“A brand is worthless when it doesn’t connect with the right audience in a relevant way.”
We now live in a fiercely competitive and hyper connected digital world with over three billion of us connected on the Internet and constantly sharing incredible amounts of information. This number is only going to grow. The challenge is to be innovative when things are getting more complex and do more with less. Social media has fast become a sea of white noise so how do we stand out a time when most are blending in? It’s now too easy for us to have too many connections and increasingly difficult for us to stand out for what we do well.
This blog has been inspired by a keynote I am giving soon at a leadership summit. Focused on one of my favourite leadership topics Personal Branding, it’s been interesting to reflect on the growing and evolving challenges to a Personal Brand. Given that your brand is the strongest currency you have to deal with in business and in life, how do we stand out at a time when there’s so much noise and chaos and resist the temptation to be a generalist rather than be known for something.
We are so ‘connected’ to our phones and social media platforms that our focus has been drawn away from ensuring our personal brand is relevant to our ever changing current situation and our future. And while you can happily waste enormous amounts of time studying what others are doing and the information they are sharing, time slips away and all of a sudden your brand loses it’s shine and becomes slightly irrelevant.
Personal Brand demands a different level of connection; it requires a deep connection to you and your plans both current and future. So if you’re not spending the time to get clarity around this, you’re at risk of your brand being put in the white noise bucket! The constant enhancements to technology and information require a constant disruption to our thoughts and approach to what we are doing and trying to achieve. We need to be agile and flexible at a time when business is becoming somewhat transient.
You also need to understand, and I emphasise need, who the right audience for you is. I doubt it’s the two thousand connections you have on Linked In or the hundreds of Twitter followers. It’s not going to be everyone, but it’s going to be some. By understanding the unique value you offer, your point of differentiation and your relevance you can connect on a different level and be really ‘connected’.
We do need to manage our brands now virtually and physically and we need to ensure we are carving time out of our ‘busy’ days to do it. So when you’re spending time on social media sites, ensure it’s strategic, purposeful and relevant.