If you want to reach the Millennial generation, it’s probably a good idea to use the Internet. But according to new research from MTV, companies run the risk of alienating their target audience if they go about social media marketing in the wrong way.
Our online presence defines much of our identity both personally and professionally, especially for web workers. But how much of your online identity is controlled by someone else? The Indie Web movement is primarily about ownership and control over your identity.
Until now, many of us have seen the question of branding as two-dimensional: we have a personal brand, or a business brand. But is that all there is? Would it be possible, for example, for us to use personal brands to enhance the business brand?
Just as astute people-researchers may be viewing your social network activity to get an idea of your true personality, they may also see the Twitter @ replies you’ve received as the clearest indication of what your clients or colleagues think of your work.
A recent Fast Company article highlighted the issues surrounding the language BP has developed in response to its oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. That article begs the question: how is your personal brand impacted by the words you use to respond to negative feedback?
If we put all the rhetoric of elevator pitches, unique selling propositions, authenticity, standing out from the crowd and personal branding together, mix it up and boil it down, this is what it comes to: What makes your approach different from anyone else’s?
You may have noticed that WebWorkerDaily now publishes many of its authors’ tweets beside their articles. The syndication of tweets like this is becoming more common as everyone from fitness instructors to real estate agents seeks to take advantage of social media’s personal branding possibilities.
In the “old” days, if something wasn’t going well for us, we’d share our difficulties with our friends and family. Today, with the advent of blogs, Facebook, Twitter and other social tools, we can broadcast our lives to the world. And the world talks back.
Using storytelling techniques to help communicate your personal brand can make for clearer, more consistent, more compelling branding efforts. In this final part of the series, let’s look at the storyteller’s other tools — narrative and description — and see how they fit into the picture.
In my last post, we tossed around the idea that storytelling techniques might be applicable to personal branding, and we looked at one — characterization — that’s obviously key to a personal brand. This time, we’re talking plot.
