Home » Blog » Category: Twitter

The Extinction of Normal – The New Personal Branding Anthem

The topic of ‘What is Normal?’ has been on my mind for a while and I thought it would make an interesting blog post. The idea was birthed out of the Tiger Woods saga as I start asking myself this question what is normal for celebrities, icons, politicians, and successful people.

If you were a worldwide icon like Tiger Woods life as you know it would change. Your privacy would be sacrificed for fame, fortune and a loyal following. How would you manage? This question is easily answered when no one is following you or cares that you even exist. The definition or understanding of normal I believe is changing.

Webster’s define ‘normal’ as according with, constituting, or not deviating from a norm, rule, or principle; and conforming to a type, standard, or regular pattern. Success is the enemy of normal. Success breds responsibility and accountability that is larger than most people can imagine and the price is higher than most people want to pay.

What is Normal?

This is a particularly interesting question since the line is blurring between Celebrities and Super Personal Brand Brands (i.e. Chris Brogan, Robert Scoble, and Gary Vaynerchuk).

Three Impacts of Success:

  • Lost Privacy – Celebrities can’t go anywhere without paparazzi, TMZ following them and making living a regular life non-existent. With the rise of social networks, status updates, social search, Twitter, Facebook and other social tools personal privacy is starting to diminish for personal brands as well.
  • Demanding Fans – Celebrities lives have been defined by their fans and the same is happening to personal brands. The increasing influx of DMs, blog post comments, emails, and online engagement with followers requires a committed person to grow their following.
  • Feeding the Monkey – Continuing to create engaging content that will cause your community/following to grow is mandatory for celebrities and personal brands.

The point of this post is that normal is redefined as you reach certain levels of success in business and life. What was once normal is no longer normal. It creates challenges and opportunities that can benefit or damage your personal brand. As you grow your personal brand how will normal be redefined in your life?

» Read more...

The Year in Review: Nine Personal Branding Predictions for 2009!

The year in review. Let me know how well I did with my 2009 Personal Branding Predictions. This is the link to the original post: http://bit.ly/5qaNK4

It is 2009 and the Internet is buzzing with experts providing their predictions and trends for the year. I wanted to provide my thoughts on personal branding to help set the tone for an exciting year.

Predictions/Trendspotting

1. Creative Economy: Creativity will be to the information age what manufacturing was to the industrial age. Individuals dependence on being a company man working 30-years at one company or until death do you part will cease to exist. The integration of creativity into business ideas and career will become a necessity and not an option. As a personal brand you will need to think creatively in developing strategic partnerships and ways to stand out. After everybody has updated their Linkedin, Facebook, and Twitter pages, established a blog, added followers, and followed all the same tips what is next? Creativity.

2. Purpose/Mission: People will start to seek opportunities or careers that give them greater satisfaction that they have a true passion for. This is primarily due to the instability in the economy and the reduction of jobs that were more lucrative in good economic times. High paying low education jobs are a thing of the past. People will now look at opportunities that align with how they are wired and what they were designed to do.

3. ‘Personal Branding’ Term Commoditized: The term ‘Personal Branding’ will become more commoditized and genericized. The term has significance and value when implemented, but I believe the term itself will be overused and misused.

4. Traditional Journalist Become Commodities: The voice and influence of bloggers and social media experts increase. Newspapers are losing money with traditional newspaper printing and are looking for ways to compete with the new media. Traditional journalist will have to integrate social media and effectively establish their personal brand.

5. Personal Branding Experts Commodization: With the increase of social media gurus the line between personal branding experts and social media experts is blurring. The personal branding industry will become oversaturated and the cream will rise to the top. Those of us in the personal branding industry will have to work harder to cut through the noise.

6. Establish ‘Blue Movement’: The need to develop the ‘Blue Movement is critical. ‘American Made’ needs to be established as the new luxury product. The ‘Green Movement’ has been very successful because big business have bought into it can the same be done with the ‘Blue Movement’?

7. Twitter Relevance Increases: Twitter will gain relevance as a search and primary news source. Business opportunities with strategist business models and usages will continue to be developed.

8. Personal Brands being Healthy: Being healthy is just as importance as your ranking in Google. You can have all the money and influence in the world but without good health you have nothing. Being fit spiritually, mentally, and physically is critical. Learn to have balance and think holistically because you are the sum total of all your parts.

9. Passion Becomes King: People doing what they love. Passion is the fuel that drives you to do what others are not willing to do. We all have the same 24-hours but passionate people find out how to get more out of their time and produce higher quality results.

I want to challenge and inspire you to shine in 2009. Have an awesome year and share your predictions for 2009 in the comments section of this blog post.

» Read more...

Delta Airlines - Good Brand Poor Customer Service Experience

On Tuesday, November 18th I flew from Detroit, MI to Orlando, FL on Delta Airline and I had a very poor customer service experience. This blog post is not about bashing Delta but about communicating my extreme displeasure as a paying customer. Let me make this disclaimer up front, I have had a positive long-standing relationship with Delta Airline where I am a frequent flyer.

The Brand Experience - Three Important Points

• Touch point – Every person within the organization has to be committed and focused on providing a positive customer service experience.
• Value the Customer – Each person is a brand ambassador and represents the brand and should focus on making the customer feel valued.
• How does your brand respond to a poor brand experience? Every brand will have an opportunity to respond: focus on timeliness, the proper channel, and customer expectations.

After my experience at check-in I tweeted to see if Delta Airlines was listening online it has been 7-days and counting with no response. On the other hand I went online and read how Southwest Airlines responded to a customer in a matter of hours who lost their bags.

How important is your brand experience? It is everything. Understand your touch points, value your customers, and respond appropriately.

» Read more...

Good Morning Twitterverse

Good Morning Twitter and to all my friends in the Twitterverse. I just wanted to add a personal touch and reach out to all you stellar personal brands. If you plan on having a great day sent a tweet and include @HajjFlemings and #Twitterverse and the city you are repping. I will see you in the Twitter stream.

» Read more...

Personal Branding: The New Celebrity Built Online

What we all love about celebrities is that we believe they live a lifestyle that mere morals only dreamed of? People desire the allure of fame and notoriety neither of which means satisfaction or fulfillment in what you do, but carries with it a lot responsibility. In the age of the social web quote unquote celebrities are popping up everyday. As a personal brand strategist, I am a strong believer in substance and value and that personal brands should be built authentically that package and expose your true DNA.

The New Celebrities

Case Studies, Gary Vaynerchuk (@GaryVee) and Robert Scoble (@Scobleizer) are a growing example of the new celebrity. They are larger than life personalities that have cut their teeth online and through shear sweat equity, passion, free social media tools, and a loyal online following have created incredible opportunities for themselves. Thought leaders, Techies, and creatives are the new black and provide regular people with a ray of hope of creating a message for the world that leaves them wanting more.

Basics of The New Celebrities

  • Exposing your Genius – Your genius is what you makes you special. It is the intersection between your passion, the problem you solve, and the process (business model) you use. With all the noise and information flowing online it will be important to expose your Genius.
  • Tell your Personal Brand Story – You need to know who you are and be prepared to tell your face-to-face and online. A personal brand story is not a resume or a list of bullets but a short story that is digestible without chocking people with useless ego chatter.
  • Create Hubs and Use Amplifiers – Social media is an amplifier it doesn’t solve world peace or cure world hunger, it amplifies who and what you are. A hub is a centralized, online digital destination that aggregates your content (i.e. Facebook Fan Page or a Blog.) These public domains are brand building mechanism that empowers your community (fan base) to share and consume your content.
  • Be your own Paparazzi: Establish a social presence with some of the popular social network, Facebook, YouTube, Vimeo, and Twitter to name a few.
  • Create Scarcity – The goal of Celebritism is to create scarcity. Social Networks are great platforms or funnels to offer free shareable content that will allow you to take people up your funnel. The great thing about celebrities is that people are willing to pay more for a different level of exposure or experience. For example I love Malcolm Gladwell books and his other written work, I would be willing to pay more to hear him speak because there are limited opportunities.
  • Follow the Leaders - Look at what the real life celebrities are doing and take a page out of their book: Vin Diesel has 6.7 millions friends on his Facebook fan page, MCHammer has 1.6 million followers on Twitter, and Shaq has 2.4 million followers on Twitter.

The power has shifted to any person with a laptop, iPhone, and an internet connection to connect their passion to the world. The true celebrities have found away to authentically connect people to who they are their passion. I believe the goal is to create scarcity.

» Read more...