World of evolving social and technological behavior and interaction relation
The beginning of the Twentieth century created a world of continuous evolving social and technological behaviour and interaction relations. Also it brought the advent of a time of accelerating mutation, where moments of new trends come with crisis and shift of paradigms. Within this world Personal branding became critical. Personal branding is necessarily the process whereby each person and their respective careers are or can be marked as brands (identity of a specific person his “product”, service(s) or business (es)), a way of supporting a self-help management planning and strategy.
As global technologies and communication, social platforms and mobile devices evolve the concept of personal development and branding has became critical. With it the digital connections, the way one related with business and brands, networking are more and more sophisticated and complex. The web, technologies and its social relations collapses the notion of personal space and time, it dissolves the concept of geographic boundaries, and it gives each person windows into each other’s worlds and personal behaviours.
“As technology rapidly changes, your personal brand remains constant.”
Image via Wikipedia
A massive shift in the way individuals perceive themselves
This is causing a massive shift in the way individuals perceive themselves, their immediate identity and the relationships with their friends, networks and communities. Also this transformation has moved the context of how persons relate to the society at large.
David Kirkpatrick, author of The Facebook Effect, prognosticated recently that: “Just by increasing the efficiency of communication and reducing friction in relationships between people, particularly on a global basis, it will lead to a more integrated sense of humanity.” Also this fact has moved society towards a powerful new transparency and management of data, privacy and the way we visualise work, identity, the borders between the personal and professional.
In this ever changing pace a lot of things have to be rethinked. So did you ever thought about being approached by an exceptional top talent headhunter and he comes to you and tells and knows that you are precious and offers you a dream job? Well this is not going to happen, unless you make it so! So how can you get ready to shine in your professional life! What are the necessary personal branding in a social media and technological global world?
“By focusing entirely on your personal brand, you become unemployable.”
Personal branding is about a strong believe in you
Personal branding starts with a strong believe in you. It goes with a pragmatist approach towards understanding that no one can do the things for you! Because most of the time you may feel you have yourself in top consideration but then you don’t go the extra mile to get what you want… Personal branding it is now about getting the picture, understanding what you want, and then focus in the small details, the way you manage your overall network and are open to things, people, projects… And it is mainly about making things happen without any constrains or fears. It is about understanding that success is build with trial and error. It is about understanding that failure is part of the path toward achievement.
Personal branding is not about a blind confidence in yourself or your ego. Personal branding is about the right “make it happen” approach, the necessary confidence in the details towards yourself as a person and your career. It is a conscience that in a world with around seven billion people the only way you can reach things is to make an effort to make it. It is about passion and hard work, creating value for you, through your skills, learning and adapting towards what is happening around you and going for it.
“Passion is personal branding fuel.”
Personal Branding with the advent of a social media search web social graph
The concept of Personal Branding with advent of a social media search web where the social graph creates a visible profiling for every web is increasingly a key factor. In a landscape such as this one, any professional has to work within a scope of coherence and focus.
Every professional has to have its own identity, and what differentiates you from the people around you? This question needs to be done in a clear way that goes in the direction of a strong notion of personal branding. This inside a web graph that became a social graph. The initial concept that overcame the internet as a whole:
“The social graph is a term coined by scientists working in the social areas of graph theory. It has been described as “the global mapping of everybody and how they’re related”.[1] The term was popularized at the Facebook f8 conference on May 24, 2007, when it was used to explain that the Facebook Platform, which was introduced at the same time, would benefit from the social graph by taking advantage of the relationships between individuals, that Facebook provides, to offer a richer online experience.[2] The definition has been expanded to refer to a social graph of all Internet users.[3]
A graph is an abstract concept used in discrete mathematics; the social graph describes the relationships between individuals online, as opposed to the concept of a social network, which describes relationships in the real world. The two concepts are very similar, but some minor differences do exist. For example, the social graph is digital, and more importantly, it is defined explicitly by all connections involved.[3] Since explaining the concept of the social graph, Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, has often touted Facebook’s goal of offering the website’s social graph to other websites so that a user’s relationships can be made aware and put to use on websites outside of Facebook’s control.[4] A social graph is a sociogram which depicts all personal relations — typically not more than 100 per person.”
Source Wikipedia
A Sustainable Practice: Your social profile as a your personal Branding
By now for sure you have a place within this social graph profile. You must have a LinkedIn profile, a Facebook, probably a Twitter if you are more savvy and if a professional in marketing, communications you may have as well a Slideshare account.
Though the greatest part of being a genuine engager on social media must come from the fact that you have a conscience of your identity and of course that you are investing in you and inside the 100 plus people that are part of your graph!
The last decades have increasingly been brought to everyone in the post consumer world new advancements in technology, new paradigm shift with the proliferation of new amazing platforms and software. Nevertheless it is fundamental to remember that none has had the potential to empower professionals, individuals more than the web Social Media new paradigm. This new paradigm brought a massive display of instruments and tools for every individual. And with it a crowd sourcing capacity to echo skills, patterns of behaviour, profiles and expose who each one real is. in true believe social Media has brought some kind of new transparency that enlightens and obliges each person to create a true identity and in some ways it is impossible to hide now.
“Social media will expose people who have bad intentions and reward people who are trying to make a positive impact on the world.”
The challenge is how to engage in business, company or personal profiling
In this landscape the challenge is how to engage both in the business accounts, company profiles, or personal profiling. every brand wether multinational is somehow equal in the web search social graph. This of course brough a whole new list of issues such as privacy and similar. Nevertheless it gave the initiative to expand the concept of learning, re writing and speaking for ourselves. For the first time a single individual can confront a big brand or government and if well organised and if savvy enough can multiply his voice or his representative group, tribe, niche exponentially.
“You are the chief marketing officer for the brand called you, but what others say about your brand is more impactful than what you say about yourself.”
So now the opportunity is how to create our own brand, and with it or integrated part of it a sustainable profiling and related practice that allows a coherent voicing. An identity that creates a brand and helps us in our direction as individuals, professionals wether in the process of seeking employment or expanding network and promoting skills, projects, achievements.
These new Social Mexia landscape (an open and evolving concept) can indeed be used for redefining and expand the concept of personal brand. It can be used within a combination of learning, promoting, researching, networking and sharing. This can and should support the process of positionate us.
Building a brand is building a respected identity. Using effectively social media can help you build a following audience, learn, expand your skills and engage the people you need to, wether it is an audience or some key professionals you need to impress or reach. This array of possibilities will if well support you reaching your common interest, values and/or experiences. It helps creating value.
Personal Branding: creating value, in a web social world
Life can be a wonderful adventure, but it all goes about making it happen, profiling it without any fears, completely dedicated to a notion of creating value, focus in healthy passion, dreams!
As a big tree has to be nurture with a good location, roots, natural conditions an environmental conditions the same needs to be the way you approach profiling in a global social media technological ever evolving landscape. Personal branding deals now with social profiling, know your social media web graph. Personal branding is ultimately a willingness to be a self conscious, responsible player, knowledgeable of your challenges and adapting towards crisis, ever changing layers of economic and sociological paradigms. And of course grow together with yours, family, peers, tribe, friends having a conscious of your body and mind moving forward in the hands of your own action and the one of destiny.
“Make your life one giant networking event.”
The quotes I used in this text came from the article 40 quotes about personal branding.
Related articles
- 30 Costly Personal Branding Errors To Avoid (personalbrandingblog.com)
- Personal Brands as Influencers – The New Role (gautamblogs.com)
- Psychology of Influence and the Social Media (part 8 of 8 ) the Art of Persuasion (ikonoklash.com)
