Are you worried your corporate marketing department and lawyers are going to stop you from creating your personal brand? If you are, this post is for you and for the corporate control freaks fighting a fool’s battle.
The marketing department has lost control of the brand
When I write and talk about personal branding, quite often I get a comment that goes something like this, “that is a great idea and I would like to try creating my personal brand but my corporate marketing department does not want me representing the corporate brand in an uncontrolled fashion.” Unfortunately, there are marketing departments that police their employees because the company is stuck in the past. I call these marketing departments and companies dinosaurs because they will eventually police their way into extinction. Don’t let the dinosaurs stop you.
Dinosaurs don’t understand that by encouraging their employees to create and spread content the company will be the beneficiary of word of mouth marketing, more impressions, and more exposure. Best of all, the companies that encourage their employees to use social media platforms will be seen as a part of the conversation and as a company that cares. This is the new way to do business and create relationships with your customers that support your brand. Your customers and employees own the brand — the company dinosaurs do not.
What to do if you work for dinosaurs?
I would let them know they lost control of the corporate brand a long time ago. Pull up a quick Twitter or Google search if they do not believe you. Then I would get to work ASAP on creating some awesome content that I could share with the world. I would create an asset that I owned. I would not wait. I would create a revolution. The opportunity is too big and it is not going to come beat down your door. You must go to it.
Here is the big idea
There is no such thing as controlling the corporate brand. The era of big media and corporate marketing controlling the message is over. And your corporate marketing department has absolutely no control over what people say about the all mighty corporate brand. None.
There are already conversations happening online about your brand as people tweet, update their Facebook status, and write blog posts. Is your marketing department going to try and control these people too? C’mon man!
Control in the Web 2.0 world is a myth and fool’s game. Live in reality and don’t be a fool.
Start creating awesome content, share it with the world, and you will be on the highest level of differentiation. You will get attention and the opportunity to do what others only dream of.
Now it’s your turn
What do you think about corporate marketing and control? What is your marketing department like? Will they let you create your own content or will they freak out? Please share your comments.
Author:
Chad Levitt is the author of the New Sales Economy blog, which focuses on how Sales 2.0 & Social Media can help you connect, create more opportunities and increase your business. Chad is also the featured Sales 2.0 blogger at SalesGravy.com, the number one web portal for sales pros, the professional athletes of the business world. Make sure to connect with him on Twitter @chadalevitt.
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@everyone: What are some of the personal branding trends you would like me to explore in future posts? I want your feedback! Leave a comment.
still very intrigued with your Personal Branding in the Cloud platform … or words to that effect.
@Wendy: What areas would you like to see explored? Questions you have? Let me know!
I think you need to focus more on how to deal with managers who don’t trust their employees on using social media to promote corporate’ brand.
Now is the time for PR, Marketing and IT departments to begin to train their employees on ways in which they can successfully use social media and the internet to promote not only the company brand, but the employees personal brand as well! As the Marketing Manger for ShoreMaster, Inc., a leading waterfront equipment company, i’ve found that this approach has been very successful. The difficult part is getting other departments (IT in particular) to understand the reasons and the benefits of doing this.
Over the past few months I have helped our residential sales staff of 10 territory sales managers become acquainted with using social media, personal branding, and website design and creation. This information has flowed from those 10 territory sales managers to over 200 national ShoreMaster retailers which have used it to promote not only ShoreMaster’s products, but also the ShoreMaster TSM’s, and the other manufacturer’s lines that each dealer carries. Those 200 national retailers are the direct face of ShoreMaster, and as such, now have tons of new and meaningful ways with which to connect with their thousands of customers and hundreds of thousands of prospective customers.
Of course this doesn’t just happens on it’s own and it does require continuous effort. Some of the battles that Ihave faced is the proverbial “Fear” that many of the older, control-centric managers from other departments continue to spread and the reactions that are caused by that fear such as blocking acess to certain social media platforms, websites, etc.
The one thing that they are failing to realise is that the world continues to take place beyond the walls of the corporation in which they are trying to control. And their level of control ends at those walls. So, the linchpins (courtesy of Seth Godin) within the organization will continue to promote themselves and the company brand (positively or negatively) outside of the workplace. These are the people from the factory floor, on up to management who uderstand that the rules have changed and to survive as a company, get your message heard and take part in the conversation, no matter which platform in which that conversation is happening, sometimes you must act outside of the company walls, outside of the detrimentally self-imposed restrictions that are in place due to an outdated mode of thinking.
For any company or department within that company, restricting access to the conversation will ultimately lead to the extinction of that department or company. It’s really as simple as that!
@Mohammed: That could def be a good post — I’ve already got some ideas going. Thanks!
[...] Personal Branding Tip: Stop Trying to Control Your Employees and Brand Published: February 13, 2010 Source: Personal Branding Blog – Dan Schawbel Are you worried your corporate marketing department and lawyers are going to stop you from creating your personal brand? If you are, this post is for you and for the corporate control freaks fighting a fool’s… [...]
Chad, you are making a very valid point here. There are indeed many companies out there that still think they are in full control of their brands. Your article inspired me for a short blog post about Dinosaur Brands, http://www.schmoozyfox.com/2010/02/dinosaur-brands/
cheers, Olga