Comments on: Confessions of an Unbranded Professional

By: Shel Israel Talks Conversational Marketing In “Twitterville”

Shel Israel Talks Conversational Marketing In “Twitterville” — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 18:01:33 +0000

[...] here on WebWorkerDaily, and Israel takes a philosophy of it in Twitterville that is very counter to Georgina’s description of herself as being unbranded. But Israel’s view of personal branding goes further than even Pamela’s assertion that it is [...]

By: William Arruda

William Arruda — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 13:04:38 +0000

You bring up a good point about real- vs virtual-world branding. For some, personal branding = social media. The most effective branding combines the real with the virtual. That means taking those great things you are doing in the real-world and making them visible online.

Best.
William
http://www.williamarruda.com

By: Jeffrey Friend

Jeffrey Friend — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 14:44:19 +0000

I can relate. When we started the business, we were very conscious of our online-brand, but that was before the big social media explosion. Most of our business was not in our local market, but was referral based.

Now, 5 years later, our company is growing 40% every year. 80% of our work comes from referrals, is mostly local based, yet our online brand has not been updated much since the beginning.

Is it time to fix that? YES! But is our business suffering for it? Good question.

By: sfmitch

sfmitch — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 19:08:46 +0000

100% of my work is repeat business & referrals. I have very little (almost no) online brand.

The way I built my business won’t work if you want to grow quickly but is great if you have the time. I love my customers and they seem to love me.

By: Simon Mackie

Simon Mackie — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 18:59:55 +0000

@Catherine – I agree with you, everyone actually has a brand, whether they’re consciously working at it or not. Some people’s brand is just the work they’ve done and how they interact with others, and that’s fine — many people are very successful without thinking about their brand at all.

I think a lot of ths conversation could refer back to the first post in this series (http://webworkerdaily.com/2009/07/13/personal-branding-is-important-like-it-or-not/) — if we referred to it as “image” rather than “brand”, that might help define it better, and overcome some people’s feeling of ickiness.

By: Matt Doar

Matt Doar — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 18:38:50 +0000

Interestingly, I do the same sort of thing. I think it’s worked for me for 3 years now because what I do (software tools infrastructure) has lots of niches and I cover quite a few of them.

My thoughts are that I’ll minimize the whole branding thing until the work stops coming, then re-evaluate.

By: Catherine

Catherine — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 18:25:28 +0000

Whether or not you define a brand for yourself, you have one. The way the rest of the world would describe you is your current brand. The point of “branding yourself” is to influence how the world sees you by focussing on those things you want them to remember. However, since you’re comfortable with the brand you have, you are obviously a very confident person. That’s what I’ll remember.

By: Robyn

Robyn — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 18:16:27 +0000

Nope, not crazy at all. I think you’re right on.

I like to interact with people, not people hiding behind some constructed confection of a “brand”. Of course people’s online personalities are partially constructed too, but there’s a false note to “brands” that I find icky.

By: What to read on the GigaOM network

What to read on the GigaOM network — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 17:51:02 +0000

[...] Staff | Friday, July 17, 2009 | 10:50 AM PT | 0 comments Confessions of an unbranded professional (WebWorkerDaily) Mozy vs. Carbonite: Mac backup smackdown (TheAppleBlog) Windows 7’s impact, [...]