I fear that those who stand opposed to personal branding do so with the lowest common denominator in mind. Those, like Mr. Livingston, who feel charity should remain silent or risk altruism for accolade. But, like personal reputation, the good will rise and the bad will fall based on the experiences they project. Whether that projection is silent is irrelevant because others are always watching and processing and spreading our image for us. Why should we not control that image to the best of our ability?

Again, a good brand will rise and a bad brand will fall. And should one’s personal brand fail, does that not send a message to the person that their brand needs reinvention? Is that not a positive thing? Like Mr. Livingston and his assertion that he is “not the man [he] used to be”, should a person be forever marred by past deeds? If anything I feel personal branding is one more avenue for self-reflection and creation by our ability to garner far-reaching feedback.

Sure, the trolls can hide behind pseudonym but they are not striving for authenticity. Those who take the time and effort to brand themselves are looking for strengthened footing to step forward in the world, not ways to undermine it. There will always be people with shaky morality, attention seeking hedonists, and destroyers but they will be relegated to the shadows as more people step to the forefront and lessen the internet’s anonymity with recognizable and trackable brands.

Reputation is undoubtedly built through action, but if we were all eBay users with our feedback numbers hovering over our heads would you not trust the person with the 93% pos rating with hundreds of sales all over the world to the person with a 99% rating from their grandma and one neighbor? I would and I would applaud his ability to uphold his character with thousands more discerning eyes watching him and not think that ability selfish, but rather heroic.

The social networking tools do make it easier for people to portray false images. But at some point, some of this will all shake out and at the core, character and reputation are still crucial. The social networking tools are simply the channels.

For me one’s credibility is built on character, competence and confidence. Character is all about whether you are trustworthy or not. Competence on whether you know what you are doing. And confidence on your ability to display good character and competence.

I remember teaching public speaking at Penn State and students having trouble grasping the “confidence” point most. Of course, these newbies to speaking demonstrated this point every time they spoke. They were sincere and truthful about the topics they chose and, of course, to ease their nerves, spoke on topics about which they knew a lot. Unfortunately, the style part of their delivery was lacking because of confidence.

The saving grace about confidence is that compared to character and competence people are willing to bear with you as you develop it. They are less forgiving on trust and knowledge.

Scotty, I enjoyed bending my mind around the concepts of brand vs. character vs. reputation vs. smoke and mirrors vs. curtains vs. advertising vs. marketing vs. reputation.

Through it all I was brought back to two things.

1 – to leave a comment I had to fill out some boxes and in those boxes I ended up putting what amounts to my online personal brand. But I’m so much more than the guy people know as the scooter-riding, anything-eating, copywriter savant and social-media mediocre star you all know and love. Or am I less?

I’m a whiny, exercise-averse, gambler who may have an addiction problem or two. I’m a Crohn’s Disease sufferer who declines to share this info with many people even though if I did so I’d probably increase disease knowledge and donations. I’m flat-footed, near-sighted and bereft of any dancing or singing skill.

These things are as carefully controlled as Tylenol’s past stumbles. But does hiding them speak volumes about who I am or about with whom I choose to share this info?

Maybe the tools we’re using to brand ourselves need to be examined as heavily as the branding subjects. If Twitter were as real as an actual conversation would people really overshare the way they do? Would people really shout out seven names on Friday morning and urge others to follow them? Would Ashton Kutcher have even heard what I said about him and subsequently start following me?

I don’t know about a lot of this because it’s all still evolving. Maybe a few days, weeks, months or years from now the concept of a personal brand will drop seven letters and revert to being a person.

Maybe it will go the other direction and Fan Pages for people will resemble the ones that only companies used to have. And we’ll need new eye-opening logos ala Pepsico.

It’s all a journey – even the one to be the best person you can be.

2 – YES, I said two things. The other is a quote I made up for a yearbook about 20 years ago. It’s copyright 1988 by Jeff Cutler. You can use it with attribution as long as you link to my site and give my brand proper credit.

“You need look no further than your own feelings for direction once you establish a set of principles to live by.”

Thanks for listening. Keep up the good work.

Let’s break down the components reputation:

Reputation = (Ability to Resonate + Ability to Deliver) * Reach

Ability to Resonate: Your brand can be excellent, but you have to be able to explain to people in a way that they understand and that ultimately makes them want to act.

Ability to Deliver: The message doesn’t mean much if you cannot do what you say you will do. You have to write checks you can cash. Seek to under promise and over deliver. Be up front about shortcomings. Handle problems with haste and thoroughness. Damage control falls under delivery.

Reach. People pay a premium to have marketers, PR people, agents, attorneys etc tell, promote, clarify, defend and (sometimes) alter their story. Take care to get your message in front of the right people. Be transparent (ack the t word) about failure and how you plan to fix a problem.

If you do all of these things, you should be able to predict your reputation. If you fail to do them, well… you should also be able to predict your reputation with a high degree of certainty.

I applaud Geoff for his willingness to share how his personal aversion to personal branding stems for personal character changes he’s striving to make. That’s a noble cause for each of us.

In his response post, he posed a question to me:

“I mean we are talking about people who think about themselves nonstop to the point that they manicure an online personal representation, so why should their defense of this practice be so surprising? In fact, that’s why I truly loathe personal branding: It’s so selfish in nature.

This post was triggered by a response from Scotty Hendo stating that character was the most important part of a personal brand. Boiled down: In essence, if you don’t work on character than your personal brand will be mud (read the full post to get it). I have a question for Scotty, and that is what kind of character does someone have if they are thinking about and working on their personal brand all the time?”

The start of my answer, Geoff, is found in my post:
- “Character is more important than reputation, brands, and image.”
- “So if you are building a corporate brand or your own personal brand, the best use of your resources is to clearly define who you are at the core and stay true to that.”

The rest of my answer is – when did I state someone had to work on their brand all the time? Each one of us is constantly projecting an image out to others – whether it be in person or online. The key is to make sure that image represents who you are really are and not something you’re pretending to be. Those who only focus on their image and no time on the substance of their character will learn the folly of ego and pride.

It seems, Geoff, that you have used a broad brush in your assessment of “personal branders” and I want to make sure you’re not lumping me into that category. I’m not advocating people need to do it. I’m acknowledging the fact that they are and need to understand basic principles if they are going to do it in an authentic way.

Also, it is so easy to talk, and hard to walk and walk in alignment with it.