My RSS Feed is a Thinker and blog is #1 for online personal brand thoughts. Dan Schawbel is Gen Y and geared to Gen Y personal brand, but you will benefit regardless of generation. He has Just Posted the Following on his blog:

If you haven’t seen the video of Susan Boyle, contestant on “Britian’s Got Talent”, you’ve been under a rock. *47+ million hits of her audition video have been recorded on YouTube and the numbers keep climbing.* In five days, Susan Boyle has become a global brand. Eat your heart out…she’s accomplished in 5 days what multi-million dollar brands NEVER do - take the world by a storm by connecting deeply with people all over the globe.

Simply amazing.* She’s beat out Bush vs Shoes, Obama’s Victory Speech, and Tina Fey as Sarah Palin, as shown in this chart from the Mashable post about it:


Social media is the star here

I submit that social media is also a star here as well. *Think of the perfect storm of an already-viral TV show (like American Idol, Britain’s Got Talent is a phenom in terms of ratings, audience fan, branding, and more); the YouTube effect, Twitter going mainstream, Facebook (which has finally hit an international tipping point in terms of numbers) and a global consciousness that’s growing every day, especially among young people.* Oh, and don’t forget the mainstream media, who are falling all over themselves because Susan Boyle does NOT fit the “star” model they work so hard to maintain.

What a great story!* I’ve heard that people in China, Russia -* everywhere - are tuning in to watch her* video and smiling and crying and telling all their friends.

THIS is the essence of personal branding

The ability to associate feeling and emotion with a product, service, and/or personality is something corporations pay millions of dollars to achieve. Researchers spend countless hours pouring over the data to find the magic formula.* Consultants tell a new client, “I’ve got a special formula to help you break through the noise….”* Whatever.
Something that I love about this story is that, true to one of the main tenants of social media, Susan Boyle is nothing if not authentic. *This is the new currency that brands have to master. No, she doesn’t look the part, but that doesn’t matter - she’s wonderful just as she is and her singing is as natural and wonderful as she is.* People totally believe her and believe IN her.* We just met her less than a week ago and we feel like we already know her story.* The whole world is pulling for her.* You go, girlfriend!

And as Mashable points out, “meanwhile, if and when Boyle decides to jump into social media for herself, she’ll have a built in audience of millions of fans hanging on her every word. It’s a fairly incredible, albeit not completely surprising story.”** A personal branding best if there ever was one!

Author:

Beverly Macy is the Managing Partner of Y&M Partners and teaches a social media class at the UCLA Extension.* She also co-hosts Gravity Summit events.

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