In 1997, the marketing personality, Tom Peters wrote that the most important key to be in business was to be “CEOs of our own companies” referring that, in fact, we were the brand, the company. He actually named it the “Me, inc”. Peters considered that our most important job, was to be the head marketer of the brand “you”; this point of view probably worked for entrepreneurs in the 90’s, nowadays, it doesn’t.
In our age, many entrepreneurs spend their time trying to build their personal brand; they also focus their effort and attention on building their own businesses to the point that instead of constructing a strategy, they are just running a “self-promotion” campaign. Social Media performs an important role here: social networks became the channels that entrepreneurs commonly use to blog, tweet and post any kind of information about their “Me, Inc.”. Some marketing gurus consider that with this actions, entrepreneurs are trying to “yell as loudly” as they want, and even “selling themselves to death”.
The original goal of what Peters wrote on 90’s was creditable, it referred to the fact that personal branding had to be built to develop meaningful relationships between brands and customers. As Peters considered, becoming an “influencer” would help entrepreneurs to reach their marketing goals.
Now, in 2016, the branding trend took a totally opposite side: if you spend time building your brand, you run the risk of over boarding and letting social media to become a full-time job. Branding isn’t only about social networks, it is about strategies and results. Of course, being the CEO of “You” sounds really attractive and powerful, but in our age, we have reached a point of saturation of “influencers” that consider themselves as “leaders” with no strategies, but only hopes of becoming “ambassadors” of the brand they launched.
Via: Fastcompany.com