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It appears, that I have . . . entirely by accident . . . developed a manifesto. Let me tell you how this happened.
So, because I am an author and am generally presentable and have shoes and things . . . and because I spend a lot of time online . . . I sometimes get asked to speak at conferences and panels. I laughed until I fell over the first time I was asked, but it’s a fairly regularly occurrence now, and I look forward to those weird, squat water bottles they often give you when you are up at a podium. I can spend a good five minutes of my speech just thinking about those little water bottles. That’s why I smile so much up there.
Anyway, more and more, I get asked to do talks and panels on social media. Lots of times, I don’t even know what people really want these panels or talks to be about. “Social media” is new and big and weird, and there are very few true experts. So they just scoop up whoever is around (like, for example, me) and stick us in front of a room and call us experts.
I did one panel very recently, and it broke me. On that day, the MANIFESTO came to me. And now, I want to share it with you.
I took my place up on the dais and immediately looked for my little water bottle. I was seated next to a woman I’d never met. We shared a microphone. I noticed that she had already grabbed it and was CLINGING to it like it might try to escape. I put this down to nerves until the panel started, at which point it became clear that if I ever wanted that microphone, I was probably going to have to engage in some form of physical combat.
My neighbor had a lot to say. She had a MESSAGE. She talked longer than anyone, and over everyone and through everyone. Her message, as far as I could determine, was that the internet is all about getting out there and SELLING yourself.
“I’m a brand,” she said, every minute or so. “I’m always thinking of ways to promote my brand.” It was all brand, brand, brand, brand, brand.
The other thing she said that made my head swivel around uncomfortably was, “Get your message and repeat it OVER AND OVER. Just keep saying your message OVER AND OVER in the same way. Just tweet it and put it out on Facebook OVER AND OVER.”
She was certainly not the first person I’d heard this from. I hear this almost everywhere I go where there are people talking about social media, and I feel that it is time that I rise up against it. In fact, I did, right there and then. I grabbed the microphone from her grasp and said, “I am not a brand.”
She grabbed the microphone back and started clarifying that she really, really, really is a brand and brands are awesome . . . and the more she went on, the more I thought: I am not a brand. I wanted to whisper it, but that would have been creepy.
Just to be clear on this thing I am not, maybe I should define my understanding of personal branding. A personal brand is a little package you make of yourself so you can put yourself on the shelf in the marketplace and people will know what to expect or look for when they come to buy you. For example, Coke is a brand. When you see Coke, you expect a dark brown effervescent sweet drink that is always going to taste like . . . Coke. McDonalds is going to sell you inexpensive, fast food. The Ritz or the Four Seasons is going to sell you a luxury experience. BP will now be known as the brand that destroys the costal ecosystem of the southeastern United States.
And yes, authors sometimes have these “brands.” Nicholas Sparks is going to sell you a Roman . . . love story, excuse me . . . where someone dies of cancer/similar disease at the end. V.C. Andrews will sell you something awesomely insane and creepy. Dan Brown will sell you a series of puzzles, facts,
