I’m in the middle – well, more like beginning – stages of re-vamping this website and have started to think about branding a lot lately. I’ve been researching all different types of websites, fonts, templates because, ultimately, my little carved-out nook here on the interwebs – the look, its content, what I choose to share or not share – is a part of my “brand.” In discussions with my web designer, a number of “me”-brand related questions have come up that go way beyond just what fonts I should use. Do I need a logo? What kind of color scheme? A jingle that gets stuck in your head like that mini-sirloin burgers song from Jack in the Box that left a ringing in my ear for a week? Or maybe I should pull a “Head-On” at the beginning of my videos?
In personal branding, though, it seems that the most pressing question of all a simple but a heavy one: who am I? This question, inside or outside of a branding context, is bound to spawn many an existential crisis. Multiple, if you’re an over-achiever.
Branding is about simplicity and package-ability. Potential employers scan resumes to piece together a job candidate’s brand based on factors like a college degree, major, work history, outside interests. In the world I work in, the branding process is a little more colorful: “the Geeky Girl with the Surfboard,” “the Gamer Chick,” “the Quirky Hostess with the Mostest” – by the way, none of which I am laying any certain claim to. Okay, maybe that last one. To some extent, branding is akin to playing a game of Mad Libs but instead of the whole English language at your disposal, you have but a few adjectives, nouns and adverbs to choose from and plug in accordingly and render a neat, seamless version of who you are and what you can provide. That way, you become an easily recognizable, easily-associated figure – although I’m pretty sure the branding geniuses behind doughnuts didn’t mean for me to associate a traditional glazed with self-loathing. Mmm. Glazed.
This is, unfortunately, a little counter-intuitive when you’re not dealing with a commodity but a person. Not to get too Chicken Soup for the Sensitive CEO’s Soul here, but one of my favorite quotes is from Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself: “Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself. I am large. I contain multitudes.”
This doesn’t quite fit into the branding philosophy. Got multitudes? Too bad! Your personal brand doesn’t really care, nor should it – it all goes back to simplicity, package-ability. Sellability. But does all this “me 2.0″-ing (and yes, there’s a book out there about it – Me 2.0) ultimately sell ourselves short?
If you take the input from those closest and farthest away from your personal life, people who you randomly met who you liked some small detail about, you can find “you”. From your personality of the goofy side, to your tactful and professional nature, putting those together will exploded into an epiphany of your inner child
In the end, its 2010 and the future lol. If you have noticed major changes from Ms. Cleo of the 2000′s from Audrey of 2010, use that to find “you”. Never stray from what’s in your geeky heart, because that is your core in the end.