Article
Overview of branding for people
Everyone has a reputation, be it big or small. And each person’s reputation matters in his or her sphere of influence, no matter how vast or minuscule that sphere may be. Our world runs on the energy of social interaction and the medium of social media networks. Because of this, the image of an individual has reached a scale that no other generation has had to grapple with.
Today, reputation issues can linger forever in the electronic ether, can explode virally to an audience of millions, and can plunge someone from public applause to public approbation in the space of a few of hours.
It’s not just celebrities who need personal reputation management. Everyone, to some degree, needs to pay attention to the management and maintenance of their online brand. A personal reputation can mean the difference between securing a job or being blacklisted by corporate recruiters. Personal reputation may put your name at the top of the list for HOA presidential candidates, or may cause neighborhood moms to scatter when you show up at the playground.
Personal reputation is like personal hygiene
One helpful way to think of personal reputation management is to consider the parallel of personal hygiene. Most people choose to brush their teeth regularly, take a shower, tend to their nails and hair, and mask body odor. It’s the socially acceptable thing to do.
Whose responsibility is personal hygiene? Personal hygiene is an individual responsibility. There are, of course, people whose age or infirmity prevent them from bathing themselves or attending to their grooming. But most people who have good health and a sound mind will take care of these tasks themselves.
Does it take some time and money? Sure, but most of us believe that good personal hygiene is time and money well spent.
But what if you just don’t? What if you stop showering, shaving, combing hair, trimming nails, controlling body odor, watching your diet, and dressing appropriately?
The consequences will probably come in the form of social exclusion. You may be ridiculed, avoided, censured, rebuked, and ostracized if you neglect personal hygiene.
This parallels personal reputation management. Although the consequences may not be odoriferous, they can be just as dire. Everyone has a responsibility to tend to their own reputation, and once you neglect it, life begins to unravel.
Consequences of neglect
What kind of “unravel?” It all depends on your life context, but several broad consequences apply. If you neglect your reputation, it is by default managed by the vagaries of chance, the nefarious intentions of others, or a slow demise into obscurity.
Just as no one else is going to brush your teeth for you, few are going to shape your identity in a good way or attempt to control the perceptions of others positively. Those who neglect their reputation wind up being passed over for jobs or promotions, rejected by romantic partners or friends, and suffer from what seems to be bad luck.
In sounds harsh, but socially, there is no excuse for the neglect of one’s personal online "brand". If these consequences aren’t intense enough to encourage personal reputation management, then perhaps the benefits are.
Benefits of personal reputation management
At the risk of overstating the case, no one becomes successful without personal reputation management. Once you proactively manage your reputation, life opens the doors of opportunity to you.
Here are some of those benefits.
- You define your life. Personal reputation management is a lot like creating a business brand. What’s your “product,” or what do you want to be recognized for? Who is your “target customer,” or,what kind of people do you want to be surrounded by? Although most contemporary cultures continue to be vexed by systemic injustice and broken economic or political structures, you nonetheless possess the tools to define your life in a way that you deem appropriate and suitable. Just like you get to define your personal style — styled hair, pleasant scent, fashionable attire — you also get to define your personal brand and reputation.
- Success begets success. Once people perceive you in a certain way, then reality takes the form of those perceptions. This isn't voodoo. It's science. For example, if you amble into a local bank looking like a tramp and asking for a business loan, you may not get a loan, no matter how many of the right boxes you tick on your application.
If, by contrast, you stroll confidently in wearing a tailored suit, sporting a fresh haircut, and manifesting an air of absolute self-possession, you might get the loan even if your application doesn’t score 100%.
- Security. When you manage your personal reputation, your reputation takes care of you. A reputation gives you a job, a partner, friends, a social safety net, financial means —virtually everything that most people consider to be marks of success. Once this happens, you enter an arena of social and financial safety.
- Upward mobility. An outstanding reputation puts you in touch with the people and places that are closed off to those who have no reputation or who have a negative reputation. Through a great reputation, you gain social access to people who have power, influence, and more.
What do you want in life? Whatever it is, your personal reputation can deliver it. But first, you need to understand how to manage it.
