Your Personal Brand

Is it mainly personal or brand? Or both?

by Mike Brown

Following-up yesterday's article that started out as a Twitter DM conversation, today's does too. Kate Wilson and I got into a discussion about maintaining multiple Twitter identities for different content streams.

As my personal branding has evolved, I've switched my Twitter focus from @mikebrown to @Brainzooming. Why? When I first signed up for Twitter, the Brainzooming name was still 7 months from popping into my head. Beyond these two names, I have a couple of related ones for live tweeting, and another active account (along with a corresponding humor blog) that's not affiliated with my name or the Brainzooming brand.

Kate's point was you shouldn't need multiple Twitter identities. Instead, she recommends letting your full personality come through in a single identity. People will either accept your full range of messages and personality or not; you ultimately stick with the 'takers' and drop the 'leavers'. She commented that first and foremost, personal branding is about the person, and you shouldn't need a strategy on how to be a person.

Her last comment really hit on the fundamental difference we have on this topic. To me a personal brand is equal parts person and brand. From that, it's only natural you'd apply brand strategy principles to how you carry out your personal brand. This opens the door to multiple personal brands with different promises, attributes, and affiliations to your main brand. Some people have one audience; others have more than one audience. In that case, it doesn't make sense to think that each audience wants exactly the same things from your brand.

Kate's point of view forced me to grapple with whether having multiple personal brands is disingenuous. While she got me teetering on the idea through her tweetering, ultimately I'm sticking with my approach to personal brand strategy, although it's always open to change.

In the interim, what's your take on the topic?


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Mike Brown is an award-winning innovator in strategy, communications, and experience marketing. He authors the Brainzooming^TM blog, and serves as the company's chief Catalyst. He wrote the ebook "Taking the NO Out of InNOvation" and is a frequent keynote presenter.