We increasingly talk about building a personal brand.
We tend to our profile picture, headline, bio, the tone of our writing, and the way we showcase our work. Our profile should be well organized, our message clear, and our presence consistent.
There’s nothing wrong with that.
The problem arises only when we invest more time in the image we project than in what justifies that image.
Because a personal brand and a reputation are not the same thing.
A personal brand is what we say about ourselves. A reputation is what others say about us when we’re not there to influence the story.
We can manage our personal brand. We have to earn our reputation.
We can have a perfect profile, a high-profile position, thousands of followers, and content that sounds flawless. But reputation is rarely built where everyone can see it.
It’s formed in much more ordinary situations—in whether we respond to someone from whom we have nothing to gain. How we treat someone who doesn’t hold a high-profile position. Whether we stand by what we’ve said even when it no longer suits us. Whether we’re the same person in our inbox, at a meeting, and in a public post.
There isn’t much room left to curate an image here. That’s why I sometimes feel we’ve reached an era when some people have a better-developed personal brand than they do a personality. Perhaps that’s precisely why reputation is even more valuable today. It isn’t built solely on a good profile and carefully crafted posts.
It takes time. After all the titles, photos, posts, and followers, only one fairly simple question remains: What do people really think when they hear your name? A personal brand can bring you attention.
Your reputation determines what happens next.
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