Branding Blues (Ch. 2)

    This week's reading was all about building a personal brand on social media, and while I love the idea that my brand can tell my story for me, I had absolutely no idea where to start! Of course, there is the checklist in the book that makes creating one's brand feel like a simple grocery list. But I kept thinking that it's a little more complicated than the book was giving it credit for. Creating a brand in this moment may be as simple as the book makes it sound, but one's brand cannot stay stagnant. Especially, not mine. It must constantly be changing and morphing to fit my growth as a person and as a performer. I must acknowledge who I am but also who I want to become. And trying to think about all of that before my first cup of coffee was very overwhelming.

    If I take a step back however, I see that maybe my problem is that I am assuming that I don't know who I will be because I don't know who I am. Maybe the years of overthinking, overplanning, and the anxiety that follows has taught me that I must always be looking toward what I can do better, rather than just doing my best with the present version of myself. I don't have to go viral to start using Twitter again. I don't have to know what I am doing for the rest of my life to be able to write an Instagram post. This chapter has given me permission to examine where I am now, and look ahead a little bit, but it doesn't put on the pressure to establish a brand that will apply to me for the rest of my life. Having grown up in the "age of social media" it can be tempting to think I already know how to effectively set up and use the different social media accounts, especially on sights that I have the least amount of experience in like LinkedIn and Twitter. It would be so easy to skim this chapter and think I know what it says, but when I really dive in it opens up the opportunity for me to ask questions of my future. While I as an actress will probably not be using LinkedIn as my main source of proffesional connections, I as a youth pastor probably will at some point. And understanding how to establish and reevaluate my brand through all the changes of occupation, values, and goals in life will be invaluable for me as I shift and grow.