This is a direct response to Carlos Miceli’s post on Owl Sparks: Prison, Fear, and Personal Branding
You know that feeling you have when you first meet someone? It’s that feeling that you have to put your best foot forward so that you can make the best first impression. We have this feeling at networking events, job 
interviews, and when we finally get the courage to talk to the girl we like.
When we put our “best foot forward,” are we really being ourselves? Or are we just putting up a facade of a “better self” that we think people would like to meet?
When it comes to the social media world, personal branding has taught us that we need to constantly showcase our best selves so that we consciously brand ourselves the way we want people to view us. But in doing so, are we losing our real selves in the process? Does your social media brand match your real life brand?
Ways to break out of the prison
1. Stop agreeing with everyone
For the next week, I want you to ONLY leave a comment on a blog IF you completely disagree with the author’s point of view. No more agreeing with blog posts! Comments that disagree are not only more interesting, but they generate great discussions and debates on the blog post that usually lead to new ideas and concepts.
2. Trim the fat
Take a good day to sit down, go through your Facebook and Twitter profiles, and un-friend/unfollow people who you are not close friends with. If you do not have an intimate relationship with the person, then there is no need for you to be friends with them on Facebook or to Follow them on Twitter.
Doing this is not only liberating, but you’ll begin to build closer ties to the people that matter in your life.
3. Write a controversial blog post
The best debaters are able to argue their opponents argument better than the opponent himself. Find a topic in your niche that is HOT. Find one that is very biased towards one side of the argument and write a post arguing for the other side. It doesn’t matter if you don’t agree with the other point of view, as long as your argument is well thought out, coherent, and makes people want to debate with you.
You’ll not only stir up a great conversation online with your post, but you’ll drive more traffic to your blog and gain a new readership.
Be yourself online
Try these three exercises and let me know what you think. The more you practice them, the more comfortable you’ll feel about being yourself online.
Author:
Jun Loayza is the Co-Founder of Viralogy, the Social Media Rank, and the President of SocialMediaMarketing.com, a social media marketing agency. You can find out more about Jun at his personal blog – Young Entrepreneur.
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Disagree with #2! I am not on Twitter to only communicate with people that I have an intimate relationship with. I am there to build relationships and share information. I have been able to gather and education myself on so many topics since coming to twitter. The education value alone is huge! I never could have progressed without these connections. But they are not intimate relationships! They are relationships! Did I do your #1 request well?
Interesting and good post, but I disagree — specifically with #2. Facebook, yes, trim the fat. To me, facebook is an online community of my real life connections. I’m not going to be friends with people I don’t know. It’s a much more personal venue.
Not so for twitter. The beauty of twitter is that I follow people all the time whom I don’t know, and others whom I don’t know follow me. There’s a free-flowing exchange of ideas, deals, and websites on twitter that would be boring if I just followed people I knew. Yes, I follow real friends, but if they constantly RT interesting ideas from someone, why shouldn’t I follow that person making the original posts?
I actually never would have seen the link to this blog post on twitter if I didn’t happen to randomly follow @danschawbel because I saw someone RT something of his that was interesting. Follow random people on twitter! It’s fun!
I completely disagree with what you’ve written.
How’s that for a starter?
Seriously, while I agree that we need to be ourselves on-line and say what we really think, as a woman I think that this can become dicey very quickly. Whereas boys are socialized to spar, and generally rewarded for doing so, women tend to be penalized for the same behavior. Actively courting controversy can and does can hamper negotiations and damage working relationships, even friendships. Here are two posts I’ve written that touch on the topic.
Can Nice Girls Ask?
http://daretodream.typepad.com/weblog/2009/07/nice-girls-cant-necessarily-ask.html
Shark Tank: There are Boy Sharks, and Girl Sharks
http://daretodream.typepad.com/weblog/2009/10/shark-tank.html
P.S. Sorry you couldn’t make the Alan Webber event; would be fun to meet you.
Jun, following your advice no 1, am voicing my strong disagreement on point 2:-) “Unfollow everyone I don’t know personally on twitter?” Baloney! On the contrary, I have discovered and interacted with wonderful people online from USA/Europe/Australia and all parts of Asia/India, sitting in Mumbai. I have gained and shared knowledge/insights, and built personal/professional relationships (Found a few business leads coming my way as well) All by “being myself”.
Someone (on twitter obviously!) referred to it as the Hallway in the Cloud. I can understand why.
Appreciate your thoughts, but totally disagree with #2. Facebook sets up a lie making us think this is all about “friends”. If you really want to be different, make the rules of a platform what YOU want them to be, not what you are told by the masses they should be. Think of Facebook as a meeting of your local Chamber of Commerce. The REASON you go there is to meet new people, to make new contacts. Is there any reason you would NOT want to meet anyone in the room? Not if you are there to brand. Is there any reason you would want to offend anyone in the room? It would be stupid to do so, but if you show up and make it about “friends” then you will.
Reject the Facebook lie and operate Facebook differently. By doing so you will be stand out from the rest of the folks playing those silly games. Brands get distinction because they stand out, not because they blend in.
I’ve written about that in this blog post http://www.bretlsimmons.com/2009-10/personal-branding-the-power-and-peril-of-being-personal-in-facebook/
Hey Bret, thanks for your comment. I think Facebook IS a place to stay connected to your friends. I haven’t really met anyone new through Facebook.
It’s weird to randomly message someone out of the blue. I mean, unless you’re a hot girl, people don’t really reach out to you.
Well, I guess I should be more specific. From my blogging, I have had many people connect with me through Facebook. I think this is awesome; however, it’s hard for me to take the time to connect with everyone. Unless I’ve had a deep interaction with this person, I probably won’t look at her images or notes.
I think Facebook is a great way to stay in touch with people you care about.
As far as brands, I have only seen the major brands tangibly benefit. Of course Coca Cola is going to have a huge fan base. They’re huge!!! But small mom and pops don’t really benefit as greatly.
I’ll check out your blog post soon enough
I’m in agreement that I disagree with #2. I would be sacrificing too many people on both Facebook and Twitter if I dropped everyone I didn’t have a personal relationship with prior to social media. Actually many of them, I have grown a personal relationships with.so many people that I may never meet in real life.
I only moved into Facebook to network and build relationships So I agree with Bret on that point. I hear people say all the time, FB is only for my friends. What a better media for sharing your thoughts that FB? Photos and videos are so easy to share and you can really get a dialog going. Bret, I’ll visit your blog soon.
You wrote the controversial blog post and if this works right, Jun, you will get tons of comments.
Me too. I am not on Twitter with almost any close friends. That’s the point of it. It’s not that committed: it’s a social thing.
Also I have disagreed on blogs. But it’s just draining. People don’t post blogs to debate, they post to pontificate. Look at some blogs, they screen out content. So lots of people won’t let you disagree, especially if you have a good point.
I don’t either argue with strangers (or try not to) in public and that’s what this is.
However: point taken. It’s a good point because you have to be sincere as well. And it’s a good reminder of that!
[...] wasn’t conducive for inspiring activism within my network. So I took this as a challenge to overhaul over my online image to help change my network into activists like myself. While I wasn’t [...]
Well I disagree with no 1 as well as no 2. Sure, if you are in the habit of posting inane enthusiastic noise on blog posts then you should get a life. But disagreeing for the sake of it is just as dumb. Frankly, life is not simply about agreeing or disagreeing; usually, the author has a point but you can complement it from another perspective. Be constructive, interesting and to the point, always assuming that the purpose of the blog article you are commenting on is in the first place to generate the kind of debate in which you are engaging – no one likes a smartass, least of all the blogger her- or himself.
I will disagree with your point about disagreeing and leave an ambiguous comment.
I am not in the corporate world. So personal branding is new to me since Aug. 24 when Mr. Schawbel changed my universe via his book. Your article violates everything about personal branding as i know it. How dare you suggest that people be real?! That violates our entire ad-soaked, corporate-dominated culture. I therefore choose not to believe you since I don’t like what you say.
Bet you don’t get invite back as a guest writer. Good for you.