Why Your Personal Brand Sucks: Attack of the Clones

By Jessica Stillman | March 1, 2010

15 Comments

Personal branding is a concept on fire. On Twitter and other social media sites personal branding and social media experts are a dime a dozen, and that’s just the problem, says blog Six Pixels of Separation. With the floodgates of communication thrown wide open by social media, personal branding has become far too impersonal, says the blog’s Mitch Joel:

Instead of people really digging deep, opening up and living passionately, we’re moving ever-closer to the point where most individuals are expressing their personal brands in ways that make them look more like sterile and plastic TV news anchors than original thinkers. It’s not everyone… but there is an ever-growing group of those who come off as fake, insincere, and simply out for their own personal gain. In short, they seem and feel like plastic and taste like vanilla.

And, of course, vanilla flavored plastic is a pretty unappetizing dish to serve up to your followers. So what’s the cure if you’re one of those struggling to differentiate yourself form the army of personal branding clones? Christopher S. Penn’s blog Awaken Your Superhero has a suggestion:

Here’s why your personal brand sucks. Here’s why you’re trying to be a clone of Chris Brogan or CC Chapman or Whitney Hoffman and failing miserably at it. It’s not because you’re stupid.. it’s not because you’re boring… it’s because you’ve failed to distill your essential quality.

Your essential quality is something that transcends any particular job, technology, platform, or idea. Your business card may say that you’re a database engineer or a sales associate or the Vice President of Strategy and Innovation, but that’s not what’s essential about you. What’s essential about you is a quality, a trait, a method of working in the world that is unique to you.

Penn identifies his essential quality as “playing with blocks… I can see all these different pieces of systems and put them together in new and different ways,” but cautions it took him years to figure this out and understand how to communicate it succinctly. But unearthing your essential quality is worth the effort, Penn argues. Understanding what makes you unique will set you apart from the (plastic vanilla) clones and, he asserts, “once you figure out your essential quality, your personal brand will take care of itself.”

What’s your essential quality?

Read More on BNET:

(Clone image by adactio, CC 2.0)

Related Tags Brand, Clone, Quality, Social Media, Attack, Personal Branding, Christopher S. Penn, Penn, Branding, Marketing, Jessica Stillman

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RE: Why Your Personal Brand Sucks: Attack of the Clones

I do know my "essential quality." It took me a long time to discover it. The thing about it is it allows me to branch out into many different niches and activities, and I am often called "eclectic." I am also told I am too "diverse," especially on Twitter. I believe there is nothing wrong with being disverse, and that it is not ruining my brand. What do you think about this?

krissy knox happy

fisherkristina@aol.com
Visit my main blog: Sometimes I Think
follow me on twitter:
http://twitter.com/iamkrissy

krissyknox

03/01/2010 08:09 AM

RE: Why Your Personal Brand Sucks: Attack of the Clones

I think part of the problem touched on in this post is many people who are still forming who they are and getting life experiences have jumped onto the "Personal Branding" train without fully understanding a. what it means b. who they truly are and c. why they are doing it. Creating a personal brand is not something you can buy in a box or a one-size-fits-all size. It takes a lot of hard work to develop your personal brand because it takes a lot of hard to work to be an authentic human being. However, I do believe personal branding is a wave that is not going to shrink any time soon. Learning how to do it correctly -- with patience, grace, and grit -- is key.

Mary Lou Kayser
Mary Lou Kayser

maryloukayser

03/01/2010 06:53 PM

This has annoyed me for a while

Substance, substance, substance. And being good at what you
do is the key to building a magical personal brand. Although that
term does annoy me. Sounds like a very corporate lame term to
me. Great post I enjoyed your perspective.

I also did a special report on this called Personal Branding is a
Joke. http://www.youbrandinc.com/personal-branding-is-a-
joke/

scottscanlon

03/02/2010 08:05 AM

RE: Why Your Personal Brand Sucks: Attack of the Clones

"Authentic human beings" do not think of themselves as brands, personal or otherwise.

fabianmcgill

03/02/2010 03:42 PM

RE: Why Your Personal Brand Sucks: Attack of the Clones

I think there is some truth to what he is implying but I also
believe that your "personal brand" is being shown no matter
what you put on-line. What I mean by that is that if you are disingenuous it will show no matter how "creative" you are.
You can cover a cow pattie in gold but it is still BULL****

Plano Homes For Sale

CTexashomes

03/02/2010 03:55 PM

RE: Why Your Personal Brand Sucks: Attack of the Clones

If we could only answer the question: "so what makes you so good?" without arrogance or embarrassment...that's all you need to know.
Nancy Halpern
http://www.knhassociates.com/
talent/communications/leadership

nhalpern

03/02/2010 03:58 PM

RE: Why Your Personal Brand Sucks: Attack of the Clones

What is more important your capabilities or your "brand"? Find
out here, http://bit.ly/bZqWbJ

77002

03/02/2010 05:08 PM

RE: Why Your Personal Brand Sucks: Attack of the Clones

Before social networking, people relied on their reputation and credibility. Now it's called personal brand, which has most of us managing Me, Inc. We are now the product, which means our resumes have become marketing collateral and the more places we can advertise our skills and qualifications, the better. So, personal branding is a great concept that has to be kept in proper perspective. Authenticity, trust and honesty still matter whether its personal brand or maintaining your rep.

cytaylor

03/02/2010 05:32 PM

RE: Why Your Personal Brand Sucks: Attack of the Clones

Those defining their "essential quality," will benefit from reading Lawrence Ackerman on Identity -- corporate or personal.

The principles he lays out can seem a little New Age-y at first, but they cover quite deeply the key aspects of finding and strengthening one's core abilities and aspirations.

Identity -- who you've been, who you are, who you're becoming, who the world wants you to be -- is not a brand: it's the base upon which you can build your brand authenticaly.

I have no interest in his book sales, I've just been impressed since I first read his stuff in an organizational communication journal in the early '90s.

Ackerman shows how a solid, authentic identity can be the fulcrum for levering your (or your company's) logical strengths with emotion-laden motivation, and your (or your co's) motivation through bottom-line logic.

In his words, that's "making the soft stuff hard and the hard stuff soft," which might sound flakey (and like a job description for the world's oldest profession), but he explains it and demonstrates how it's worked for world-class companies.

ideabiz

03/02/2010 07:25 PM

RE: Why Your Personal Brand Sucks: Attack of the Clones

Another reason you brand sucks is that most 'brands' are completely hollow. We all now SSDD (same sh...stuff, different day). Go to your favorite department store, and you will experience SSDL (samestuff, different label). Three top coats with three different labels but close inspection shows all were made in the same factory. Remeber the tainted dog food scandal? There was one factory and something like 37 'brands' involved. To have a 'brand', you don't need to actually produce anything. All you need is a package designer and an advertising agency. I'll take a reputation, thank you.

Chris Walker, SEC

03/03/2010 06:20 AM

RE: Why Your Personal Brand Sucks: Attack of the Clones

Great article... speaks to getting the most out of yourself. And helping others get the most out of their lives. Net: find a way to make your passion work for you. More here:http://budurl.com/8aa4

almcfarland

03/03/2010 07:07 AM

RE: Why Your Personal Brand Sucks: Attack of the Clones

There is a sad truth in the "plastic-vanilla clone" syndrome. A great many people prefer sameness. It becomes a way for the non-courageous to identify or belong. Consider that the Toyota Camry is the best-selling car in the U.S. It is the definition of blandness in the automotive world. Before the Camry, the Ford Taurus held the title for a number of years, and the key part--until Ford radically changed the design--then the Camry settled into the number one position.

Consider, too, how so-called experts recommend that people paint their houses a lifeless white or beige before putting them on the market. Supposedly it makes them palatable to a greater number of house hunters. Well, duh, if the first thing people are going to do is paint, why not just leave the walls how they are.

So I think we need to readjust the old adage: it's no longer "Keeping up with the Jones's." Now it's "Do exactly what the Jones's do."

So if personal branding can cause more of us to act less like sheep, I'm all for it.

Tom322

03/03/2010 08:59 AM

RE: Why Your Personal Brand Sucks: Attack of the Clones

First, thank you, Ideabiz' (aka Glenn?), for your endorsement of my work. It means a great deal to me, especially, since we don't know each other. Over the past couple of years, I have been engaged by out-of-work senior executives (former clients) to help them shape their personal brands. Since I am an identity guy, the sequence of events requires cracking the code on how you, as an individual, create proprietary value in the world. The answer to that essential question calls for some serious digging. (Here, let me point you to my second book, The Identity Code: The 8 Essential Questions for Finding Your Purpose and Place in the World.)

The answers are always revealing and naturally affect everything you do - so, personal branding isn't just about your work; it is indeed about your life.

I agree, that at times, I smell a rat. It's too easy to declare yourself a "personal branding expert" - and it can be dangerous to those you touch. What personal branding is NOT about is crafting your image. That's hollow, rootless work. If you begin with clarifying your capacity for making a unique contribution in the world, everything else will follow.

larryackerman

03/03/2010 12:35 PM

RE: Why Your Personal Brand Sucks: Attack of the Clones

I'd like to extend on Nancy Halpern's idea if not being embarrased of who you are. Think about all those people who you remember in your life as being special and have 'touched you'. What is about them that made them special?

They were who they were... no excuses about the good or the bad. I do think new terms that come up, like 'personal branding' is CR*P but if it means that more people in this world will start living TRUE to THEMSELVES, then Hallelujah!!

Shuba Paheerathan
Kite Events & Conferences
http://www.kiteservices.com.au

shubangi

03/09/2010 06:23 PM

RE: Why Your Personal Brand Sucks: Attack of the Clones

Shuba, Talk about the ultimate (positive) Trojan Horse! I love the practical wisdom of what you suggest. My concern is that there are lots of ways to "skin the personal branding cat," many of which will not require people to do the digging necessary to unearth the special capacities that account for their ability to create true value in the world. But, if half get there, that's something!

larryackerman

03/10/2010 07:24 AM