Mitch Joel's Blog: Six Pixels of Separation, page 171

Apple Has Over 40% Of The Wireless Headphone Market, Facebook Tests Mid-Roll Ads And More On This Week's CTRL ALT Delete Segment On CHOM 97.7 FM

Every Monday morning at 7:10 am, I am a guest contributor on CHOM 97.7 FM radio out of Montreal (home base). It's not a long segment - about 5 to 10 minutes every week - about everything that is happening in the world of technology and digital media. The good folks at CHOM 97.7 FM are posting these segments weekly on iHeart Radio, if you're interested in hearing more of me blathering away about what's going on in the digital world. I'm really excited about this opportunity, because this is the radio station that I grew up on listening to, and it really is a fun treat to be invited to the Mornings Rock with Terry and Heather B. morning show. The segment is called, CTRL ALT Delete with Mitch Joel.

This week we discussed: 

Over the holidays, Apple finally started shipping their highly-anticipated AirPods - wireless/Bluetooth headphones. Lots of positive reviews, plus this stunning piece of data: Apple has over 40% of the wireless headphone market. How did that happen so fast? Well, it turns of that AirPods are a runaway success, and the fact that Apple owns Beats... and there you go. Since the AirPods were released, Apple has 26% of the market and Beats has 15.4%. To compare, Bose is at 16.1%... and this is just the beginning for wireless headphones.        
How quick are you to skip an ad on YouTube? YouTube is a huge advertising money-maker for brands. Well, are you skipping more of less than millennials? It turns out that 59% of millennials skip ads on YouTube. Some argue that this is a good thing?         
It's possible that Facebook either did or did not see the data about YouTube above. Apparently, Facebook is testing mid-roll ads. Facebook will require videos with mid-roll ads to be "at least 90 seconds in total, and a user has to watch a minimum of 20 seconds to be shown an ad. The company is capping ad length at 15 seconds, (compared with 30 seconds for YouTube ads). Publishers will receive 55% of the revenue generated by these ads, which is the same revenue-split that YouTube offers their video creators." Why is Facebook doing this? They're running out of ad inventory. Good news for their accounting department. Bad news for users? 
App of the week: Lose It! 

Take a listen right here.

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The Quiet Revolution With Susan Cain - This Week's Six Pixels Of Separation Podcast

Episode #550 of Six Pixels of Separation - The Mirum Podcast is now live and ready for you to listen to.

How do you operate in teams and groups? Do you feel like an insider or an outsider? Do you like the open-floor concept at the office? Do you have kids? Are people constantly pushing to get them to "come out of their shell"? Like to spend time alone and read? Like private time to do your work on your own? Do you think that collaboration is over-rated? Would you rather spend time alone than out at a networking event? My friend, Susan Cain, built momentum on her incredibly popular book, Quiet - The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking, and a massive TED Talk, The Power Of Introverts, that has been viewed close to 16 million times. Here's the good news: You are not alone... and if you are, there's nothing wrong with that. It turns out that some of our best thinkers and innovators are introverted. Now, Susan has published a new book, Quiet Power - The Secret Strengths Of Introverts (aimed at kids and teens), and she is growing her Quiet Revolution movement. Enjoy the conversation...

You can grab the latest episode of Six Pixels of Separation here (or feel free to subscribe via iTunes): Six Pixels of Separation - The Mirum Podcast #550.

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The Pride And Prejudice Of Shopify

This is a true story...

Many, many years ago a dear friend, mentor and local community leader asked if I would be interested in meeting someone he liked and knew for years. This young man was recently out of college with a law degree, and was looking to grow his t-shirt business online. It was called Smoofer. I rolled my eyes. Why would anyone think that they could be successful selling t-shirts online, when so many of the major retailers were doing their best to compete with Amazon and outliers like Threadless were dominating the more alternative marketplace. There was nothing unique about the business model, it felt like a "me too" product that would have to compete (aggressively) for Google clicks and repeat business. My first thought was to decline the meeting because I didn't want to break this individual's heart and and stomp on their dreams.

That's not what happened.

Going further back in time, I was still in my teens and I wanted to publish my own music magazine. The market already had leaders (think Rolling Stone, Spin, Circus, etc...). There were also plenty of alternative press opportunities and, while the Internet was not around back then, there was still a burgeoning fanzine and mail-order business happening. I remember those times - and how desperate I was for someone with experience to help me out. It wanted help so bad, that I went to a local magazine store and scoured the mastheads of magazines for hours just looking for someone's name and phone number. After countless attempts, a publisher at a magazine that focused on cottage living spent some time breaking the business down for me. My head was spinning. Still, this person was an angel... in the truest sense of the word. Had someone trampled my dreams, where would I have been? 

Giving back is core.

I met with this young man. His name was Harley. Harley was living in Ottawa, but was born/raised in Montreal. He was much younger than me. He was full of fire and excitement. His energy was intoxicating. I remember going back to check out his website after our meeting, and still shaking my head. How could someone that smart and energized think that they can make a dent selling t-shirst online? Our friendship grew. Emails and calls... a couple of times a year. Soon after that, Harley told me that he's no longer selling t-shirts online, but that he has joined the company that developed the e-commerce platform for his site. He seemed very eager to help make this product better, and get more people/brands to use it for selling their wares online. 

Again, I didn't get it.

The company was called Shopify and they would provide small businesses with a cheap-priced but robust platform to sell their wares. The fewer products and services that a company had to sell, the better. Again, I was stumped. From Yahoo Shopping Cart to Digital River to Demandware, there were so many players in the e-commerce platform business. What could Shopify possibly do to disrupt these growing giants? On top of this, Shopify was not in a fully-matured space. These competitive e-commerce platforms were still growing at a rapid pace. This was not the typical startup story that we read about, where a couple of university dropouts in a garage disrupt a one hundred year old business. Shopify was betting on being able to develop better and faster than those that were in the midst of already disrupting the retail business. 

How well could Shopify truly do?

Today, Shopify is a public company with a $5.1 billion marketcap (as of this writing). Over 325,000 stores have been developed on the Shopify platform. These stores have had more than $24 billion in sales on the platform. They are seen as leaders in the commerce business, and are the platform that powers many of the world's brands (small, medium and large businesses). They're more than just a company that sells a software. They built a subscription, cloud-based model, developed a massive marketplace and have truly revolutionized how people shop online... and offline. Today, there are many businesses that are thriving on developing new apps, designs and tools for those using Shopify. It is a true ecosystem. Many brands claim to have an ecosystem. Shopify does... and a growing one at that.

What I didn't see. 

There are countless business lessons here. The biggest, for me was: blinders. It's a simple as that. Their idea was not, necessarily, original to me. I had my blinders on. I could not imagine why any of their major competitors (and, this includes Amazon) would not be able to squish them with little effort. I didn't see the community and network. I didn't see the subscription model. I didn't see the ease-of-use of their tools. I didn't see their initial focus on the small business and solopreneur market (who were being completely ignored). There was much more. In short, I was prejudice against the idea, because the incumbants seemed so dominant. 

Harley Finkelstein, my friend.

Harley Finkelstein and I rarely discuss the details of business. Harley is now the Chief Operating Office of Shopify. He will say that I am a mentor of his. Maybe for the first week of our relationship. Candidly, I've learned more from him than he will ever admit. Yesterday, I sent him a random/private text that I will share here (I hope he doesn't mind): "Is it possible for one human being (me) to prouder of another human being (you)? I don't think so." Harley, Tobi and the entire leadership of Shopify impress me with each and every passing day. In one sense, I could not be prouder of their growth and progress. In another sense, their success is an excellent reminder to me to not look at things with blinders on. It's an excellent reminder that often those who are looking for a mentor can often provide so much more in return. It's an excellent reminder that business relationships can often lead to real-life friendships. It's an excellent reminder that when you're looking at business models, you have to dig deep and look for those who are really focused on their 1000 True Fans. It's an excellent reminder that you don't have to be in Silicon Valley to build a multi-billion dollar business. I can't thank Barry Pascal enough for that introduction to Harley so many years ago.

Ultimately, it's an excellent reminder to always let your friends know how you feel about them. 

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Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #344

Is there one link, story, picture or thought that you saw online this week that you think somebody you know must see?

My friends: Alistair Croll (BitCurrent, Year One Labs, GigaOM, Human 2.0, Solve For Interesting, the author of Complete Web Monitoring, Managing Bandwidth: Deploying QOS in Enterprise Networks and Lean Analytics), Hugh McGuire (PressBooks, LibriVox, iambik and co-author of Book: A Futurist's Manifesto) and I decided that every week the three of us are going to share one link for one another (for a total of six links) that each individual feels the other person "must see".

Check out these six links that we're recommending to one another: 

The Life-Changing Magic Of Decluttering In A Post-Apocalytpic World - The New Yorker. "Once the drones and wilful ignorance and misguided genomic experimentation take us down a spiral of Lovecraftian doom (see my link for Mitch), it's time to look on the bright side." (Alistair for Hugh).
Watch the Pentagon's new hive-mind-controlled drone swarm in action - The Washington Post . "I'm in an end-of-the-world kind of mood this week, for some reason. So here's what I'm thinking: Semi-sentient drone swarms. 'Due to the complex nature of combat, Perdix are not pre-programmed synchronized individuals, they are a collective organism, sharing one distributed brain for decision-making and adapting to each other like swarms in nature.' I think I've seen this movie." (Alistair for Mitch).
Silent Film GIFs Reveal the Special Effects Tricks of Early Cinema - Flavorwire . "Fun set of gifs showing the craft behind the magic of some early cinema special effects." (Hugh for Alistair).
The Case for Not Being Crybabies - The Talking Points Memo . "OK, I give up. I can't avoid sending political links. This one can get away with being called a ' edia' link... but in any case: Josh Marshall (the first independent web journalist I started reading back before the US invaded Iraq, er, 15 years ago (!?!!), tells journalists: stop whining and do your job. We can only hope." (Hugh for Mitch).
Don't Tell Your Friends They're Lucky - Nautilus . "Control is a funny think. You work hard. You apply yourself. You're smart. You've done everything right, so you should be successful. Right? I don't buy it. Sorry. People get really upset when I talk about luck... and how much that has to do with the success of those that we admire. It really does come down to control. Work hard and you get lucky? Sure. I think people have a way of slanting luck in their favor. But... let's not diminish that a lot of what looks like smarts, hard work and more is, simply, luck. Whether you like it or not." (Alistair for Mitch). 
Write As If You're Already Dead - The Mission - Medium . "Well, here's a long read on a topic that I, personally, struggle with. It's also a long read for brands that try to create content. It's about holding back and what that brings (or does not). It's about how to dig deep and tell real stories. Why is this so important? Stories last and endure. We, the protein vessels of those word, do not. So, why hold back? Why not lay it all out there? I wonder what the world of advertising and content marketing would look like, if writing as if you're already dead was job one?" (Mitch for Hugh).

Feel free to share these links and add your picks on Twitter, Facebook, in the comments below or wherever you play.

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 wpp

Ad Agencies Are Not Dying. In Fact, It's Quite The Opposite

Just what, exactly, is going on in the marketing industry?

Almost three years ago, our digital marketing agency, Twist Image, was acquired by the largest marketing communications network in the world, WPP. Nearly two years ago, we changed our name to Mirum and became a global digital marketing agency, after bringing together several digital marketing agencies that had been acquired/a part of the J. Walter Thompson Company (also owned by WPP). I've recounted the story behind the acquisition of our business, and how it has worked out (see: The World Of Mirum). One of the core realities we faced prior to acquisition was the general consolidation that our industry was facing on a global scale. In short, it was getting harder and harder to win the more interesting pieces of business being an independent agency. Some have managed to make it on their own, most have either been acquired by a larger organization... while others didn't even survive. 

Today, things are changing.

Now, it's no longer these big advertising holding companies that are doing the acquisitions. In fact, Business Insider published an article yesterday titled, Consulting firms, cloud companies, and publishers bought more marketing startups in 2016 than the major ad agencies. From the news item:

"Of the 398 marketing startup acquisitions in 2016 only 22% were made by the six major advertising groups, who had to fight it out with consulting companies, IT firms, and publishers... The total deal value rose to $14 billion, 150% more than in 2015. Consulting firms made considerable moves into advertising agencies' turf last year with acquisitions of small creative agencies."

I thought the marketing/advertising agency model was broken and, quickly becoming a bad business?

Not true. I never said that. Still, that is much of the rhetoric that you will read if you do a simple Google search. "The model is old. The model is antiquated. The model needs to be reinvented. The model is broken. Brands don't need agencies anymore." It's just not true. $14 billion dollars was spent last year in acquiring marketing service-driven organizations. 150% more than was spent the other year. This is not (just) the usual suspects buying for organic growth and strategic positioning. If the agency model is so broken, why are consulting firms, accounting firms, IT firms, publishers and platforms all competing with the multi-billion dollar advertising holding company juggernauts for these businesses? Why are all of these multi-billion dollar organizations now acquiring companies in secondary and third-tier markets? What are all of the large organizations doing acquiring shops with a couple hundred employees in them?

They're not buying Silicon Valley. 

If you believe the rhetoric, they are buying out-dated businesses with struggling business models. IBM is buying boutique creative shops, while Google, YouTube and Vice have all picked up niche marketing agencies, that specialize in everything from branded content to influencer marketing. Agency's are not antiquated. It turns out that agencies are the exact kinds of businesses that those who are talking about (and selling) business transformation, disruption and the future are buying.

Think about that for a second. 

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Be More Human Without Being Too Personal To Build Your Brand

There's a new discourse happening online.

In a world of uncertainty, fear and a platform that lets hate be distributed at scale, many people (myself included) are feeling a very different sentiment. As brands (and their messages) are being throttled and only pushed when paid for, it seems like the real humans are still able to make some real connections online. That's a big deal. In my first business book, Six Pixels of Separation (published in 2009), I put forward something that I had previously written about on my blog - and an idea that (still to this day) gets me excited about brands, consumers, technology and how marketing connects it all... these channels enable real people to make real connections. And, yes, "real people" does include brands (and the people that work for them).

The fear of oversharing.

There is also a sense that because people don't understand how media and publishing truly work, that these social channels have become a graveyard of TMI (Too Much Information) and oversharing (please, show me what you're eating for lunch!). I've seen this before. You've seen this before, too. There are those who post cringeworthy commentary that causes behind-the-back chatter. And, yes, there is also content that can be very "career-limiting." There are those who share so much, that it might be considered a personal security risk (be it location, information about children, etc...). It pays to be wise. Not everyone is. Still, what we're really experiencing is a world where billions of voices, opinions and feelings are being shared in a very public way.

We're one, big raw nerve, aren't we? 

We're not. Many people now believe that social media is "fake news" (check this out: Words Matter. Definitions Matter More... Or The Problem With Fake News). I'm guilty of tossing this line around: "Facebook is the brand of 'me' that I want people to think about when they think of me." It's true that social media is, typically, our best foot forward. It's true that it's hard not to humblebrag or self-promote, in a world where if you don't share what you're up to, maybe no one will. I, personally, like it when people share news about their family, friends, work and community. It makes me feel more connected to people that I know, like and trust (regardless of how much time I get to spend with them in their 'protein forms'). Digital channels have not replaced human interactions, for me. Digital channels have me more empathetic and connected to people who would have (sadly) fallen off of my radar. 

Digital channels are real. So... be real on your digital channels.

I recently said this to a friend of mine who is looking to bolster their professional presence, but is a very private person. This person pushed back. They asked how I could offer up this kind of advice, in a world where I rarely share any information about my own family, friends, etc... It's true, I am also very private when it comes to family, friends and sharing videos, pictures, etc... in public. It (probably) stems from my days as a journalist in the pre-Internet world. It was a day and age when the byline was the public persona, because it was really the content of what I was writing that mattered most. There's something there for a psychiatrist and I to chisel away at. With that, there is a simple way to be more human, to be more real and to share online without going against your privacy and values...

Be personable, not personal.

This doesn't mean that we should stop being personal. It means that if you're not interested in sharing personal information, but still want to be a part of these real interactions between real human beings online, you can do it by staying within your professional area of comfort. Just amp up the personable part a little bit more. Don't sound like a press release. Sound like a human. Share like you would speak. Share with an opinion. This goes for brands too. In fact, one of the biggest challenges that brands face happens when they get too personal on social media. It doesn't carry, and the public pushes back. Hard. Some the brightest minds online - the ones with millions of followers, big revenues, etc... - are not personal at all. They don't share much about their personal lives or daily emotional struggles, but... they are highly personable. You better connect with what they are saying because of how they are saying it. Be personable... you don't (always) have to be personal.

A small tweak of words. A big opportunity (for all of us) to have more real interactions with real people.

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Words Matter. Definitions Matter More... Or The Problem With Fake News

Everything is not fake news.

Before we get started, let's all agree that this is not a political post. This is a post about branding, definitions, public perception and the power of the words that we - as businesses - use in marketing.

Here's something to think about: CNN is not fake news. Fox News is not fake news. What is fake news? Fake news is someone (or a bot) that builds a website or social media page that either looks like a legitimate news source or spoofs a legitimate news website by stealing its branding. Fake news is also the creation of completely fabricated information that is then published on this fake news website/social media page with the sole intent of making it seem legitimate. Fake news is also the purchasing of advertising that is directly targeted at the audience that is more than likely (based on data) to push this fake content to be shared, published and exchanged in real pages (this way, the fake news becomes legitimate content on real pages). Fake news is also everything above, but done using dark posts, so that the content is only seen by those who it is targeting. Then those consumers will share and re-publish this content, to make it appear more legitimate.

That is (in a very simplistic way) what fake news is.

Partisan news outlets are not fake news. They are, simply, slanted to cover a particular side in a particular way. When news outlets get the news wrong or promote salacious content, they are not "fake news." They are being partisan, they are being salacious and they are making mistakes. When news outlets post op-ed or editorial pieces, they are not fake news... they are publishing the opinion of an individual (whether we like them or not). 

Think about it this way...

If you don't agree with this thinking, you can easily point to this article and call it "fake news." It is not fake news. It is content that you don't agree with... or it is content that I may have gotten wrong... or it's my own opinion about a topic and you, simply, do not agree with it. That doesn't meet the definition of fake news... not by a long shot. Still, if someone has a voice, audience and media attention, and trains everybody to believe that fake news is everything stated above - all of it - it can take hold.

And, it has. And, that's very scary.

People (not just those in power) have become habituated to think that news that is slanted with opinion or that has a mistake in it is the same as fake news, as defined above. You don't have to like the state of the news media business, but we can't just paint a brush and say, "that's fake news!" It's not only unfair, but it's untrue. It also has substantive problems moving forward for all of us, as a society. You can distrust the media. You can be skeptical of the media. You can fall anywhere on the spectrum of media literacy, from believing everything blindly (on one side) to being a total conspiracy theorist (on the other side). This doesn't make the news fake. It makes your level of belief and/or disbelief sway. Labeling major news media outlets as "fake" and allowing this to trickle down and permeate society puts everyone in a very precarious situation. The news was a place that allowed information to flow. It wasn't always perfect. It wasn't always mistake free. It was (and still is) the institution between the power brokers and the general public (who are always the most affected by this power).  

Don't mistake facts for opinions.

With that, it's fine to question the facts or layer onto the facts an opinion, political stance, religious perspective, etc... but if we fall into the trap of believing that there are no more facts, we are doomed. If we believe that everything we're exposed to in the news is an opinion (and can be called "fake news"), there is a root problem here. Facts that add colour do give us a perspective. Fabricated stories that read like news or appear to be facts are not a perspective. There is an important distinction here. Most of what is being called "fake news" is not. If we allow it to be labelled as such, the implications are terrifying.

Think about your brand.

Think about your consumer. Think about how you sell to them. Think about your content. Think about your branding. Think about your products and services. If we are in a world where anyone (senior leaders included) can say things like, "the news is fake," how will this trickle down to brands? How does this affect positioning, our ability to communicate and connect and, ultimately, customer service? For me, I believe that the news media is not perfect, but being labelled and accepted in the same vein as "fake news" is shameful. It is with ease that this notion has taken hold. I worry for the future of brands and their ability to be more transparent and open, when our society has become so accepting of this type of labelling.

Words matter. Definitions matter more.

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Apple Had Over 40% Of The Wireless Headphone Market, Facebook Tests Mid-Roll Ads And More On This Week's CTRL ALT Delete Segment On CHOM 97.7 FM

Every Monday morning at 7:10 am, I am a guest contributor on CHOM 97.7 FM radio out of Montreal (home base). It's not a long segment - about 5 to 10 minutes every week - about everything that is happening in the world of technology and digital media. The good folks at CHOM 97.7 FM are posting these segments weekly on iHeart Radio, if you're interested in hearing more of me blathering away about what's going on in the digital world. I'm really excited about this opportunity, because this is the radio station that I grew up on listening to, and it really is a fun treat to be invited to the Mornings Rock with Terry and Heather B. morning show. The segment is called, CTRL ALT Delete with Mitch Joel.

This week we discussed: 

Over the holidays, Apple finally started shipping their highly-anticipated AirPods - wireless/Bluetooth headphones. Lots of positive reviews, plus this stunning piece of data: Apple has over 40% of the wireless headphone market. How did that happen so fast? Well, it turns of that AirPods are a runaway success, and the fact that Apple owns Beats... and there you go. Since the AirPods were released, Apple has 26% of the market and Beats has 15.4%. To compare, Bose is at 16.1%... and this is just the beginning for wireless headphones.        
How quick are you to skip an ad on YouTube? YouTube is a huge advertising money-maker for brands. Well, are you skipping more of less than millennials? It turns out that 59% of millennials skip ads on YouTube. Some argue that this is a good thing?         
It's possible that Facebook either did or did not see the data about YouTube above. Apparently, Facebook is testing mid-roll ads. Facebook will require videos with mid-roll ads to be "at least 90 seconds in total, and a user has to watch a minimum of 20 seconds to be shown an ad. The company is capping ad length at 15 seconds, (compared with 30 seconds for YouTube ads). Publishers will receive 55% of the revenue generated by these ads, which is the same revenue-split that YouTube offers their video creators." Why is Facebook doing this? They're running out of ad inventory. Good news for their accounting department. Bad news for users? 
App of the week: Lose It! 

Take a listen right here.

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The Intersection Of Marketing And Analytics With Avinash Kaushik - This Week's Six Pixels Of Separation Podcast

Episode #549 of Six Pixels of Separation - The Mirum Podcast is now live and ready for you to listen to.

Let's start this new year off right, shall we? He's back! Google's Digital Marketing Evangelist, bestselling author (Web Analytics - An Hour A Day and Web Analytics 2.0), powerful blogger (Occam's Razor), friend and marketing big brain, Avinash Kaushik. His monthly posts may as well be business books, and his insights into what should really count today for marketing is refreshing. He's got an attitude, he is full of passion, and he has some ideas about what we all need to be thinking about in this day and age. More recently, Avinash also lauched his own, personal, e-newsletter titled, The Marketing-Analytics Intersect (you best sign up for it), and we're back to look at what happened in 2016, what we see coming in 2017 and, what's exciting (but isn't going to happen any time soon) in the world of analytics and marketing. Enjoy the conversation... 

You can grab the latest episode of Six Pixels of Separation here (or feel free to subscribe via iTunes): Six Pixels of Separation - The Mirum Podcast #549.

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Why Personal Branding Is Like A Viral Video... And Why It Shouldn't Be

"Personal Brand"... talk about a saying that has become so polarizing.

The year was 1997. Business thinker Tom Peters grabs the attention of the world with his Fast Company article, The Brand Called You. It truly does usher in a new era. 

"It's time for me -- and you -- to take a lesson from the big brands, a lesson that's true for anyone who's interested in what it takes to stand out and prosper in the new world of work."

This new idea that all of us are now the CEO of our own company. This new idea that all of us can truly control and work on how we stand out in a crowd. Control and and define what we're known for, and leverage these assets to build more personal value, wealth and success. While these were not new-ish concepts, there was with new focus on the relationship between Nike's ability to captivate millions of consumers, and the thinking that  we - as individuals - should do the same. 

The timing could not have been more perfect.

Just after Peters' brought this idea forward, the nascent world of social media would begin to take hold (blogging or online personal journals would start gaining traction with the platform Blogger). It's interesting to look back and see just how prescient Tom Peters was, in a world where email was the most advanced form of technological communication the world was still trying to wrap its collective head around.

"The same holds true for that other killer app of the Net -- email. When everybody has email and anybody can send you email, how do you decide whose messages you're going to read and respond to first -- and whose you're going to send to the trash unread? The answer: personal branding. The name of the email sender is every bit as important a brand -- is a brand -- as the name of the Web site you visit. It's a promise of the value you'll receive for the time you spend reading the message."

Imagine how different Tom's thinking would have been if blogging, online social networks, podcasting, YouTube, and the smartphone were around back then. And, that's the real point here: I'm not sure if Tom (or you... or me) haven't muddled this valuable concept of the "personal brand" into something more like "personal advertising" (aka "inflating one's own tires").

A personal brand is not about how loud you shout or how many followers you have.

Social media changed us. It changed who we are. It changed how we connect to another. It changed how we define fame. We live in a very strange world where individuals chase this idea of building a "personal brand" while sacrificing what their real personal brand is all about. Our lives should be about how we build relationships and add value to one another.

This isn't about being anti-personal branding.

There is no doubt that the world of social media has brought forward many new, fascinating and interesting voices that we may have never heard from if we were still stuck in the traditional media complex. Even old-school media professionals can have their own platforms and content amplified  to expand on ideas or stories that the bigger media channels don't cover. Big thumb's up to social media for facilitating so many voices to be heard. Still, many people chase a personal brand as if it's something that must be fabricated and promoted. They're focusing more on the antiquated definition of a "brand" and forgetting all about the "personal" part of it. Again, hunting likes, followers and shares over building anything of substance. 

Personal branding is not a bad word.

So, here's the thing: Personal branding is not bad, but personal branding should never be the reason why you are publishing. A strong personal brand is the outcome. Personal branding is like having a viral video. Many people will tell you that they know the secrets, strategies and how to build one, but the truth is that it can't simply be manufactured. If you create a strong video, it resonates, it gains distribution, and the timing works (dash a whole lot of luck on top of that)... you *might* have a viral video on your hands. You can't really plan for viral video success. You can't really plan for personal branding success. Viral success or having a strong personal brand is the outcome of efforts well-received.

Ultimately, Tom Peters is right (he usually is)...

"No matter what you're doing today, there are four things you've got to measure yourself against. First, you've got to be a great teammate and a supportive colleague. Second, you've got to be an exceptional expert at something that has real value. Third, you've got to be a broad-gauged visionary -- a leader, a teacher, a farsighted 'Imagineer.' Fourth, you've got to be a businessperson -- you've got to be obsessed with pragmatic outcomes. It's this simple: You are a brand. You are in charge of your brand. There is no single path to success. And there is no one right way to create the brand called You. Except this: Start today. Or else."

With all of the evolution for us to connect and publish since 1997... this is where we are. Stop chasing likes. Start chasing a true voice.

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