I must have written about 30 blog entries about personal branding over the past 5-years or so. Pretty much every single one said the same thing…
Your brand is the experience your customers/reader/viewers (whatever) have with your (product/service/whatever).
I believe this to my core.
You get the idea, right? It’s logical. Brand=experience. You cannot have a brand until the experience happens. In this case (story below), we’re talking face-to-face.
Here’s one of my best pieces over at MarketingProfs.com. Here’s another one about Google.
As I’ve mentioned many times before here on MPDailyfix.com, I’m a believer that your brand is the experience your customers have with your product/service/employees/blog/whatever. One of those “things” that is important in an experience with your brand is quality.
On to the point. Lately Mike Arrington of Techcrunch fame has been taking some major lumps to his brand. First, there was the miscommunication of his no-show at Blogworld, then today I’m reading a post by someone who felt she was not treated nicely by Mike at a party (his own party). And she muses… Bold is mine.
But this weekend, I discovered that Michael Arrington doesn’t understand one thing: there’s a time and place to be combative and complacent, and there’s a time and place to be collaborative and constructive…
I smiled and was just about to thank him when he snickered this out of the side of his mouth, “Whatever. It was certainly a pleasure meeting you too.†Then he turned his back to me and laughed with his friends.
This exchange left me completely… well, shocked to tell you the truth. Sure, Michael Arrington has a tremendously successful blog worth millions. People know him, respect his company, and may even respect his personality.
But is it all worth it? Because now, Michael Arrington also has one former reader sitting here wondering if anyone, other than his mother, really likes him.
2007 has also taught us that foul assholes are inevitably sniffed out. Genuinely rancid personalities are never good for business… they eventually just stink up the whole place.
Pretty harsh stuff. I have no idea if she’s right or wrong. Never met Mike. Perhaps she misread him? Maybe he really is a jerk? I don’t know.
What I do know is that your brand is the experience people have with you. Plain and simple. With blogs, it’s VERY easy now to have a meme spread that can destroy your personal brand.
Believe me, I’ve been blogging since 2001, and I’m completely over exposed. Heck, I’ve been Google-bombed by a malicious mob of political bloggers who didn’t like one of my blog entries. It’s easy to have your brand tarnished, sometimes even if it may not be deserved.
Check out some of the comments on the blog post bashing Mike. Pile on!
Wow… this is a blistering write up. I will say that Arrington is not the nicest guy in the world. I have met him on several occasions and he tends to make everyone, other than his immediate friends, feel like they are bothering him. It’s too bad, b/c he has a lot of influence and could really carve out a piece of web history for himself if he would just be pleasant.
Ew. This guy sounds like a total waste of time, insecure in his own success, as fickle a fraudulent politician.
Hum . . . too bad about this guy. I don’t know anything about the blogging world, except from reading yours and a coupla other blogs. I’m not surprised that there are jerks who act as foolishly as this guy did.
Protect your personal brand by, well… not being a jerk, and/or making sure people don’t misunderstand you. As for Mike, I hope to meet him someday to form my own brand experience. Until then, I’ll simply choose to take all the hearsay in stride.
