If You Suck, Your Personal Brand Does, Too
Personal branding is not shameless, endless self-promotion. It’s not direct messaging me with your faux request to “take this IQ test and see if you’re smarter than me.” It’s not directing me to your website with every post. It’s not seeing yourself as the epicenter of everything to do with your industry, category, talent, idea, or area of expertise. It’s not starting every conversation with “I…”
Maybe you shouldn’t be personal branding quite yet. Here’s a quick self-assessment to tell you if you need 
to keep your personal brand really personal right now.
- You don’t shower everyday.
- You’re been house-bound since Oprah’s announcement.
- You’ve been blocked for stalking or spamming.
The list could get pretty long, but you get the idea. You can’t be fundamentally anti-social, greedy, jealous, boring, self-centered, creepy or anything else that ensures you’ll be someone’s ex-husband (or ex-wife) someday (or again) and do yourself proud in personal branding. You have to lift the other end of the couch, not sit on it, while your roommate is moving out – unless he’s trying to take your couch.
Consider what’s real for you. Maybe you don’t have even a smidgeon of the mensch gene, that is, you’re a person with little or no empathy for others. You don’t connect with people in person. You don’t consider public service anything but a way organizations sucker people into doing free work for freeloaders. You’d 
like to compete in the Special Olympics because you’re not in any way challenged, so the odds are really good you’ll win.
Social media merely amplifies your personal brand
In that case, you just might quietly get into group therapy before letting us all know the real you. Seriously, you aren’t doing anyone any good – especially yourself and the company you represent – by using social media to broadcast just what a lout you are. Of course, if this cautionary post doesn’t apply to you, then print it out (wear gloves so it can’t be traced) and put it on the desk of someone who it applies to.
What brought all this on? A recent YouTube video on personal branding by Carlos Mandelbaum poked holes in my personal branding bubble.
Plus, perhaps like you, I have found too many of my friends do too little to report, yet they report way too often on Facebook. For example, a whole lot of people tell me when they’re turning in for the night or that they’re coloring a girlfriend’s hair before baking brownies in their hometown in Kansas (I live in LA, so no brownies for me; hence, I don’t want to know). A lot of the chatter reminds me of flying to Hong Kong from Los Angeles, lying next to a stranger (business class seats go all the way down). For 20 hours I knew everything about this woman, in real time and in the mini-series she relayed of her past.
Preparation is key
Before you make another social media move or affix your name badge at the next mixer, be ready with no 
less than 3 entries for these categories:
- Unusual facts or advanced tips that can help a person move forward in your area of interest.
- Experts in your field that you can learn from and connect with, along with a question you want to ask them.
- Reasons why you want to serve and lead your tribe.
Social Media Friends, an Oxymoron?
Short of being a known serial killer who’s lost his Internet privileges, anyone can get introduced to you.
Who is requesting your friendship?
You’re probably on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook, and otherwise connected in much less than six degrees to every soul on the planet, with more being born every day. Isn’t that why you’re building your personal brand?
What do you make of these “connections” or offers of “friendship?” And, do you really feel “followed?” on Twttter? I’ve actually been followed in real life and they arrested the guy. It was scary. I wish Twitter had chosen another word.
Bus Pass Pals
Certainly, these relationships start off feeling contrived, mostly because they aren’t earned. It’s like sitting on a bus last Tuesday, and because there were other people on that bus, inviting those people – and people who know them – to a reunion the following week where you all share your personal photo albums. Only, the reunion is held in a complete stranger’s house in a town you only pass through when you’re bored or can’t sleep, and someone keeps shouting: Lose Weight Fast! or whatever messages you get on Facebook.
I may just be feeling this now because a bunch of people who know people who know me requested my friendship on Facebook today. Some of them took unfortunately scary photos, not Halloween scary, just unattractive. Not everyone is photogenic or realizes a photo is worth a thousand words about your personal brand, so these may actually be extremely good-looking people in real life.
But, I felt obligated to click on their faces in order to scrutinize who were our alleged mutual friends. Turns out each request came from a person who is a friend of a friend of a friend of mine. I have slowly inherited other people’s friends, and probably so have you. So, I welcomed everyone to read my angry posts about healthcare and the war, as well as what I occasionally cook for dinner or feel you should know about the weather in Southern California. You know, my posts.
Act As If You Are
How do you bridge the empty feelings of social media?
What’s it going to take to really connect and warm up to the people we’re linked to or following as we build something real from our personal branding efforts? It’s probably like real life. We’re probably going to have to care about each other. Argue a little. Be bored but still willing to listen. Occasionally, be shocked. Just like we are with our real friends.
But, we have to work to bridge that empty feeling factor. So much personal brand outreach feels like getting the can without the Coke inside.
The worst for me is my LoserIn groups, which is what LinkedIn groups feel like, since 98% of the questions my fellow group members ask are getting goose eggs in terms of response. Sometimes I feel bad enough for the person who’s posted the question, that I give a pity response. That’s like pity applause when the only people laughing during Jay Leno are the people he pays, like Kevin Eubanks. And by the way, what a lonely, empty hour that is! I did some pity watching one night, but ran out of pity before the first commercial.
A Waste of Space
Jay Leno isn’t funny, but he plays the part of someone who should be funny. He is sort of funny looking like most comedians are. He has a prepared monologue filled with snipes about men sleeping with women who aren’t their wives. He has the same tiresome celebrity guests who couldn’t possibly enjoy making the rounds of these shows, and a band leader.
A show just filling airtime
A lot of social media sites are the same. They are filling airtime. They really aren’t helping most people do the work of personal branding, which is to make a lasting impression and engage an audience.
My real friends will help me move my couch. My real connections will tip me off about a great new
Does social media simply fill airtime for you?
supplier or potential client. I bring soup to my real friends who are ill. I tell my real network about job openings they can apply for and new projects they can bid on, and encourage them to use my name if it helps their cause.
Do This
I think this would be a good week go through your friends, followers and connections list and see if there’s anything you can do for anyone. You might make a real friend, which could just be more valuable right now than the financial ROI we’re all waiting to see come from personal branding and social media.
