Tag Archives: personal branding
Anonymous Defender - The Anti-Social Media

Real Names

Anonymous Defender - The Anti-Social MediaI have a friend who has achieved the ultimate personal branding tactic.

Online, he uses a full name. His fans and followers think that is his real name. He has achieved glory and fame through his use of that name.

Except it isn’t his name.

In reality, he uses a completely different last name. It’s a full, complete separation of identity. You’d never know the social media celebrity is the same guy with a tiny LinkedIn presence.

Except now that Google+ requires the use of real names, he feels like he’s fucked.

Google - I get why you want real names. You’re an information whore. You want to know everything about everyone so you can deliver the perfect ad so we buy more things and you get paid to advertise more. But do you really need names to do that accurately?

I get my friend’s pain. He’s spent years building this identity, which is authentic. He doesn’t want his professional life deeply integrated into his hobby. Is that such a bad thing?

There is value in anonymity and secrecy. You can still be social without having to use your real name. Maybe the online world treats each other better using real names, but we lose so much when we demand that identity can only be built in one way.

Real names have real value, but so do screen names. The internet is big enough for both.

What do you think? Why do we need everything tied to our real names? Are we so integrated into the cult of authenticity that we must demand real names, or can we see beyond the name, even if it is xXxGlitterDancerBoi67xXx and into the words and actions of the user?

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Perfect Personal Brand - The Anti-Social Media

Do We Really Need Personal Brands?

Perfect Personal Brand - The Anti-Social MediaWith the addition of Google+ to my daily social media torture-fest, I’ve been wondering why I actually need a personal brand across Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ and my blog. Don’t I have better things to do with my time?

What is a personal brand actually doing for me?

From what I can tell, the only thing a personal brand does is set expectations of what people can hope to get out of me online. While that is useful for people who are trying to sponge and leech information from me, for everyone else, I just don’t see the value anymore.

The last time I looked at anything to do with personal branding, some chump was trying to sell me tips on things I could do to brand myself better. As if being an award winning blogging asshole wasn’t enough, I’ve already written the most comprehensive list ever on personal branding. I don’t need to pay money to find out I need to pay more money to build a shrine to myself online with glossy head shots and a slick WordPress theme.

What is personal branding doing for you?

Personal branding is great when you’re trying to promote yourself as a job candidate or some other venture that deals all about you, but why else do we need it? Do we want people to stalk us? Do we have to be the exact same person everywhere? Is there no room for experimenting with your personality, or showcasing different aspects of yourself online?

The biggest downside I can see to using multiple sides of your personality in different places would be keeping up multiple “performances” of identity. But at the same time, we’re all human. We present different aspects of ourselves to other people all day, every day of our lives. The difference on the internet is that it is permanent and will last forever.

So, with that in mind, we create an identity built upon two or three of the best aspects of ourselves. We focus on our careers because we want to be known as good worker bees. We show off ourselves as parents so we can look like good people.  And we highlight one or two hobbies so we can look well-rounded and interesting. The personal brand then becomes stripped of the personality that make it personal to begin with. All the while, we focus on building the identity, rather than building ourselves in the three categories we try to show off.

So what is your personal brand actually doing for you, if anything? The benefits aren’t for you at all. They’re for every other person on the internet who wants to stalk you and every person with the same name as you.  They categorize you in a way that forgoes your humanity for a few interesting tidbits and features that sound good.

The brand puts you in a box that you can’t escape. Is that limited persona what you want people to know about you online?

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Sell Your Personal Brand Form - The Anti-Social Meida

I’d sell my Soul and Personal Brand

Are you a person, or a bottle of laundry detergent?

That’s the question my friend Laurie Ruettimann asked the other day about personal brands, and at first, I’m inclined to agree. What does an online personal brand have to do with me? I’m more than crazy cat boy who is a social media hater! I’m more than my angry blog!  I’m a smart, funny, talented young man who can draw stick figures!

Still, then I got into deep thinking. And by deep thinking, I watched the Simpsons.

Have you ever seen the episode of the Simpsons where Bart sells his soul? Basically, Bart writes, “Bart Smpson’s Soul” on a piece of paper, and then sells it to his friend Milhouse. If Bart can do that with his soul, why can’t I? I could do the same for my personal brand, so why not just do both at once and double my income?

Now, for anyone who wants to, I made a convenient, legally-binding form that you can use anytime you wish to truly sell out.

Sell Your Personal Brand Form - The Anti-Social Meida

See how easy it is? Use that form to gain the assets of your friends and enemies. Feel free to send your eternal souls and brands to me. I plan to eat them all so I can become a soul-powered social media overlord and rule the Twitterverse with all the tips of personal branding.

Or maybe I’ll just be creepy.

Would you sell your personal brand? Sell your soul? Both? I wanna know how greedy you really are.

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The dirty secrets of personal branding - The Anti-Social Media

My Quick and Dirty Secret of Personal Branding

The dirty secrets of personal branding - The Anti-Social MediaSo, you want a smart, sexy personal brand, and you want it fast.

You want to be known not only for your kick ass work, but also how ridiculously cool you are.

You want to be known as the one everyone loves, the one everyone wishes to be, and the one who has the coolest blog with the most traffic and the best audience.

You want to have a ridiculous Klout score and have so many recommendations on LinkedIn that recruiters are desperately contacting you so that you can leave your job for oodles of cash at any moment.

Well, I’m going to share with you my dirty, nasty secret to instant personal branding success.

There are no quick and dirty secrets of personal branding.

Reputations are built over time through hard work and trust. If you put shit into your presence, you will get shit in return. Laziness doesn’t build personal brands.

Imagine where you want to be a a year. What does that person look like? What does s/he do? How to people perceive you?

Start taking steps every day to become that person. That’s how you build your personal brand.

It’s slow. It’s tedious. It’s putting on a smile and putting in the extra hours when you’d rather be doing something fun.

But in one year, when you look back at where you were today, you’ll realize that no quick and easy solution could accomplish all you’ve done.

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