Shel Holtz and John Havens just published the book “Tactical Transparency.” The latest entry in the growing library of social media books is a very strong one. I highly recommend it to executives and communicators considering social media for any organization, but particularly within enterprises or non-profits that have 20 or more people working for them.

Here’s my video review:

Some more color… The thing I took away from the book was the theme of transparency, and how critical this new level of visibility is for organizational social media. While personality matters, this book is about more comprehensive corporate social media, and as such it’s more important to show the entity’s logic, efforts, reasons, as well as its people. In essence, what personality adds for the individual, transparency provides to the larger entity.

In addition, I really liked how Holtz and Havens blended brick and mortar examples of transparency with online versions. The reality is online works so much better when it’s integrated into traditional communications. It’s great to see a book recognize that.

My only minor critique is an overly strong focus on blogs as a tool. In comparison, while social networks are well discussed, they are not as well documented in comparison. With each passing year, I feel that social networks have become an increasingly critical component of corporate social media.

All in all, I rated it five stars on Amazon, and will be buying additional copies to provide to colleagues and clients. Well done, Shel and John! Buy Tactical Transparency today!

Fellow Georgetown University adjunct and SEC social media wonk Mark Story aptly dubbed the current post election government 2.0 craze a meme. And in doing so, he tagged me. It’s been a while since we’ve updated our ongoing coverage of the federal government’s adoption of social media, and the current excitement does prompt a new post. Why? Because, 15 years of DC-based experience tells me what a great challenge Obama faces bringing open online conversation to the world of federal government — in spite of his social media savoir faire.

To answer Mark’s question, I think the great social media promise for the Obama administration lies in freeing data. Tons of taxpayer data from poverty figures to weather information should be available to us all, but it’s trapped in ancient legacy IT systems.

Freeing data and serving taxpayers with access and usage will create a new world of context for Americans. Tim O’Reilly’s dream of a democratized web can come true. This will allow true governance and service to the taxpayer.

Social conversation with the government seems much less stimulating. While useful to governance, like most business or organizational social media it will be one dimensional. Consider the TSA blog.

More importantly, Obama has a great task ahead of him. I’ve sold more than $30 million worth of communications contracts to the federal government. I know how public affairs and IT departments conflict over web communications. And I know how legal precautions, procurement and legacy contractors can absolutely kill change in the government.

In reality, because of the way the federal government works, a good expectation for aggressive, systematic communications change in the government is two to three years. Consider that the Navy is leading the charge with the first set of social media guidelines for an entire agency.

Here are six reasons why Obama isn’t going to be turn the switch on walking in the door:

1) Sheer Girth: We’re talking about 26 federal agencies here, each the size of their very own automobile manufacturer. Think changing those organizations are hard? Try moving a bureaucratic organization that’s got no adherence to Wall Street, no real accountability to anyone (please don’t say Congress), with decades of strange processes and legal entanglements, legacy contracts already in place, and demoralized staff that have been abused for eight years by incompetent political appointees.

2) Culture of Fear: Government employees are afraid that if they do communicate, they will have their butts handed to them courtesy of the Washington Post or some other “investigative reporter” seeking to expose government ills. Think that’s wrong? Welcome to beltway reality, where scandals and incompetency are written about and discussed regularly. Every communication must be filtered through public affairs to protect agencies from embarrassment. The command and control ethos reigns here.

Just like any traditional enterprise, controlling the message and negative feedback will be huge issues for the bureaucratic public affairs departments. Often these folks are the last to adopt. Expect the public affairs department to fight for control on the government communications front for years.

3) Welcome to the World of Beltway Bandits: Sorry Silicon Valley. We actually have more IT workers than you do, in large part because of the federal government.

Massive IT companies hold legacy contracts in almost every agency, and big companies like Lockheed Martin and Raytheon won’t be quick to allow their private billion dollar systems be replaced by web app du jour. These local giants will do everything they can to protect their contracts, including lobbying and leveraging deep relationships throughout the agency procurement cycle.

4) CIOs: Government officials like to protect their budgets, and not yield them. Like a feudal system, the CIO’s office can function like a warlord, holding sway over multi-year million dollar contracts. Opening IT to the socialized web will not be easy here for a variety of reasons, but most importantly surrendering budget — even in a time of restricting budget — will not happen.

5) Security and Privacy: Securing government data is not just a priority, it’s essential. The more defense and security oriented, the harder it will be to sway government bodies to open data and information for the social web. Beefing up technologies like PHP-based WordPress will be a must.

6) Appointees and Procurement: These processes will slow down the process, too. Consider the following points:

No, the challenges for Obama are deep and significant. I expect change we will, but we won’t quickly. Think the 2010-2011 timeframe.

Because the conversation to date has been dominated by non beltway insiders, I’d like to tag some folks in the know. Andrea Baker, Chris Dorobek, Mark Drapeau and Helen Mosher, what do you think social media can do under Obama?

Ducati recently launched its new Streetfighter motorcycle with a reveal video and at the EICMA conference. Both events have been captured on YouTube, but for several reasons this online launch marks another corporate social media failure.

Yay. YouTube, but is that really social? Consider the lack of discussion on Twitter. How about blog posts? Only 285 in Technorati in all languages, including all of the prelaunch rumors.

In my mind, that means the community was not engaged. Companies who experiment with social media often make this mistake. They publish content instead of interacting with their stakeholders. They push messaging instead of engaging the community. Influencer relations and knowing the prominent Ducati owner and motorcycle influencers to involve them in the launch would have been savvy. Consider India’s Bikers on the Fastrack Facebook Group.

Heck, even the official web site doesn’t have the basic tagging and sharing principles that any major online product release should have. I don’t care whether you call that a social media release or just common sense. Consider that the reveal photos were not issued on Flickr though lots of folks at the show took them.

In addition to influencer relations and posting content in socially accessible locations, here are several pointers that Ducati could have benefited from:

What else would you suggest for this effort?

Wow! Twitter seems to be hotter than a volcano in the midst of eruption. And the social network has recovered its traffic from the second quarter, when it experienced systematic downtime in June.

Everywhere you go, you see Twitter. Consider the following:

Twitter has become so hot, and in a sustainable way, that it’s become impossible to ignore it. Marketers need to learn how to intelligently integrate Twitter into their online marketing efforts to enable their community to carry the ball forward with word of mouth marketing. The Solutions Stars Video conference owed a great deal of its success to the more than 1000 tweets on the event.

Note that companies can only enable the community, but viral happens when people care enough to talk on their own, not when companies force the matter. Twitter participation is highly interactive and social, so the usual broadcast method won’t work. In addition to active presence, that means providing hashtags, enable tweeting as a bookmark, and executing the proper etiquette. An interesting resource you may want to check out is Warren Whitlock and Deborak Micek’s new book, The Twitter Revolution.

More importantly, what’s next for Twitter? How far can the social microblogging network go?

Updated at 9:30 a.m.

“There’s no market for messages”

One thing has become readily apparent to me: Most social media communicators, “personal brands” (snort) and social media experts have neglected to read the Cluetrain Manifesto. Whether you agree with the principles in this book or not, in my mind it should be mandatory reading for anyone who conducts business communications on the Internet.

Many a social media consultant or online communicator have confided in me that they have not read the Cluetrain Manifesto. To me that’s as unforgivable as practicing law without a J.D. or practicing medicine without going to medical school and internships.

Cluetrain captures the essence of the uncontrolled business environment and they need to provide authentic, real dialogue based around the market’s needs. Without understand the fundamental dynamics of the social media form and the inherently uncontrived conversations it inspires, communicators are lost in the darkness.

At bare minimum communicators should read the opening salvo of 95 theses that comprise the Cluetrain Manifesto, Christopher Locke’s chapter, “Internet Apocalypso, and Doc Searls and David Weinberger’s contribution, “Markets Are Conversations.”

It get backs to community concepts which are at the heart of Now Is Gone. In many ways, Now Is Gone is the direct product of the Internet and Cluetrain’s unrelenting view that controlled and contrived business brand messages — personal or corporate — have no place on the Internet. Consider the boiled down thesis of the book and its seven principles of community development.

For me Cluetrain represents a great hope: That business can be done differently. The Internet and social media can become the elixir to revolutionize our corporate cultures of exploitation, and refocus it on social good, causes, and service to actual markets.

One of the reasons the whole personal branding movement disturbs me is that most personal branders are in actuality exploiting these tools to foster a new conversational, self-centered hucksterism that makes me sick. It’s not genuine or real, and I don’t want any part of it. Add your genuine personality to the conversation, not a contrived self image.

Here are my favorite 10 of the 95 theses from Cluetrain:

3) Conversations among human beings sound human. They are conducted in a human voice.

25) Companies need to come down from their Ivory Towers and talk to the people with whom they hope to create relationships.

26) Public relations does not relate to the public. Companies are deeply afraid of their markets.

33) Learning to speak with a human voice is not a parlor trick. It can’t be “picked up” at some tony conference.

34) To speak in a human voice, companies must share the concerns of their communities.

35) But first they must belong to a community.

61) Sadly, the part of the company a networked market wants to talk to is usually hidden behind a smokescreen of hucksterism, of language that rings false — and often is.

62) marketers do not want to talk to flacks and hucksters. They want to participate in the conversations going on behind the corporate firewall.

83) We want you to take 50 million of us as seriously as you take one reporter from THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

91) Our allegiance is to ourselves — our friends, our new allies and acquaintances, even our sparring partners. Companies that have no part in this world, also have no future.

Yesterday marked the one year anniversary of Now Is Gone’s release! So much has happened since then, it’s been amazing and humbling at the same time. Thank you to everyone who supported Now Is Gone (image by lunaweb).

I know Brian Solis also was humbled by the reception towards the book. For me, it was a life changing event (may write more about this on Off Hours), and the culmination of a 15 year dream of becoming an author.

Consider some of the milestones:

Perhaps the most exciting news is that we are approximately 2/3 of the way through the first print edition, and are starting to weigh edits/changes to the original manuscript. The second edition will provide an update, as well as the lessons learned. Some likely changes include more on influencer relations, more on social networks, less on blogs, more on the media’s use of social media, and fewer typos

A Final Bow for First Edition Sources

The following bloggers had either blog posts cited in and/or were interviewed for the first edition of Now Is Gone. Some of them won’t make it to the second edition as the book will change quite a bit.

These sources will remain listed permanently on the Now Is Gone blog to honor them and provide business readers additional source material. If you have questions about marketing the book, or the use of bloggers as sources, I refer you to the previous post, “Marketing Now Is Gone.” To the bloggers, thank you for creating great content in the new media world. The book’s sources are:

• Teli Adlam, The OptiNiche Blog
• Adam Aleman, FlashReport
• Todd Andrlik, Todd And: The Power to Connect
• Scott Baradell, Media Orchard
• Cam Beck, ChaosScenario
• Richard Becker, Copywrite
• Jordan Behan, Tell Ten Friends
• Toby Bloomberg, Diva Marketing Blog
• Bob, Bob Meets World
• Kristina Bouweiri, Make It Better
• Chris Brogan, ChrisBrogan.com
• C.C Chapman, Reality Bitchslap
• Ed Cotton, Influx
• Todd Defren, PR Squared
• Chris Dorobek, The FCW Insider
• Alicia Dorset, GM FastLane
• Kevin Dugan and Richard Laermer, The Bad Pitch Blog
• Eric Eggertson, Common Sense PR
• Li Evans, Search Marketing Gurus
• Kyle Flaherty, Engage in PR
• Susan Getgood, Marketing Roadmaps
• Heather Green, Blogspotting
• Lewis Green, Bizsolutionsplus
• Karl Greenberg, MediaPost Publications
• Chris Heuer, The Future of Communities
• Sally Seville Hodge, Marketing Profs
• Shel Holtz, A Shel of my Former Self
• John Horrigan, Pew/Internet
• Kami Watson Huyse, Communications Overtones
• Shel Isreal, Global Neighborhoods
• Beth Kanter, Beth’s Blog
• Rob La Gesse, Stuffleufagus
• Tim Leberecht, iPlot
• Charlene Li, The Groundswell
• Joe Lichtenberg, Marketing Profs
• Brian Lusk, Nuts About Southwest
• Valeria Maltoni, Conversation Agent
• Richard McManus, Read/Write Web
• Jake Matthews, 10e20
• Brian Oberkirch, Like It Matters
• Lee Odden, Online Marketing Blog
• Janice Partyka, GPS World
• Jeremy Pepper, Pop! PR Jots
• Ike Pigott, Occam’s Razr
• Chris Polito, Total Telecom
• Jeff Pulver, The Jeff Pulver Blog
• Aaron Reed, SYS-CON Media
• Laura Ries, Origin of Brands
• Kim Roach, Lifehack.org
• Frank Rose, Epicenter
• Jay Rosen, Press Think
• Hanni Ross, Successful Blog
• Darren Rowse, ProBlogger
• Steve Rubel, Micropersuasion
• Mike Sansome, ConverStations
• David Meerman Scott, Web Ink Now
• Doc Searl, Linux Journal
• Brian Solis, PR 2.0
• Steve Spalding, How To Split An Atom
• Michael A. Stelzner, Marketing Profs
• Amy Stodgehill, Green Options
• Mario Sundar, Marketing Nirvana
• Dan Tapscott and Anthony Williams, Wikinomics: The Blog
• Robb Tokatakiya, Tokatakiya
• Joe Wilkert, Publishing Blog 2020

Since last Thursday’s post, “I Don’t Care About Your Personal Brand,” there have been many conversations about why personal brands are or are not valid marketing models (image by Nirav Mehta). There have been some threads that unite to form general arguments for the personal brand, which deserve some discussion. Why? Because they fail to serve social media communicators who work with actual companies.

1) Self-centeredness: I’ve heard self awareness and self fulfillment as reasons to cultivate personal brands. Why don’t we just call this category self-centered since it’s the personal brand using excuses about self worth to cultivate a personal brand.

How does ego-centric branding help a corporation? Why would deploying self-centered brands positively help them affect change, stop contrived messaging and engage in real conversations?

Like the personal brand, companies have been too self-centered, and not market centric. This is the heart of the Cluetrain Manifesto. Any social media consultant needs to read this book, otherwise they will not understand the underpinnings of the social web.

Companies need to stop BS, and start conversing in real dialogue, as opposed to employing rock stars who may or may not offer value in conversations about larger products/solutions and market needs. Social media requires a human voice, not a rock star personal brand. Just a real person with a real voice reaching out in a genuine conversation.

I will say the two can coincide if the personality adheres to the company role. Consider Scott Monty and Shashi Bellamkonda.

2) Personal brands work for consultants: True. It works for the person. That’s great if you are an author or an independent “Army of One.”

See, the problem is an individual consultant’s model - personal branding - is being sold to companies, and it doesn’t work on a large scale. It does not work for corporate communications - my primary focus. Companies by their very definition are more than one person.

If you are Microsoft do you really want another Robert Scoble to come and go? Further, personal brands and rock stars undermine teams and the kind of collaborative cultures necessary for corporate success.

It’s about we, not me. This is a universal facet of all successful life relationships — personal or business. Look how $200 million worth of all-stars have benefited the New York Yankees. Zero rings since 2000.

3) Social Media: But it’s social media! Really? I don’t think there’s anything social about a contrived personal brand. I think being genuine and allowing your personality to come through in a conversation is social. Social media implies more than one (as does communications) in a conversation, and conversations offer genuine dialogue between people, not personal brands.

Personal branding is all about the individual. So when we communicate personal brands in social media spaces we’re messaging at people, rather than engaging with them. That makes for a pretty bad conversation, IMO. See Cluetrain again, and spare me the personal brand BS.

If you are over-cultivating an intentional personal brand, it’s contrived for business (or vanity) and does not equate to a real conversation. Conversations become a notch in your belt towards achieving your self-image rather than a meaningful, sincere two way conversation.

4) Personal branding is about building value: Really? Maybe. The way I was taught branding is that a brand is a promise about a service to the marketplace that’s communicated through visual and verbal communications, as well as the actual product/service experiences.

Building value is about selling stuff to people. Trust me, I do it everyday when I send emails to prospects that contain links to valuable articles related to their business.

So is personal branding promising to deliver something to the market, or is it salesmanship? If that persona is a consultant or an author then I would say a personal brand. But if not, I might argue the latter — it’s selling in the classic Jeffrey Gitomer sense.

And if building value is really branding an individual vis a vis thought leadership, how does that personal brand translate to a company’s brand and value proposition? It doesn’t do so very naturally, and I don’t see it as a smart social communications strategy for a company.

5) You need personality online: Yes! This is true. That’s why we recommend Rohit Bharagava’s book to clients who struggle with this. But there’s a difference between being yourself, and manifesting contrived “Flair” online. Sooner or later BS like this gets called out, or loses attention from the community.

The most successful individuals with thousands of followers on Twitter (the home of the personal brand) are those that just let it hang out in a natural way. They don’t monitor Qwitter for optimal following, etc. Instead, they do what they do, and share what they want. There’s no real formal strategy.

6) But you yourself are a personal brand: Am I? Umm, until someone else besides me gets Now Is Gone tattooed on their body, I’m not buying it. It’s gotta take more than a couple thousand friends and followers to become a brand. That bar is way too low. No, I’m just another mouthy blogger. Search Technorati, you’ll find we’re a dime a dozen (image by Shashi Bellamkonda).

No one comes to this company because I ride a Ducati. Or because I am particularly vocal on Twitter and on marketing issues like this one. In fact, one could argue that while my personality online rings through and I am genuine, that these aspects of my personality turn away some business opportunities. Clients come to us because of a proven, award-winning track record of social media successes.

Further, Geoff Livingston, the individual, is not Livingston Communications. There is more than a handful of people operating under this masthead, all with their own personal brand identities. In reality, promising me as Livingston Communications would be bad branding because it would be a lie. I can’t do all or even most of the work. That’s why we are a company, and one that hopes to add ownership partners in 2009.

I made this same point to personal brander Dan Schawbel. For the record, if you are an individual seeking to build a good consulting brand, I do think Dan’s blog offers great value..

It’s apparent that we’re in for a deep, long recession. As our leadership rallies to fight the economic tide, those of us with businesses (or individual careers) need to continue moving forward. With an eye towards the near future market of 2009, here’s my projections for the top six opportunities in social media next year (image by Adelswood).

1) Government: Obama is in and that means government 2.0 will start becoming a rapid adoption communications vehicle for federal, and then state and local will follow. It’s inevitable that Obama will want government to adopt the incredible grassroots tools that swept him into office. The key here isn’t building grassroots networks to get the word out; it’s to help communities and the government connect to facilitate faster more intelligent governance.

Tip for non DC types: Because of the political appointee and government contracting cycle, don’t expect to see any real dollars flow until bare minimum 3Q next year, more likely 4Q. October marks the beginning of the federal fiscal year and the first full year of spending under the big O. For those of you who need a fast brush up on federal procurement, check out my friend Jimmy Baker’s upcoming book on the topic.

2) Maintenance: Whether it’s auto or house repair, people will want to fix ‘er up rather than throw it out and buy a new one. Cost becomes a big issue, which can become a boon for the right companies that can market themselves intelligently. Social media tools can be used to provide value added conversations on how to maintain and repair.

Think Midas, Home Depot, Duron paints, etc. The business case is obvious, now it becomes a question of whether their executives have the vision and foresight to invest in marketing to maximize their opportunity.

3) Booze: Yup, one thing that’s historically true about troubled times is a boom market for producers of hard liquor, beer and wine. Get to know your local maker of spirits and engage with the community on stories about good times! Or how to brew your own. Or whatever. This one’s a no-brainer for anyone with the slightest bit of creativity.

4) Security: Bad times bring another traditional increase: Crime. That means security products — both commercial and personal — will be in higher demand. Related corporate social media can help people through these times by facilitating conversation on the topic… thus providing value add to the community.

5) Causes: With bad times come great causes. No communication tool set is better positioned to activate the public and engaged in grassroots education than social media. I expect to see (as well as participate in) some fantastic campaigns as cause communicators rely on these tools more and more frequently.

6) Technology companies: According to the Washington Post, six of the ten most capitalized companies still standing are tech companies. We’ve experienced some volatility with smaller tech cos this year, but some of our most stable accounts are also tech cos. There’s no question the tech sector will experience more volatility as the long awaited culling of un-needed or broken social technology cos happens, but good companies with strong solutions will continue thriving. Tech will do better than most sectors.

Would you add any other verticals to the 2009 “hot list?”

I have the great privilege of teaching a post graduate class next semester at Georgetown University, called “Social Media for Social Good.” Qui Diaz has agreed to teach with me, promising a high powered experience for social cause communicators seeking to engage their communities online.

Here’s a sneak preview of the syllabus for MPPR-785-01, “Social Media for Social Good,” including the text books…

Social media offers organizations an indispensable tool set for a wide variety of philanthropic activities including activism, education, donor and volunteer development, and direct fundraising. Because of its inherently personal and community-based nature, social media provides an ideal canvas to work within, allowing causes to not just communicate, but also to activate and invigorate significant grassroots activity.

To effectively use social media for social good, nonprofit communicators need to cross the great divide from one-way to two-way communications. This challenge should be easier for communicators to embrace since creating active publics is at the heart of good cause marketing, but it’s still a major challenge.

Communities and individuals associate their online activities with interests, character and personality. They inherently reject organizational insertion into their conversations. When it comes to social causes, the cause must inspire the individual on personal level, and then activate that person to engage in the larger community and corresponding conversations.

Conversational engagement and dissemination of cause-based ideas by the community, whether the organization participates or not, represents the heart of civic-minded social media. True “social” media – built with the right calls to action – can yield measurable results for impact: from cultivated relationships to widespread education, advocacy, volunteerism and donor giving.

Organizations need to transition from messaged communications at their audiences to understanding the community (and the people within it) in order to inspire and engage in larger conversations. This requires a significant shift in communications ethos, a return to the basis of solid, strategic marketing principles, and also a core understanding the media form.

In our class, we will examine social media in a general sense to understand the fundamental underpinnings of online communications. We will then examine social media and traditional marketing strategy, particularly as it applies to social causes. Here we will learn about communicating a value proposition for our communities. We will then survey the current social media tool set to see how various tactics work.

The reading list for the class includes the following books:

• Christopher Locke, Rick Levine, Doc Searls, and David Weinberger, The Cluetrain Manifesto
• Seth Godin, Flipping the Funnel, nonprofit edition (eBook)
• Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff, Groundswell
• Geoff Livingston with Brian Solis, Now Is Gone
• Jack Trout and Al Ries, Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind
• Ben Rigby, Mobilizing Generation 2.0
• Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point
• Allison Fine, Momentum

Plus web-based case studies! It should be a great class, and if you are local and can participate, please join us. We look forward to working with the next generation of social cause communicators!

All of the personal brand noise in the echo chamber amazes me. Why? Because it’s not good marketing.

We are in a recession, and telling people they need personal brands infused in their marketing - while important - will not help companies close transactions. Yes people do business with folks they like, but that’s only a pre-cursor for success. There are lots of people that folks like who are losing jobs and contracts right now.

Thus personal brand propagators seek to bulwark a business model destined to fail. What people need to do is build substantive value for stakeholders that will deliver return on investment for time or money. If personal brands are infused in this value, all the better, but please don’t tell me its the quintessential focus of social media marketing.

Quite frankly online marketing is not about silly personalities with motorcycles (me) or rubber ducks or even pole dancing. If you want to defend your right to be stupid — all in the name of a personal brand — go for it. But while momentarily interesting, your personal brand won’t build real value for the market – unless your personal reputation revolves around delivering consistent regular value to your community.

There is a big difference between reputation and personal brands. Reputation is built upon past experiences — good or bad, a real track record. Personal branding is often an ego-based image based on communications. A personal brand can demonstrate a person is there, but it’s often shallow and can be contrived. It’s just like a sport stripe on a car, nice but no engine, no guts, no substance.

Chris Brogan is always cited as the penultimate in personal brands. I disagree, Chris Brogan has a personal brand, but more importantly he has a fantastic reputation for delivering great, helpful content every day. The combo of incredible value AND the personal brand is lethal. But one would succeed without the other, and its not the personal brand.

25 Personal Brand Manifestos

Here’s some brutal truths delivered Cluetrain Style for those propagating personal brands as the keystones to social media.

1) The online community — a.k.a. the market — doesn’t give a damn about your personal brand.

2) The only people who give a crap about personal brands are the personas trying to prop them up as a business model.

3) While personal brands are concerned with themselves, the market is also concerned about itself.

4) The market doesn’t care about the persona, only what value the persona contributes to the larger community.

5) Ultimately, if the market does not perceive value, the personal brand — while famous — will not successfully monetize him/herself.

6) Businesses do not need personal brands to succeed online. They need to come off their ivory towers and communicate with the market in real conversations.

7) Then companies need to listen so they can give back to their online communities and markets vis a vis real valuable information or products.

8) Messaging — whether delivered through a personal brand or from the corporate ivory tower — doesn’t work online!

9) Personal brands can be contrived and faked.

10) If a personal brand promises one thing and delivers another, their personal name is mud!

11) If a company over-relies on personal brands it can be let down with no social media presence post persona (Microsoft and Scoble)

12) Personal brands can let the market down… in some cases regularly (Calcanis).

13) If a personal brand becomes regularly tied to a corporate brand, then it’s not personal. It’s business.

14) Having personal interaction is a small part of the larger value proposition to the market in order for it to have a transaction with you. It is not a business model in itself.

15) The difference between a good personal reputation and personal brands is subtle. One delivers constant substance while the other relies on BS to overcome shortcomings.

16) The only value of a personal brand is blinding the uneducated on lack of social media expertise (from Micah).

17) When a personal brand fails to deliver real expertise, the market turns quickly on the persona.

18) Twenty years later national personas gone wrong get super bowl ads (MC Hammer, Vanilla Ice, or in the case of K-Fed 2 years later). Micro personal brands online are simply forgotten.

19) When reality catches up with personal brand hype, bad endings occur.

20) The marketplace wants solutions, not to feel better by hanging out with coolness. Even better if you can provide both, but at least provide the prior.

21) Personal brands are like toilet paper. They are a tradable commodity on the interent. Reputation is another thing.

22) Social media consultants rely on personal brands, communicators rely on building value between organizations and their stakeholders.

23) Communicators can measure their social effort, personal brands talk about friends and “hubris.”

24) A personality oriented brand does not necessarily equate to successful results. Ask John “Maverick” McCain.

25) The marketplace doesn’t need specific personalities. There’s always another chap who can fill the role.

Refocus on Others

So what do you do if you are over-relying on personal brands? As part of the Solutions Stars Video Conference, I wrote a post about rising above the noise that offered five tips. Here’s a short summary:

There’s a reason personality was fifth in that post. Communicators put their stakeholders before their egos.

Thanks to Amber Naslund who brainstormed with me and inspired some of the 25 manifestos.