Social Business and Personal Brands Opinion Editorial

As a student at the University of Michigan – Dearborn, studying Digital and Social Media Marketing, I couldn’t determine whether I should be reading articles about personal branding which is my current stage of development or articles about where I hope to be, which is developing solid skills in order to help businesses or organizations to develop their social media strategies or their “social business”. So I read expert articles on both subjects. I started with an article by Pam Moore “Defining Social Business is Like Eating Spaghetti With a Spoon” (click here for the full article). In this article Pam Moore talks about when she was researching for this article in an attempt to define social business, the concepts kept growing and growing like when you pick spaghetti with your fork and as you begin to twirl it keeps getting bigger and bigger, the noodles are longer than anticipated, until you find it will no longer fit into your mouth. So was the topic of social business it continued to grow, she compares it to being like eating spaghetti with a spoon. When developing social media strategy for business there is no one set strategy. An advanced business knows they need a fork and even with the right tool a good strategy will help to develop a scope for the project and what the company hopes to accomplish.

Developing your personal brand is just as unique as it would be for each company. According to Dan Schawbel’s blog (http://www.personalbrandingblog.com/), developing a personal presence in social media is about understanding your unique brand. The product is you. It takes time to research, and to know what people are saying about you and what you want to say about yourself. It is great when the two can agree. Let your actions and involvement in forums and on other blogs with similar interest speak for you. According to Schawbel, “position yourself where you want to be, not where you are”. It involves a lot of work and personal sacrifice. But if it is something you are passionate about, you won’t mind putting the work into it.

While there is a basic foundation for developing a social business or personal brand, for example updating content every day, developing a network, being transparent, being open the content and context is different for every business as it is for every individual. Know what is different about you and then own it.
In my own opinion a successful personal brand is one where you can associate an images or style, a phrase, a sound or even certain emotions with a certain individual, because they have taken something and owned it. Some examples of strong personal brands are, Jeff Foxworthy, "You might be a redneck if". Jeff Foxworthy has taken something he has heard or perhaps something that has been said about him, and he owns it. Pablo Picasso Bad “artists copy. Good artists steal”. Pablo Picasso painted landscapes and people which was nothing new, but he gives each work his own unique flavor, he owns it. James Cameron “I actually started as a model builder and quickly progressed into production design, which made sense because I could draw and paint. But I kept watching that guy over there who was moving the actors around and setting up the shots.” James Cameron takes what he is good at, creating imagery and model building and incorporates that since of fantasy into real life scenes and takes us on an adventure.

With so many social media sites, forums, personal and business blogs, it is important to be unique, to be different, to stand out from the rest. Take the time to figure out what it is and then, "Own it".