 What is a personal brand? It is you. Your story. This intimate story is portrayed via an overall message that weaves throughout your communications and social media platforms. Just as major consumer brands have well-known, universally recognized images, individuals can have them too. But more than just a mere surface image, it is important to have a deeper story too. This serves as the backbone for all you are about, who you are and why you do what you do. How successful you are in telling your story will determine how deeply it resonates with your audience and will ultimately determine the success of your brand. When you are first learning about social media, you are usually unaware that you are creating an online persona for yourself with each post, status update and tweet. It is all experimental at this point as you learn how to navigate the various mediums. The essential element in creating your personal brand is to be authentic. ee cummings said, “it takes courage to grow up and be who you are.” Don’t copy someone else’s style: be yourself! Being an imitation of the most fabulous thing imaginable is still just an imitation, and people catch on to this behavior very quickly. Consider your avatar to be your logo: keep it fresh and real. Be outstandingEach person has unique qualities and gifts that make them special. Find yours and amplify them. If you are hesitant about what image you are projecting, find interesting blogs or links to share that fit within your strategy and build up your confidence as you go. Pay attention to what people “like” or retweet; figure out where you are connecting with your followers and build on that. Above all, please be interesting! You may start with a little kindling and end up with a big bonfire if you create the proper base. Consistency is keyIf your goal is to be viewed as a professional, this needs to be seen across the board throughout all of your social media efforts. The language that you use is the currency and relevancy to your message. Make wise choices and remember that the internet is permanent. Linking your social media channels together makes it seamless for a follower to travel from your Twitter bio or other social media page over to your blog. This does not mean that you should show all your tweets on LinkedIn and tweet your Facebook statuses. A separate, similar message is fine — no need to be redundant. Your personal brand will evolve over time but you start projecting your brand from your very first tweet or post. You might not think you have a personal brand yet, but you do. Consider what this might be and polish it up if necessary. It is not just your avatar but all your interactions woven together to create a personal story: your personal brand. Make it a good one!
Second in a series of posts by Peggy Fitzpatrick and Paul Biedermann.  Attention spans are short. Do you know how long your brand has to hit your target audience? You have only a few seconds to make your first impression. “The addictive nature of web browsing can leave you with an attention span of nine seconds — the same as a goldfish,” said the BBC in this article. “Even if a brand could reach everyone, it still can’t break through most of the time. People simply shut out a message by fast-forwarding or clicking to the next one”, says Sally Hogshead in her book “Fascinate”. Can you and your brand break through the short attention span of the people you are trying to reach? Roger Ebert wrote a brilliant post on “The quest for frisson”, which is the French word for “a brief intense reaction, usually a feeling of excitement, recognition or terror”. This translates into online behavior as the need to “Like,” Plus One and Tweet away — searching for the next buzz. It may be a challenge to capture your audience at warp speed but it is not impossible. To give yourself half a chance, your brand must be targeted and effective. In order for brands to be successful, they must be:
 1. Sharp
Run-of-the-mill won’t cut it. Get rid of those old hand-me-downs and get stylish already! Remember: image is everything. Frumps need not apply.
2. Succinct
Get to the point and shed those extra words. There is no room for verbose fluff, and nobody will read that dense text anyway. So, make sure your most important points are seen loud and clear! Bonus points for making them memorable.
3. Quality
People recognize quality when they see it. Even if only subliminal, high quality is recognized and rewarded. Don’t be mediocre — strive to be the best!
4. Consistent
Brands must present a cohesive message and image, so each time somebody experiences the brand it correlates to the larger whole. The all too-frequent alternative is a disjointed, fractured image that fights itself. There is no difference between a brand with mixed messages and a competitor’s message — they both fight your own brand in the exact same way! There is no room for confusion in branding.
So, what is your brand's message? Can you summarize it in eight to nine seconds or are you missing the mark?
Want to check your attention span? Try this: Psychology Today Attention Span TestImage of dartboard courtesy of raspberreh and licensed via Creative Commons.
 Like many, I first approached Twitter with skepticism and trepidation. Like my first engagements with other social media, I stuck a toe in the water before jumping in further. LinkedIn and Facebook gradually gained steam, and soon became valued communications channels. But Twitter? That was different.
I started by following a few people who seemed to have interesting things to say, and then began tweeting a little myself. Gradually, I gained followers and started to “get it”. Twitter is a great way of perusing a vast landscape of leading experts in any profession, industry, interest or hobby. But only recently have I come to appreciate its full power: direct access to these same people and the ability to engage with them in real time.
When people are on Twitter, and by that I mean actively using it, they are receptive to the experience and open to engagement: monitoring the continuous dialog, responding to tweets and replies, direct messages, new followers, and the like. Perhaps they are also monitoring who is mentioning them and retweeting their tweets (not to mention, of course, surfing the web like never before, with tweets leading them to great content including images, video and blogs — and then leaving comments there too!). The interaction never ends!
Real power
But recently, I discovered something else. Hashtags. By following focused Twitter content, identified by the # symbol placed before subject or group names, one can view tweets relating only to that subject matter. This helps bring order to the chatter. And when you find a group you really like, the conversation can be so persistent and intense, that real connections are made and Twitter is transformed into something much more personal.
I was lucky enough to find a great group called #UsGuys fairly early in my Twitter life. It’s a stream of quick-thinking minds from different backgrounds, chatting 24/7 (I see the term “addiction” used a lot). Admittedly, it’s sometimes like social media with ADHD. Jumping into the busy stream can be intimidating — I was shooting for a swan dive, but probably made something more like a plunge. Never before have I seen the potential for developing real relationships, enabled by an online platform, than I have here.
Doing online to go offline
Through Facebook, I have visited with friends I haven’t seen in twenty-five years. With LinkedIn, I have setup face-to-face meetings and developed professional relationships. Now with Twitter, the net is cast further, wider and more quickly — cross-pollinating ideas, stimulating creativity, marshaling resources and galvanizing people — with potential like I have never seen before. Further connecting is now happening on the other social media channels. Face-to-face meetups are also in the works. And, ironically, this is where I think online is going: fueling our ability to establish real connections in the offline world as well.
Online converted to offline; professional to personal. I can’t wait to see where this all goes.
When Gap recently announced their new logo on Facebook, they were caught off-guard by the strong public backlash. The logo was really bad and bowing to the criticism, Gap quickly abandoned the idea (see links at bottom for a full recap).
The company then proceeded to make an even bigger mistake, smugly announcing a contest to design a replacement logo that anyone could enter. This is called crowdsourcing, and when a company does it, it demonstrates a total lack of understanding and callous disregard for what design brings to business. When a major corporation does it, it’s beyond comprehension. Presumably attempting to garner goodwill by “listening” to its customers, this raised the ire of the professional design community and even angrier mobs rose up and chanted things like “Shameful!”, “Abuse of power!”, and “Idiots”!
 Through crowdsourcing, design is reduced to an amateur beauty competition, where thousands of designs are submitted and a committee votes on which one will be designated the winner. There is no reasoned process of analysis, research, and design development, let alone a holistic branding strategy. There is also little, if any, compensation for the designer. The crowds spoke
The overwhelming negative consensus (not to mention, a $247 million dollar stock loss the day after the original announcement) shamed the company into dropping its amateurish approach to logo design and its manipulative attempt at making its audience think a feel-good logo contest was their original intent. Ultimately, the crowd spoke and got what it wanted from the company, not the other way around.
During this debacle, the company received thousands of free opinions on their logo, their brand, their process, and what they should do about it. So in a way, crowdsourcing worked, just not in the way Gap intended. The AIGA (American Institute of Graphic Arts) played a critical role by engaging in constructive dialogue and “educating the client”. To their credit, Gap admitted their missteps and issued a mea culpa, promising to do a better job if and when they ever decide to redesign their logo again (don’t hold your breath!).
I’m sure the company was embarrassed by all this, as it became clear in a very public way that they really did not have a handle on how to execute an important branding initiative. Even worse, they seemingly had no clue about who they are and what their brand has meant to consumers over the years.
With friends like this…
Some say that any PR is good PR, but when thousands flock to “Like” your Facebook page only to tell you how much they don’t like you, I beg to differ. When you are mocked on Twitter by design and branding professionals, when accounts are set up with the sole purpose to ridicule, when apps are developed so you can create your own “Gapified” logo and negative blogs flood the blogosphere, I really don’t think the company is benefiting from all the publicity.
Yes, Gap is being talked about, but the brand that once stood for hip, simple design has now shown they are anything but.
Gap Introduces New Logo, Mass Criticism EnsuesGap Speaks Out: Yes, the Logo Is RealDear Gap, I have your new logo An open letter to our neighbors at Gap
AIGA post and letter to Gap: How do businesses balance crowd participation and design? Statement from Marka Hansen, President of Gap Brand, North America
Good graphic design and creative direction is about getting to the essence of a communications or business problem and creating a compelling, effective visual solution. Not to be confused with the cheap knockoff services that are so readily available these days, design is not about decoration and just making something look nice.
True creative professionals are experts at distilling information, clarifying it, and then packaging it in a way that engages its intended audience. They also see the big picture and how each communication or promotion fits into a larger puzzle and creates an overall brand experience — continually reinforcing itself through all the various touchpoints with the “customer”. The final objective? To inform or influence a targeted segment of people and evoke a desired response, whether it be more customers, sales, registrants, attendees, or the like.
This is why good creative has real impact on the businesses it touches. But confusion persists.
Not just art – power!
Many people think of design as an art, which it is, but they have a more difficult time understanding its true marketing and communications power. They know it makes things look nice. Ok. Perhaps they know it’s about layout, or making a logo or an ad. Ok too. But beyond that, a true understanding of its importance is lacking. Moreover, the words “design”, “logo”, “creative” and the like, have been diluted and co-opted so many times that it’s hard to blame anyone for being confused.
How the pros do it
When real creative pros begin a project, they first learn about your business and its competitors. They assist in helping you define your objectives. A smart marketing plan is developed. Only then can a smart, integrated creative strategy be pursued. And only when this is done, will creative work be effective and have a true impact on your business.
You simply don't get this from the quicky online logo services or off-the-shelf templates so prevalent today. You won’t get this from the local copy shop that offers logos and “graphic design” among its menu of services. The design services they provide are window dressing (and usually amateurish, irrelevant window dressing at that). Yes, they are “cheaper”. But those approaches can only hurt your business, rather than help it, because promoting one’s business the wrong way will only accelerate a bad outcome — no money saved there!
Real cost-savings
Of course, good creative does have a cost. But it’s important to appreciate that good creative people also provide many cost-saving ideas along the way: they are adept at finding the best solutions for a given budget; they streamline content and avoid unnecessary redundancies; they partner with their clients and service partners to determine the best way forward, avoiding costly technical or manufacturing inefficiencies.
Creative passion also has its benefits
Most importantly, however, good creative people just want to do good work. It’s in their heart and soul. So, they have a vested interest in a successful result.
It’s also common for designers to develop a passion for helping a particular business succeed – and when this happens it’s a win-win for everybody! Because the true value of good creative work lies in the long term successes of the businesses it touches. That will never happen from just filling out an online order form and the illusion of “saving” a few bucks.
And who knows... you may even make a new friend along the way!
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