site). I stoped being an internet copy cat and become a source for unique and interesting content on the web.
  • 2.4: e-pauly.com was born, I was no longer just a website or even a person I became a brand. Paul MacPherson became e-pauly.com. At it’s high point e-pauly.com was mentioned on the Howard Stern Radio show numerous times, the content (pictures) was used by various main steam media outlets such as Global News in Canada. E-pauly.com content was used (sometimes with permission) on blogs world wide, thanks to the watermark on all the images, the ‘borowing’ of e-pauly.com images turned out to be a viral marketing win fall. In the summer of 2008, e-pauly.com was recognized by zoo magazine as one of the sexiest websites on the internet.
  • 2.5: (August 2008) e-pauly.com goes offline and my online presence was restricted to Facebook
• Version 3.0 – January 1^st 2010 to this very moment.
  • http://paulmacpherson.net
  • http://paulmacpherson.net/photoblog
  • http://twohourblog.com
  • Social Networking Sites:
    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • YouTube
    • Flickr
    • Stubleupon
    • DIgg
    • Technokrati
    • Bloglog
    • MyBlogLog
    • Ezine Articles

–
Photo by Giorgio Montersino

Over the past week I have been playing with some ideas whizzing through my head on how to make my first video blog entry. Typically people fire up their webcam and just talk at the cam for a minute or two. Similar in format to how I made my “About paulmacp dot com” video on the front page of my blog. Trying to organize my thoughts for this first vlog as they are popularly known, it evolved into a power point presentation. That presentation I posted on slideshare.net yesterday. Via the slideshare tools the presentation also made it on to my LinkedIn profile, Facebook and was tweeted. Thus one piece of original content has already made it onto three social media sites even if no one else shares it. All three of these sites are producing back links and hopefully some interest to paulmacp.com, my information hub. I can tell by the slideshare statistics it has already been viewed 47 times and is available for download with embedded links within the PDF to all my main touch points (if people download and share via email).

The goal with this presentation is to take my personal brand one more step toward some credibility online. The presentation itself is thirty two slides outlining the evolution of the democratization of influence through Google and Social Media. The net effect of this democratization being that we will no longer look for jobs, recruiters and companies will seek out potential candidates out via social media. With the death of news papers, so too will be the death of the classified ad, and by extension job boards like Monster.

The quick summary for the presentation was:

“Social Media is causing a shift in society that as significant as the industrial revolution was last century… are you ready ?”

Today, using Microsoft’s “Windows Live Movie Maker” I added music to the presentation and turned my little power point preso into a two minute music video of sorts. I put it to the music of a musician Stockfinster and his song “Push Push“. Stockfinster put some really good music out into the blogosphere under the creative commons license scheme. With any luck, his music will make the presentation a little  more interesting to the casual observer.

photo credit: shankbone

Back when dinosaurs ruled the world, you know them… the boomers, they used to say that “What you know is less important than who you know”

These days, it might be more important to add “What you say is less important than how you say it”

What makes up a good personal brand?

According to the 2007 Interbrand Marketers Report the top 5 ingredients to a successful brand are:

1. Consistency = 36%
2. Understanding Your Target Market = 18.2%
3. Messaging = 14.7%
4. Creative/Design/Logo = 12.8%
5. Relevance = 12.4%

If your authentic (Point 3: Messaging – 14.7%), and take about your presentation  (Point 4: Creative – 12.8%) and are consistent (Point 1: Consistency – 36%)  you have accomplished what people say comprises  63.5% of a good brand, be it personal or otherwise.

While if you understand your market  (Point 2: Understanding Your Target Market – 18.2%) and have relevant things to say (Point 5: Relevance – 12.2%), you have only accomplished 30.6% what people say a compose a good brand.

photo credit: iboy_daniel

I just created a Facebook fan page for paulmacp.com, and I am learning that a great many Gen-Xers seem to think that creating a personal fan page is egotistical. In the day and age where personal branding is no longer new, I assumed that people felt that “self promotion” was now a long forgotten phrase and that “personal branding” has replaced it. So why can I start a “paulmacp.com” and build my personal brand on a blog, yet if I create a “paulmacp dot com Fan Page” I become egotistical to my Gen-X peers?

Personal branding involves letting your target audience know that you exist, including your achievements, what you stand for and most importantly what you can provide to them. Branding would be ineffective if you just did it for a single day, which is why our successful brands and their marketing plans last for years. All major successful brands are constantly promoting themselves for awareness, for repetition and for pushing people to buy their products and/or services. This happens in companies like Ford or IBM, as well as with personal brands, where self-promotion is looked down upon by some. Research has shown that a person will likely remember a product or brand after seeing a branded advertisement 3 times. If the three times are in close proximity, there is a very good chance people will remember it.

That is why I would like to examine a word that is the antonym of egotistical: “humble.” I, for one, could never consider myself humble, although I don’t promote myself in a malicious way. I think if I were “humble,” I wouldn’t have been even close to as successful as I am today. I have had an very accessible, almost in your face internet presence for 5 years with my previous blog (e-pauly.com). It is hard to remain humble when you have more people visiting your blog then read your local news paper (The Calgary Herald at the time) . Now that I have reentered the blogosphere with paulmacp.com and have focused on expanding my personal brand into the world of Web 2.0 were I will be constantly publishing content of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and more, my level humility will be reduced even more.

I don’t think the word “humble” is empowering either. If you look at what the word really means (Humble: Not proud or arrogant; modest: to be humble although successful. Having a feeling of insignificance, inferiority, subservience, etc.: In the presence of so many world-famous writers I felt very humble. – Dictionary.com ) I am stuck on the “Having feelings of insignificance” . To me, that have very negative implications on an individual’s confidence.

To be completely humble in the era of web 2.0 environment means to be hidden, and walked over by your competitors, who aren’t humble and will take the opportunities that you rightly deserve.

I am even getting some feedback that web 2.0 is for Gen-Y not Gen-X, to act my age and be content to re-connect with high school friends on Facebook. Web promotion is for the young. The fact is I have another twenty years in the work force ahead of me and the self-promoting Gen-Y will be my boss someday. They are the up and comers, my future peers and supperiors  judging me and comparing me to their contemporary Gen-Ys. A recent study out of SDSU confirms that 57% of young people believe their generation uses social networking sites for self-promotion. Gen-Y has a new set of rules, and self promotion is part of their rule book. My peers who are judging me, do so at their own peril. My fellow Gen-Xers need to go beyond just learning to use the internet as a tool for research and email, Gen-X needs to learn how to exploit the internet as Gen-Y already has. If we don’t, we won’t be competitive in the years to come as Gen-Y starts to mature in to management positions in the years to come.

–

If you like this post and want to show me some support, why not become a fan of  this blog on Facebook.

photo credit: Tambako the Jaguar

Today, on “Brazen Careerist” I got berated by a fellow member… he said some pretty harsh words. Unfortunately looking at myself honestly he is correct.

Paul I am weary of you constant bitching at my and other people’s post. You aren’t ever sufficiently convinced that anybody is doing their blog or their Twitter or their life the right way, because they are not doing it your way. Personally, i think that you as a human being are full of shit, and if it’s all the same to you, you can keep your insulting commentary (and deplorable, unedited prose) to yourself when it comes to what I post.

The question is now, what to do with this information. Although he was correct that my commentary was unedited and deplorable, that although a more easily actionable critique I think was not the most important point made.

My focal point of my blog is personal branding which is a form of marketing. The foundation of all good marketing is a good product or service. Fundamentally I need to fix a few things about myself, the underlying substance or product of my personal branding efforts.

I have been overwhelmingly negative lately. Although you would have never perceived it from my ‘bitching’ on other peoples posts, I was trying in my own way to be helpful, but reviewing what I wrote I was nothing but negative in my approach. Criticism in any form really benefits no one. It puts people on the defensive and usually makes them strive to justify themselves. Criticism is dangerous, because it wounds a person’s pride, and hurts their sense of importance. I have to admit that my own negatively was an attempt to elevate my own perception of my personal value. I can’t remember who said it but I remember hearing something to the effect as much as people thirst for approval we dread condemnation. I feel today, I am embracing both parts of that equation simultaneously.

Time to work on the positive.

–

photo credit: MarvinSiefke

I have been spending a lot of time reading the posts over at the “Personal Branding Blog”. Yesterday Peter Kistler wrote a post (Controlling Your Google Results: The Art and Science of the Personal Press Release ) about personal press releases.

I took it up as my personal challenge produce my own for paulmacp.com. First thing I did, following his model, I constructed my press release.

Paul MacPherson launched paulmacp.com

paulmacp.com Gives Free Advice to Gen-X On How To Establish Thier Own Online Personal Brand

Toronto, ON March 2010 - In the most competitive job market since the Great Depresion, aspiring author,
writter, blogger and self professed adventure capatlist, Paul MacPherson has launched a website filed
with advice to help Gen-X build their own personal brand at www.paulmacp.com. The site went live today.

"I wanted to demonstrate through down to earth advice and examples how Gen-Xers can build their own
brands online," MacPherson said. The site will be a central part of his personal mission to help fellow
Gen-Xers harness the power of the internet to propell their careers forward.

"As a perspective author, with my first book due out in June, I know I will be searched online, and I
know my Google results din't accurately represent me." MacPherson said. "So I set out to change that,
and realized other Gen-Xers could benefit from what I have learned." You can see what he has learned
at paulmacp.com.

###

About Paul MacPherson:

Paul MacPherson is no stranger on the internet running various successful web properties in the past.
He has over eight years experience on the internet and twenty years experience working within the high
tech community in various post and pre-sales technical roles.

Contact:

email: paul@paulmacp.com
Website: www.paulmacp.com
Twitter: www.twitter.com/paulmacp
Facebook: www.facebook.com/paulmacp
LinkedIn: ca.linkedin.com/in/paulmacp

Then I was off to the submit to the “free” press release sites he referenced:

1. http://www.1888pressrelease.com
2. http://free-press-release.com
3. http://www.pr.com
4. http://www.pr-inside.com
5. http://www.prlog.org

The reality is other than prlog.org, they are not completely free, to receive the benefits I desired. Except for prlog.org, you cannot include “hot text links” back to your website. But I don’t want to label the exercise time intensive or expensive ether. With an effective “personal marketing budget of $100 USD, I have utilized four of these services. 1 for free and 3 for a fee (www.pr.com, free-press-release.com,  www.1888pressrelease.com). I completely ignored pr-inside.com, after 5 minutes, I found their interface just too frustrating to continue.

In retrospect, setting aside $100 per month as personal marketing budget seems like a pittance for the dividends it may reward for my personal brand and professional reach.

At the time of this writing my prlog.org release had been released with one free “hot text link” (click here to view — prlog.org)

Over the coming days, weeks I will track the SEO benefits of these 4 press releases and do an update to this post sometime in April.

I started pondering the importance of spelling when it comes to brand recognition because of my new domain name: paulmacp. I firmly believe that having a domain name that is short and easy to remember is helpful in establishing and identity a personal brand.

It is an easy contraction of my proper name Paul MacPherson. I thought about paulmac for a minute but the dot com domain was not available. I have been experimenting with dot net domains, and people just intuitively think dot com, and opted for the additional P and registered paulmacp.com. As an added bonus, except for YouTube and Delicious paulmacp was also available for use as a consistent social networking id (twitter.com/paulmacp, facebook.com/paulmacp, ca.linkedin.com/in/paulmacp, etc.), I had to use paulymacp for them.

Meanwhile, my CMS of choice, WordPress is often incorrectly written as two separate words: Word Press. In fact, if I recall correctly they even had a small forum post addressing the proper spelling and clarification, rightly advocating consistency in brand executions. People were confused, defended their right to misspell based on SEO, and wondered if management was being a little too uptight. However, there’s a reason why brand evangelists exist: even when it’s clearly written out what rules the brand must follow, many many people find a way to fudge it up.

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet

Is that a bad thing? For the brand owners, it does hurt us in a way. Web wise, it lessens the our SEO web juice when people inconsistently try to search for different terms. It divides the search results. In another, it will convey the wrong idea to a new audience. Visually, it is also inconsistent.

Is this the way we need to also address the reality of brand spelling and recognition? That, as long as people still identify you and still understand who you are, that it doesn’t matter as much if Coca-Cola needs that hyphen in between, or if it helps SEO, fine, let’s spell EE as “Expression Engine?”

At the end of the day, as long as you’re still recognized, and you yourself are consistent then even if others mistake it, as long as they know you exist in some form, is it okay? In my opinion, yes. However, I think it is always right to correct others when you do have the chance, and not to cry over the spilt milk if others still don’t follow suit.

Brand Nazi or Brand Savant?

What is your stance on naming? Are you more strict or are you more fluid? If strict, how do you enforce your naming? If loose, where do you let it go?

photo credit: tristanf

I believe you are in charge of… “Brand You”.

Social media, including sites like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Brazen Careerist, can help you connect with people who can assist you with growing “Brand You”, broadening your personal and professional reach. However, it works both ways. Social media when used the wrong way can backfire and tarnish “Brand You”. It’s important to be careful and consider what you shouldn’t do, as well as what you should do to perpetuate “Brand You”.

There are many approaches taken these days to having an online presence. The most popular one taken by Gen-X is not to have one, taking a reactive “please remove” or “avoidance strategy” (no content is better than bad content) to showing up on a Google search.

If we’ve learned anything from Mark Zuckerberg, it is that Gen-Y has accepted the end of privacy on the web. Gen-Y wants their network, or fans, to know what they are doing at all times. They get excited at comments because it shows that people care about them and what they have to say. People like me who are members of Gen-X have not embraced this perspective as readily as our Gen-Y counterparts. I think most Gen-Y would say this is out of our own insecurities or need for control.

The fact of the matter is we are always competing for the mind share of a perspective employer or customer, Gen-X needs to get with the program. In the age of the all knowing Google you will be searched and compared to who you are competing against. Think hypothetically for a moment if 3 people are competing for the mind share of a perspective buyer (be it employer or customer), and they can’t find your online presence, but can find the online personal brand of your competition?!? Chances are you will not be the beneficiary of this transaction.

The only way to be really be in control of “Brand You” in the age of Social Networking is to have your own deliberate and promoted presence on the Web. Ensuring you are in control of what perspective buyers of “Brand You” are going to see, because you ensured your own content is first, second and third in Google’s search results.

–

photo credit: -Delphine – Very very busy with my work.

I read a post from Dan Schawbel entitled Fake It Till You Make It? .

To quote the meet of his post:

The old saying is that you need to “fake it before you make it.” Do you believe this is even possible in the social media world? Between online and offline connections, don’t you think that people will end up revealing the real brand you anyways? First impressions, and how people are perceived in general, have changed so much in the past few years, that it’s harder to promote yourself as a confident person, when someone might video you or greet you in a public situation. If we’ve learned anything from Mark Zuckerberg, and Gen-Y, it’s that most people have acceptable the end of privacy on the web. People want their network, or fans, to know what they are doing at all times. We get excited at comments because it shows that people care about them and what they have to say. Not everyone has revealed their true identity though, out of fear, and certain insecurities.

The web is a harsh place and you will be judged and ridiculed, whether you like it or not. There are three major concepts you should understand, including paying dues, making it, and faking it till you make it

I think what the gen-Y mantra highlights is a desire to cut corners. I think it is fine if an artist or writer tells himself his work is important, that is an authentic depiction of who he feels he is. But too many people have “faked it till they made it” and that I feel is the reason the world economy is in the place it is.

It seems to me too many Gen-Y’s have faked it and made it, but never bothered to learn how to do the job. So many of the problems that I feel can be associated with today’s financial / economic crisis can be linked to Dan’s final example in his post:

You have to appear rich to mentally convince the customer that what you’re selling them will make them rich as well. Is this honest? No, but when you’re first starting out, it might be the only way to brand yourself in certain fields.

These “masters of universe” (to make a reference to Bonfire of the Vanities) convinced too many people they could and should get rich, including themselves. But as the current state of the world economy shows, they never developed any real skills other than the ability to convince others they know what they are doing. It is unfortunate that this type of personality seems to have clustered within the financial industry (where the money is) where there maybe no one left who actually is not “faking it till they make it” anymore.

I would hate to have a doctor who was “faking it till they make it” . How about an engineer designing a bridge, let’s let him/her “faking it till they make it” after all self confidence is everything. How about the life guard at the neighborhood pool watching over your kids? Should they just need to look fit or maybe we should need to see them prove it through actual credentials?

Society seems to allow people in sales or soft services to “fake it till they make it” , but as we have learned through the devastation of all our retirement savings, this has done no one other than the faker any good.

We need more people to pay their dues and learn their job from seasoned professionals who pass on the experience and allow the young to mature and grow into authentic professionals. Gen-Y has an entitlement about them that is fundamental to this mantra they live by. “I think I can, so I can.” We may have let this generation Y read the “The little engine that could” one too many times.

photo credit: cambodia4kidsorg