6 Ways Your Personal Brand Is Limiting You
Professionally, personally, and creatively, branding is important. But when is it too much?
I work as a product namer and a novelist, so trust me when I say I know that branding is important — and not just for social media influencers, both real and aspiring. In today’s professional world, a personal brand makes sense. The right online self-presentation can bring you new opportunities, collaborations, clients. It can also help clarify what you want from your life and your career.
Besides, some things just demand to be turned into content. I often find myself catching up with an author friend, only to end the evening looking knowingly at each other: We should document this, right? Look at us being so writerly, getting together to talk literary things!
But what does a snapshot of me and another published person prove, exactly? Sometimes it’s totally harmless fun. And sometimes — at least in my case — it’s an attempt to prove to an online following that I’m an author in a world makes me feel anything but.
Public brand maintenance can be obnoxious, a statement that’s obvious to anyone who’s ever had a friendly brunch turn into a hashtag workshop (#foodstagram? #brunchstagram? #brunchstafoodstagramstagram?) Maintaining a personal brand is…
