An Idiot's Guide to Personal Branding?

Having studied branding very briefly in another life, I was curious about “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Branding Yourself,” by Sherry Beck Paprocki and Ray Paprocki. How would product and service brand theory be translated to the branding of people? And could a book set an ordinary human being on the path to being the next Steve Irwin/Oprah/Paris Hilton?

Despite that brief brush with brand theory years ago, I consider myself a personal branding novice, so I came to the book with an open mind. In terms of structure and coverage, it seemed well planned and comprehensive. It’s broken into four parts: “What is branding?”, “Launching your personal brand”, “Branding in the modern world” and “Brand extension and evolution.” So far, so good. There are 20 chapters in a total of 228 pages, so it’s obvious that they’re going to be pretty easy to get through.

Can you sense a “but” coming? Well, here it is.

Too General

I read the book from start to finish (though it’s definitely the kind of book you could dip into quickly to get tips on a particular area), and I found it very general. The references the authors give to readers’ potential occupations — from writer to plumber to college graduate (of any description) looking for a first job — suggest that the audience for the book was defined in terms of its target readers’ needs for basic information on personal branding. That might be fine if the authors had had more space in which to educate such a wide potential readership. Unfortunately, the broad-brush, general way in which this book addresses personal branding means that, for many readers (I suspect) little of the content will be personally relevant or particularly useful.

Here are a few examples. The guide covers all forms of promotion, from preparing a resume to buying billboard space. It takes the time to explain how the generation in which your target audience members are born will affect which media they use, and how they use them, but also includes sections entitled “What is print media?” and “What is broadcast media?”. Advice is also provided on manners, eye contact and the correct use of cutlery as embodiments of your personal brand.

Confusing Advice

It’s this lack of focus that probably lead to the inclusion of what I’d consider to be less-than-great advice. In Chapter 4, “Communicating Over the Clutter,” the authors explain the elements of visual design in a discussion of visual identity. This seemed incongruous to me (they’re trying to teach people the basics of design in two pages of a beginner’s guide to a completely different topic?), but the introduction implies the purpose of this section:

“We’re not necessarily encouraging you to pay a designer to do all of your work for you, but if you opt to design your own marketing materials, you should become acquainted with some very basic rules of design.”

Personally, I don’t consider this good advice. Firstly, if you aren’t acquainted with the very basic rules of design, it would seem to be logical  advice to avoid trying to design any brand collateral, since in a professional sphere you will undoubtedly be up against those who have employed the expertise of professional designers, and your work simply will not stack up.

Secondly, if all the other advice in the book — which promotes the importance of being true to your brand at all times — is to be followed, then surely the authors should recommend that unless they’re designers themselves, readers pay a professional to create marketing materials.

This isn’t the only instance of contradictory advice I found in the book, and it seems to me that the lack of concentration on a subsegment of the extremely broad target audience is the key problem. The many examples provided throughout the text further support this hunch: from Madonna to a cafe owner, Oprah to the author’s personal friends, it might be hard to find an example that speaks directly to you.

Lack of Practical Focus

The other problem I had with this book is that I didn’t find it as practically focused as I felt the topic requires. Branding is a fairly nebulous concept at the best of times; for the beginner it can seem overwhelming. But although the authors explain each concept — from writing a traditional press release to employing Twitter, Facebook and other services to build a personal brand online — and provide examples that show how others have used personal branding techniques, they don’t:

• show you how to choose between the many different branding vehicles covered
• show you how to put together or monitor a branding strategy
• differentiate between branding and other forms of promotion, or show how these types of promotion may fit within an overall marketing strategy, or marketing strategy for a larger entity

That last point may seem fussy — if you’re actively promoting your personal brand, perhaps that’s all the marketing you need — but put aside the big-name examples like Martha Stewart, and consider everyday examples, such as the owner of a local cafe. Should the brand of Bill’s Cafe be different from the personal brand of Bill, its proprietor? If Bill wants to run a two-for-one lunch deal at Bill’s Cafe, will that affect his personal brand? How can he ensure the two flourish side-by-side?

For a largely practical book, these omissions seem significant. I know it’s a beginner’s guide, but I think it could have been considerably improved by addressing these fairly basic expectations. Perhaps a well-researched, clearly organized “Further Reading” section would have enabled the many jumping-off points this book provides to be used as such.

I can’t recommend this book to anyone who actually wanted to create a personal brand for themselves. I can only recommend it if you don’t know what personal branding is, have no great interest in knowing about the details of it, but have $16.95 and a couple of hours free to dip into the topic.

Share personal branding book recommendations in the comments.

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