All the (Social Media) World's a Stage
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I had a meme go viral on Twitter last Saturday. It was an observation I’ve had about common paths people take with their branding:
That post being seen by over 600,000 people is wild.
But there was a serious note to my meme as well. Over my 3 years on Twitter, I’ve seen many accounts use profile pics of:
• Marcus Aurelius
• Tommy Shelby from Peaky Blinders
• Tyler Durden from Fight Club
• Patrick Bateman from American Psycho (which I finally watched last weekend)
• Charlie Munger / Warren Buffet / Elon Musk / other rich dude
The profile pics are typically related to the niche. Statue profiles talk about Stoicism. Shelby and Durden pics talk about masculinity. Bateman pics talk about being a psychopath with good taste in music. Rich dude profiles talk about money.
It’s almost like they embody the person in their profile pic… but, especially because they aren’t using their own face, they lose a lot of what makes them themselves. They blend in to the sea of everyone else using those pics and talking about those topics.
It’s good to have a theme, a niche, and a brand personality. But it’s also important to be yourself, have your own voice, and show your own personality.
This is important whether or not you choose to be anonymous. That leads me to my point today:
The core of your branding isn’t the visual elements (your profile pic, colors, banner image). It’s the content elements (what you say, how you say it, what unique authority/experiences/perspectives you have).
I’ve worked with many beginners across my 1:1 consulting and in communities like Modern Mastery and Create 24/7. One of the biggest mistakes they make as they start is fixating too much on the visual elements of their brand. They think the visual elements are their entire brand… but they forget about the content side of their brand.
There are hundreds (if not thousands) of people talking about any topic you can think of. I’m a productivity guy. I constantly see new people entering “my” space every single week.
That used to bother me. My ego would say “I’m the productivity guy!” I’d resent those new “competitors” in “my” space instead of cooperating with them.
I finally realized I shouldn’t get frustrated about the thousands of other productivity people out there. What I should do is find ways to stand out and be different. Talk about things from a unique perspective. Share my unique experiences. Use my unique inside jokes (the color purple is 42% of my personality).
That’s something no one else can ever replicate (other than copy and pasting it). The people who resonate with it will like be drawn in. The people who don’t like it will go find other people to follow.
That’s totally fine with me. Trying to be liked by everyone leads to being ignored by everyone.
But a key here – even if (especially if) you’re anonymous and using a profile pic like the ones above, you need to be different. There are a thousand Marcus Aurelius profiles telling us how to live a Stoic life.
How are you different? Why should I follow you instead of any one of the others?
So, your homework for this week, is to ask yourself these questions:
• What audience(s) do I want to talk to?
• What do I want to help them do?
• What topics do I want to talk about?
• What experiences, perspectives, and transformations can I share?
• What do I want to embody in the visual and content sides of my brand?
Write down your answers. This will give you a clearer idea of the role you should play in our online world. As Shakespeare said, we play many roles in our time, and so too does our brand evolve over time.
I hope this helps you start (or evolve) your own brand.
Feel free to reply to this email if you’d like my thoughts on your account(s).
Til then, stay warm, and keep evolving,
Joey Justice
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