In comparison to America and Australia, the UK has been slower on the uptake for personal branding. Is it the British less-is-more approach that’s in the way or are Britons shying away from yet another American fad? This article will look at the history of personal brands in Britain and what the state of play is today.
Great Britain, Great Brands…
If you think about it, this country has arguably churned out more great personal brands than any other throughout history. Sure, other countries have done well but none can match the brands of William Shakespeare, Isaac Newton, Horatio Nelson, Charles Darwin and Winston Churchill. These people did great things and always knew the value of having a strong brand.
Shakespeare was a playwright, always having to brand himself and being unique is his marketplace. Newton was a scientist, the only way to make a name for oneself in science is to do great research and then publish it. Nelson started his brand journey as a young boy on a navy vessel, his brand was fuelled by the fact that he wore an eye patch and never showed any fear. Darwin chose the difficult path in life and he fought the clergy and establishment by proving the Evolution of Species theory. Churchill was an officer and a reporter, promoting his brand in London newspaper columns. On top of that he published more books than some people have read in a lifetime, eventually earning him the Nobel Prize for literature.
So to sum up, great personal brands by people achieving great things. Did they actively work on their personal brand as we know it today? Obviously not, but they did their utmost to promote themselves using the means of the time.
What about Personal Branding in the UK today?
The act of consciously thinking about one’s brand hasn’t quite firmly landed these shores yet. Unless you are a celebrity and represented by the likes of Max Clifford, there is precious little knowledge out there on how to build and promote a personal brand online.
There is some confusion about the term personal branding; some coaches use it for career or business training. Others will offer colour coding and personal shopping under the personal branding umbrella. This is fine, the term is whatever the beholder wants it to be, however the main use of personal branding is in the online space where an individual can gain maximum exposure in the shortest amount of time.
Technology shy?
You may now think that Brits aren’t into technology; that they prefer to have tea and biscuits, knit woolly jumpers and occasionally watch the X-Factor. Au contraire, the fact is that this country has really taken to social media, the UK usage of Facebook and Twitter is apparently proportionately higher than that of the US. Blogging is fairly big, although nowhere near as big as in North America. Few people have personal websites, typically when they trade under their own names and know that they will be Googled often.
One thing I have noticed when comparing the online presence of Brits vs. other nationalities is that for some reason we people here tend to prefer hiding behind pseudonyms or company names. If I were to ask you to list the top bloggers of the UK, I bet you wouldn’t be able to list their real names, only their blogs.
In spite of the stiff upper lip and less-is-more stereotypes, British people are definitely not introverts. Go down to any local pub on a Friday night and you will see a collection of extroverts that crave attention – perfect for social media in other words. So the seeds for personal branding are there, time will tell how long it will take to break through.
The Solution – if you can’t wait!
As the need to stand out from the competition in one’s market increases, so will the need for personal branding. Customers have little loyalty nowadays and technology makes it simple to shop around for commodity goods and services. The only way you will succeed is to carve out a niche with your personal brand.
Anyone looking to create a strong personal brand online should go through a process whereby they ask themselves why they are doing it. Come up with the purpose, the target group, what makes you unique and other pieces of the clarity puzzle and you can begin to establish an online presence. What and how that presence should look like is very much down to the individual and what you are looking to project. Personal branding is there to bring the best out of you online, you deserve to have just as strong a brand online as you do offline.
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