Personal Brand and Authenticity

Personal brand. It’s all the rage, right? Everyone needs one. Mom bloggers. Etsy sellers. Job seekers. Your personal brand is your calling card in the new economy. It lets people know who you are, what you stand for and what you do. It’s all that and a bag of chips.

I have cultivated my brand, both on Strocel.com and at Crafting my Life. Once I got into blogging and began to understand its potential, I put in some work to choose colours and make graphics and decide what I wanted to write about. It wasn’t so much about seeking fame as it was about giving me a focus, and helping me to understand what I wanted to talk about and how I wanted to present myself.

Still, building a personal brand sounds kind of … inauthentic, and almost cynical. And it’s true that there are people who deliberately court controversy, or say things they don’t mean, as a way to build a following. This is not limited to the online sphere, either. Politicians, athletes, television personalities and even dentists deliberately build their brand. It’s a self-promotion tool, a way to tell the world who you are. And you can do it in a way that sacrifices your values, or holds true to them.

In another time, we would have substituted the word “reputation” for “personal brand”. A reputation comes from how other people interpret our behaviour, and what it is perceived to say about us. Whether we intend to or not, we have a reputation, because we interact with other people. The only difference is that now that we have all the tools of the internet at our disposal, we can do a little more to build and control that reputation.

This photo conveys something about me and, by extension, my personal brand

When you live with intention and authenticity it says something about you, and it reflects in the reputation you build. I think that, in the end, people know the difference between a contrived exercise in personal branding, and a genuine reflection of who someone is. Your personal brand can be about how you want to help other people, or make your art, or grow your own food. And you can decide how you want to share that, and what you want to share, without sacrificing authenticity.

My exercise in branding has involved logos and graphics and taglines. But that’s only a small portion. The lion’s share of what I do is about sharing what matters to me in a way that is honest and true to myself. My goal in branding myself is not to become an internet celebrity. It’s to find like-minded people and build community. It’s to be true to my core values, and to use my voice in a way that contributes to the world.

I’m not sure that everyone really needs to consciously build a personal brand, but I do think that everyone has one. And I believe that you can set out to build one without being cynical or inauthentic. Your brand is a reflection of you, and the more authentic that you are, the more authentic your brand will be, and the more it will resonate with like-minded people. I think that’s a good thing.

What do you think? Would you say that you have a brand, and did you build it intentionally? And how do you feel about the word? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

PS – Advanced discount registration for my online class on living with intention is happening now. To get in on that, subscribe to my mail list!