I was watching the 'Return of Mary Poppins' with a few small humans over the Easter weekend, if you get chance go and see it.
One of the phrases that really resonated with me was the one in the headline in this blog "A Cover is nice, but a Cover is not the Book" .
At DLAIgnite we spend a lot of time talking about the power of 'Personal Branding', it's relevance and importance in today's socially connected world.
The reality is that if you're looking for that next job, or potential new client then 'social media' tends to be the first place you go to 'check them out' ad then maybe the website.
Guess what, your future employer or clients are doing the same thing, they are also looking at you, your company, and its employees.
So, we teach people and companies that you need to be a lot more than just the 'cover' of your personal brand to stand out.
I'm a marketing guy who is fascinated with the big question 'why do people select one brand/business with similar products/services over another'? - C'mon you have to admit its a pretty big question and one that brand & marketing teams spend an inordinate amount of time over in order to persuade you & me that Coke is better than Pepsi, BMW is better than Mercedes, McDonalds is better than Burger King etc.
The question we get asked the most often is;
Q) What on earth has a personal brand got to do with me & my business?
A) Everything and more in today’s socially connected world.
Your personal brand & that of your business are of course different - but, your social footprint says lots about both of you - who you are, what motivates you and hopefully ‘why’ you do what you do. Your digital & social footprint reflect how others perceive who you both are - fact!
When we talk about 'Selling Socially' what we're really talking about is the social process of giving people the opportunity to 'buy' into who you and your company really are, I want to know how relevant you/it is to me and if there is a sufficient fit with what I'm looking for.
Thing is, from what we can evidence most of the time they are completely out of sync.
Especially with leadership teams which is the most worrying because whenever I am asked to help 'fix' a brand/business its usually because the leadership team have lost sight of the internal alignment of the company/brand purpose and inadvertently communicate this externally.
So, it's extremely important that you become more than just the 'cover'.
How do I know this - well, you're reading this aren't you?
We are experts at all of this, we work with some amazing global businesses and people. We would love to talk to you and help you become more than just the 'cover'.
If you would like to explore more, please feel free to contact the author.
Personal branding is more important now than ever. We live in a world where your persona, the part of you that you extends outward into the world, is routinely scrutinized. Your employers look at your Facebook and Twitter and comb your Instagram. You are ALWAYS being scrutinized by people who want to know whether or not you should represent them.
