The Future of Branding is Personal | Talaya Waller | TEDxPSU

[Music] technology has caused a monumental shift in influence today the average person gets 561 percent more engagement sharing a brand message than when that same brand message is shared by a company on social media the average employee has 10 times the amount of followers as their company on social media the Internet has allowed everyone in this room to be accessible by anybody from anywhere in the world and that's how one person can have more influence and consumer trust than an entire organization this is not a possibility this is our reality the future of branding is personal in 2006 I just graduated from college I majored in entrepreneurship and like so many others I saw myself leaving the classroom and running my own business but my father told me otherwise he said to layer you have no cash and no credit the only place you run it it's home to print out resumes I rolled my eyes and I started to apply for jobs but there was a problem I graduated during the time of the economic recession which meant people were getting laid off left and right I took whatever job I could find and I did it all I sold mattresses CDs makeup everything that had nothing to do with the degree I'd earn and even less to contribute to the debt I incurred and guess what I was not alone the average millennial will have 10 to 15 different jobs throughout their lifetime making us the most professionally agile generation ever unlike our parents we didn't have the opportunity of a linear career where you retire from the same job that you've had since you graduated from college so we did but every species does to survive we evolved and this phenomenon was predicted 20 years ago by personal branding pioneer Tom Peters who said that in the future professionals we use the same technology as large corporations to market themselves that future is now millenials started to do what any fortune 500 company would do to protect their bottom line we leveraged creativity marketing and technology to improve ourselves and compete in an unstable economy people were starting to brand themselves not just Millennials but everyone in the days of Mad Men technology forced branding to evolve from marketing a product or service it's functional value to tapping into the emotional value and building a relationship with the consumer so let's say you have a lemonade stand you're selling lemonade in the neighborhood the going rate is 25 cents but you decide to charge one dollar for your lemonade because you're the only person who has access to a car so you can get your ingredients quicker and therefore fresher than your competitors but then after a while your competitors get cars too so now you can't charge one dollar for the functional value super fresh lemonade the freshest in town now you have to think of another way to charge more you do an assessment of your neighborhood and you realize that most of your customers are housewives and they make the purchasing decisions for the household so you create a new brand strategy that aligns with their values see now you're selling more than just lemonade you're selling a lifestyle the attributes of a human something that people can relate to and connect with because the best relationships aren't about what you can do for someone but rather how you make them feel in this relationship with consumers continues to evolve today's modern consumer is smart thrifty flooded with options and overloaded with information to make decisions on their own today's modern consumer is you it's me it's all of us and we're tired of being marketed to in the 1970s the average person would see about 500 brand messages a day today that numbers 5,000 if I see a diet coke commercial on Hulu it doesn't make me want to buy diet coke it makes me want to upgrade my hulu so I don't see anymore commercials people have outgrown old tactics we've moved on to brands that want to engage us provide an experience and ultimately improve our lives in the past companies will market at us through billboards and magazines and there was little we could do to refute what they claimed their brand to be but today we can share our opinions and feedbacks with others in real time online on social media and other platforms 92% of people trust a recommendation from a person over a company because people have lost trust in corporate branding now companies are looking to influencers to market their products influencers are everyday people like you and me who have built up a large social network online branding has shifted from humanizing objects and abstracts to influencing people with other people who they know like and trust this formula has been around for a very long time before influencers social media or the internet people did business with people who they know like and trust let's discuss how we can use this formula to build our personal brands the key premise of personal branding is that everyone has one but not everybody manages it strategically effectively and consistently beyond getting people to know you think about what you want to be known for most people have not taking the time to identify their personal brand because by the time you become an adult you're in survival mode but little time to reflect on what you want what you're passionate about and the change you would like to see in the world at 23 years old I found myself with two degrees living in my parents basement I had just saved up enough money to quit my decent salary job and finally start my first business but after a year of entrepreneurship I experienced burnout something was missing although I had the strength and the skills to run my business and there was a market opportunity I really wasn't passionate about what I was doing sometimes you can have passion in the strengths but it's bad timing so there's no opportunity I knew in order for me to find my unique value added to the world I was gonna have to position myself within all three thought leaders do a really good job at identifying their passion and leveraging it thought leaders are professionals who find something that they're passionate about they gain a lot of expertise or education on that topic and they use it to build online and offline influence thought leaders not only create value for themselves but financial freedom as a thought leader you could work for a company for X amount of years leave start your own business get bought out by another company and then decide you want to be a freelancer like a really good baseball star that built his personal brand although his Jersey may change when he gets traded he carries his name his stats and his fans with him to each team until he retires so I grew up playing with Barbie and I mean I was a true Barbie girl which meant I never cut her hair or let her hook up with my brothers GI Joes and Barbie was one of the most powerful brands in the world because of a concept the Barbies creator Ruth handler understood that no one else in the doll industry could grasp at that time investors thought that young girls would not like to play with the doll with the mature figure and rather it was their maternal ISM that attracted them to baby dolls wrong Ruth knew that people like to see themselves in other people and in the future it inspires us and gives us hope but in recent years Barbies faced a lot of backlash for warping our view of a woman's body image consumers are tired of curated perfection and would rather see something that is more realistic and relatable I like to think of the influencers that I follow on social media is a digital version of everything that Barbie should be I can see myself in them I connect with them and their lives inspire me no longer does a small group of the rich or the powerful get to dictate the things that we stigmatize or accept from your first day of school to your last day of work most of us are taught to assimilate to unrealistic norms but the most successful brands in the world became that way by being different as Steve Jobs once said you don't look at your competitors and say we're gonna do it better you look at your competitors and say we're gonna do it differently ten years ago Rihanna released her good girl gone bad album and critics say that it changed the projection of her career with 9 million records sold worldwide it's still her best-selling album today being good meant conforming to everything that the record label said a pop star should be being bad meant doing the exact opposite Rihanna wrist likability to embrace her authenticity and fans loved it because when we see someone embrace them shoot their true selves it empowers us to do the same a recent survey of 1700 executives worldwide shows that many of them believe that the personal brand of the CEO will become more important than a brand of their company and we see this today on social media Michael Dell has twice the number of followers on Twitter as Dell Elon Musk has 14 million followers Tesla has about 2 million the Muppets have about 2 million followers Kermit the Frog has 6 million everyone knows that Kermit is the CEO of The Muppets the CEOs face elicits a response they are no longer a powerful shadow in a hypothetical boardroom CEOs are people just like us CEOs are no longer untouchable for better or for worse anybody recall uber CEO crisis ok consumers handle that scandal quicker than Olivia Pope swiping Uber's market share down from 95 to 75 percent the rising consumer influence has made reputation management the number one business threat for executives across the globe and it's not because we expect them to be perfect but when you choose to lie or spin the story instead of allowing people to empathize you create a manipulative relationship and you ultimately break trust corporate brands need US consumers executives employees influencers to help them build that trust and we can use them to help us build our credibility after my first business a friend from college approached me and told me that he had been published in a major magazine I told him that he could probably leverage this opportunity he didn't believe me because I mean I didn't have any experience in doing this but my strategy was quite simple first anyone needed to build his credibility I used the experiences he built with one brand to get him to the NEX every relationship we built with one celebrity introduced us to another with creativity marketing and technology I got him on TV shows in magazines radio stations and more I remember being at the Steve Harvey Show and meeting Steve backstage and he asked me ma'am who are you and at the time I didn't have a title but I knew I had discovered my passion personal branding works for more than just entertainment but every industry helping people share their story leverage their expertise and make a positive impact on society as a personal branding consultant I've worked with everyone from students to judges executives nonprofit leaders maybe you're looking for a new job or there's something that you want to change in your community maybe you need funding for a cause or a great business idea or you're looking to monetize a hobby after you retire your personal brand is the most powerful tool you have to accomplish your goals branding is no longer about companies managing our perception today it's about people creating and sharing human experiences the future of branding is personal the future of branding is now thank you [Applause]

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 133,817

Rating: 4.9466977 out of 5

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, Business, Brand, Future, Impact, Personal growth

Id: qEHL8eLJCkc

Length: 14min 58sec (898 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 02 2018