risks of personal branding online.

two things everyone agrees on: 1) people who attain a sufficient level of notability are brands; and 2) the owners do not get to decide what the brand is - the consumers do.

the question: why are ‘personality brands’ always disgusted and shocked when the consumers of their blog / vlog / twitter / etc. completely misrepresent the brand?

the brand is NOT UP TO YOU.

this, i think, is the one point that is usually ignored when transparency comes into play.  transparency seems like a wonderful idea, but i can understand why someone would want to participate anonymously on a larger scale.  if your brand is your real life identity, and other people get to decide what that identity means in the most important communications medium of our time, then who are you?

as the title suggests, i know that the issues are more complex than this.

but still.

[cross-posted from my tumblr account (see sidebar)]

[in relation to this post, and my response.]