I already went over this in Shilling Away Your Social Capital, but it’s actually worse than I originally thought.

I discussed wasting time in Time, Part 05: “Focus & Motion”. I mentioned how small interruptions in your day can stack up and completely blow your efficiency.

For instance.. If someone sends you an email and you have your mail app running in the background, you have to:

1. Recognize that that sound you heard was a new email
2. Decide that you’re going to check it out
3. Click over from the program you were using to your mail app
4. Look at the title
5. Look at the name of the sender
6. Click on the email and wait for it to open
7. Read the text until you have the gist of the communication
8. Think about whether you’re going to do anything about it
9. [Maybe] Take the time to respond, including possibly researching links
10. Click back to the program you were initially using
11. Get your head back in the game and get efficient with your project

Now.. That process can take you anywhere from 10 seconds to 3 minutes or even MORE, depending on how much time you’re willing to donate to that person’s query.

Let’s assume you spend 3 minutes responding to someone’s email. If you do that 20 times, you’ve just spent 60 minutes = an entire HOUR helping other people out and falling behind in YOUR work. Besides that, these people are all begging with their hands out, not paying you to be on retainer to them as technical support or even offering you ANYTHING of value WHATSOEVER for you wasting your time helping them out.

So what happens is that people become known for certain things. You can count on certain people to send you certain messages. You know who’s always shilling for a company. You know who’s always inviting you to stuff that they want you to pay for that you didn’t ask them about in the first place. You know who’s advertising their latest project, seminar, webinar, meetup or conference THAT. YOU. NEVER. ASKED. THEM. ABOUT in the first place.

These people become Google Ads.

Did you ever notice how once you’ve seen something you’re not interested in enough times, you virtually ignore it? It’s like you don’t even have to try. You literally don’t even SEE the ads in people’s sidebars, because you know they’re there.. you know you’re not interested.. and you know where the actual content is. The ads become like borders or art that has nothing to do with the reason you clicked on a page.

This is what happens to people who constantly shill for the same things and never offer ANY valuable content to you whatsoever. They become invisible. There’s no reason to read their emails. There’s no value in wasting your 10-30 seconds reading what they have to say this time, because it’s the same thing they had to say last time and every time before that.

So what happens is, as soon as you get to phase #3 or #4, where you read the title or the person’s name, you automatically click on it so it’s marked “read”, but you never actually look at it. You make sure it goes from bold (unread) to regular (read) and go back to whatever you were doing without missing a beat. This way, you spend about 3 seconds going back and forth from program to program instead of 10 or more, and your efficiency for the day skyrockets.

I suppose there are people that take it a step further and completely filter out people that send them bacn all day, every day.

Is this your goal in Social Media? Are you so interested in trying to push a product on someone that you’re willing to relegate yourself to the junk folder?

Do you really think you’re providing value for your client by making yourself a pariah? Who’s going to hire you to shill for them next year after you blow all your social cred this year?

The funny thing about all this is that people have come up with all these plots and scams to get more Twitter followers, and then they proceed to demonstrate to these people that they have nothing valuable to tell them. Why publicize your own lameness? Why not keep it to yourself?

Social Media is constantly changing. There’s no telling what the next iteration’s going to be. I think you’re better off regarding Social Media as a conversation instead of an opportunity to push products and services on people that didn’t ask you about that so that when the next fad shows up, people are willing to follow you there as a valued resource instead of blocking you on it because they don’t want more of the same garbage you served them this time around.

~ Bill Cammack

Twitter: BillCammack
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Social Media Category: billcammack.com/category/social-media
 

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There’s a lot of talk these days about each of us having a “Personal Brand”. Some consider this to be vaporware, while others take the concept rather seriously.

A few months ago, I was asked something to the effect of “Doesn’t having a personal brand limit you?”, to which, my reply at the time was basically that your personal brand is as limiting as your personal abilities. In other words, if you can’t do very much, your personal brand isn’t going to be very valuable. Your name won’t ring any bells. People won’t associate ANYTHING with your “brand”.

For instance, there is no such thing as a “Frisbee”. Frisbee is a BRAND NAME that was made up and applied to the actual item, which is a Flying Disc. There are lots of companies that make flying discs, but we call every single flying disc in existence a Frisbee. THAT’S “Your name ringing bells”.

Same thing for “Band Aid”… No such thing. It’s an Adhesive Bandage. However, we call every single adhesive bandage in existence a Band Aid. I’ve never asked ANYONE for an adhesive bandage in my entire life.

So, think about what people associate with YOUR name… YOUR “personal brand”. Even if you haven’t tried to cultivate one, you have one. It’s merely a question of how weak or strong it is. Interestingly enough, you don’t even necessarily KNOW what your own personal brand actually is, because you might attempt to cultivate one thing, but what people take away from your internet presence is something entirely different.

At this point, I think the strongest aspect of my personal brand is “Knows a lot of chicks”.

Grace, Christine, Bill, Kathryn & Annie

This is kind of funny, because I didn’t set out to brand that. It just so happens that I DO know literally hundreds of women and I also happen to take a lot of pictures of myself with them (the ladies I’m still local to / in contact with).

To a lesser degree, I’m known for my dating blog. This was more calculated than the picture-thing, because I write my blog so other people can read it… and then laugh, or cry, or get upset at somebody, or learn something…

To a STILL lesser degree, I’m known a connector. I utilize my 406 Linkedin connections to introduce people to others so they can make business deals. Also, there’s no telling how many people I’ve introduced to other people IRL, because I typically go to parties where I know ~70 people on the Facebook “definite” list.

To a MUCH lesser degree, I’m known for being an Emmy Award-winning Video Editor. I’m known for being an MIT graduate. I’m probably known for drinking a lot of beer.

For all of these reasons and more, I’m still a top-10 Google search result for the word “Bill” (or ‘bill’), and have been for more than a year now.

The reason I bring all this stuff up isn’t because I’m personally impressed with any of it. Actually, I’m completely BORED with it and I’m looking for a new challenge. The point is that through my daily utilization of Social Media, I’ve crafted several options for ways that people can perceive me. Some of those were on purpose, and some of them (interestingly enough, my STRONGEST brands) were completely by accident, being that I didn’t attempt to make myself known for these things, but it’s what people latched onto, discuss amongst each other and recognize me for the most.

This is what got me thinking about what people are doing (or not doing) with their own personal brands. When I meet people and they mostly say “I recognize you from all your pictures!” as opposed to “I’ve seen your video editing work… Excellent!”, something’s jacked up about my personal brand, right?… Or is it?

When someone that knows me for my dating blog finds out from someone that walks up to us at a party that I’m an accomplished video editor and they’re completely shocked to learn this after hanging out with me for months on the circuit, that’s poor “personal branding”, isn’t it? :)

I think it all depends on “who you are” vs “what you do”.

Interestingly enough, my personal brand is perfectly accurate for the person that I am. It’s not good for the work that I do, but was that ever my real goal? Was my goal to present myself as a video editor?

It was, when I first started billcammack.com, because all I needed for my website to do was hold my demo reel and resume for me so I didn’t have to bring actual tapes with me to meet new clients.

I get my work through word of mouth, so when people contacted me, I could just point them to my site and if they liked what they saw, they could hire me.

That’s all well and good, except if I had branded myself (intentionally or otherwise) as a video editor, that’s how people would approach me, which would be excellent for business, and horrible for socializing. The reason I say my personal brand is perfect for me is that I would much rather hang out with chicks and drink beer than edit your video for you. I would much rather blog about dating than Social Media. It turns out that my internet presence is actually a function of the things I enjoy doing.. which makes perfect sense. The more I enjoy things, the more often I do them and the more likely they are to show up in my media, whether that’s on my own site, Facebook, Twitter, wherever.

Once I figured out that I liked and was/am extremely comfortable with my own personal brand, I started thinking about other people’s brands. Specifically, I started thinking about people who trade in their PERSONAL brands to be a shill for a company.. even if it’s their own company:

Shill (intransitive verb)

1. to act as a shill
2. to act as a spokesperson or promoter [the eminent Shakespearean producer…is now shilling for a brokerage house — Andy Rooney]

It’s extremely easy to spot someone shilling. They’re normally telling you something you never asked them about, and it’s always about the same company or topic.

Basically, their goal is to leverage your association with them in order to draw your attention, and hopefully clicks, and hopefully sales, to a company’s products or services. In the short term, this is good for their pockets. Long-term, they become “that guy” or “that gal”. You know… The guy that every time you see him, he’s going to try to sell you something. That gal that everything she says or does is a commercial. It’ll be interesting to see down the line how that works out for people who do this.

What happens when the company you’re currently shilling for goes under or lays you off? Who are you now? What do you have to say for yourself now? Who wants to hear what you have to say now?

What happens when the focus of attention goes somewhere else, like how it used to be on forums and newsgroups, but now it’s on Twitter and Facebook. When you sign up for that new app/site, who’s going to “friend you” so that you can try to sell them stuff on this new site? Who’s going to avoid you because you have NOTHING to contribute to their lives other than posts with ulterior motives and affiliate links?

What happens when you meet people IRL and they see you as the spokesperson for some company, as opposed to an unique individual with something interesting to say?

What happens when you consecutively shill for sites that consecutively FAIL because you have no talent whatsoever, yet people keep hiring you because you SHILL, SO, MUCH, that you have large numbers of people that follow you wherever you go and never tell you that your media SUCKS and that you need to stick to audio or text-blogging?

In the long run, what’s it worth to shill away your personal brand? I guess it depends on what you were going to do with it otherwise. What would your brand be if it you weren’t Twittering about your business all day, every day? How would people perceive you? How would your IRL interactions be different?

Some people avoid this by intelligently having several accounts. Have one for your dot-com and have one for your personal use. This way, when you stop selling widgets and start selling water coolers, you don’t lose your entire readership, because they were only interested in your for your widget-based posts.

IRL Shilling is just as bad for your image, if not worse. If every time someone runs into you they have to hear “Vote for my X” or “Can you get me some business in Y” or “Have you been to Z.com to see the latest [item you never asked them about]“, those people are going to start avoiding you… IRL, *AND* online.

In these times, when people are getting laid off left and right, Social Capital is becoming increasingly important, as well as critical for viability & longevity. If you get fired from your widget-sales job, you want the people you’ve been in contact with to rally beside you to help you find gainful employment.

If people see you merely as an agent of the company, that’s not going to happen. If your only-good-for-widget-sales lifestream becomes a please-find-me-a-job stream, people are going to tune out, because nobody cares about you.

Nobody cares about you because you didn’t care about yourself while you were shilling away your Social Capital. Think about it.

~ Bill Cammack | @BillCammack
 

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This is a response to Tyme White‘s article: “Experienced vs. inexperienced ‘advice’”, which was a response to my article, “Personal Brand? No Crossover”.

@Tyme: Good points.

First of all, I was specifically talking about internet shows. Actually, FIRST OF ALL, no… I don’t have ANY experience with hiring ANYBODY to be the figurehead or “face” of a show. What I *DO* have experience with is watching a show and determining whether a) it’s good, b) it sucks because of the production (technical issues), c) it sucks because of the script-writing, d) it sucks because the face of the show is entirely talentless, or e) EVERYTHING about the show sucks.

Granted… That MAY be because I’m an editor AND a show producer.

I wouldn’t know what the average joe/josepine takes away from looking at a show that “fails” (whatever that means in the context of this discussion). All I can do is ‘project’ and believe that distinctions are made between whether the show a) wasn’t good, and it’s the talent’s fault, b) wasn’t good, and it’s NOT the talent’s fault, or c) WAS GOOD, but got shut down for other reasons (or didn’t make money or didn’t grow it’s audience… whatever you’re defining as a “failed” show).

For instance, we just received news that MobLogic was shut down. According to articles on the net, Lindsay Campbell is still an employee of CBS. Before MobLogic was cancelled, they were outputting sporadically compared to the regular schedule they were using when they first started.

Without “inside information” from “the horse’s mouth”, there’s no telling what the reason was for the shutdown. It just so happens that WallStrip was shut down on the same day, apparently. Let’s say the average person isn’t going to search for articles about WHY a show got cancelled, and all they know is that it was here today and gone tomorrow.

What that person’s going to take away from the show, as far as the “face” of the show, is the sum of their experiences from watching her. They either liked her style, didn’t like her style, or felt she was inconsistently good/bad. If she gets selected for a new show, that sentiment is going to drive whether that viewer goes “YAAY!” or “oh no. She got ANOTHER show? :/”. That’s what the talent has to carry forward, their own performance. Unless the public feels that the show “failed” because the talent sucked, the ending of a show, which as you mention, is the BUSINESS side of things has nothing to do with the ENTERTAINMENT VALUE they received from the talent.

Slightly-related story… I was just in the Indy Mogul Test Film “The Spirit’s Day Off”. As I’m reading the script, I read “I am the millipede, and I have a thousand of everything”. So, the director, Erik Beck tells me to say “a million”. So I’m like “yeah, but milli -> thousand” and he’s like “I know, but a million sounds funnier”. So even though it was a technically incorrect statement, I said “I have a million of everything”.

So the video’s been viewed over 25,000 times, and ONNNNNE person decides to bring this up. That doesn’t mean that other people didn’t notice, of course. Now… that person is going to take whatever they personally perceived away from that situation. They might think that the character “The Millipede” is a dummy. They might think the actor is a dummy, because he [I] said a million instead of a thousand. They might think the script-witer is a dummy if they realize that the actor was reading a script. They might think the director’s a dummy for wrapping the shoot without correcting that error. The might think the editor’s a dummy for not cutting around it or re-tracking the actor saying “a thousand” and dubbing it.

This brings us to the other part of your point, which has to do with people who are in charge of hiring people to work on shows. Anybody who’s looking for on-air talent should be…. wait for it…… KNOWLEDGEABLE about how shows are put together and the extent of the actor’s responsibility for the production of a show and therefore his or her CULPABILITY when the show “fails”.

Therefore, if the acting was POOR, then the person doing the hiring should be able to properly low-rate the actor/actress because they didn’t look good on camera or they read the teleprompter like a left-back 3rd-grader or they weren’t any good at interacting with their viewers/community… Similarly, let’s say the talent was involved in more than reading a script. The extent of their involvement in production should also be analyzed/criticized. If the production is what caused the show to “fail”, then the talent can AND SHOULD be charged with the failure of whatever role they played.

Other than that, it’s out of the talent’s hands… like any. other. job. :) You can’t blame the assembly-line worker in the sock factory who’s been making socks for YEARS and has done he same quality job or better each review period for when the plant gets shut down, and they’re suddenly jobless. It’s obviously not their fault, the way the “failure” of an internet show is obviously the responsibility of SEVERAL people, unless it was a one man/woman show.

On top of all that, who’s to say that they would hire the figurehead to have ANY say in production anyway? Let’s say the talent WAS culpable in the mishandling of a show…. What difference does that make if you don’t let them get their hands on any of the controls in this case? None. I didn’t edit “The Spirit’s Day Off”. What difference does it make that I’m an editor? None. I was there to play a position. I did what *I* had to do, everyone else did what THEY had to do, and the video ended up sweet. :)

Also, the reason you might want to take a chance on talent from a “failed” show is that they come equipped with automatic reach. They have a built-in fanbase as well as an established communication network to inform their viewers what they’re going to be doing next. If you start out fresh, with a newjack, they have to build their community from ZERO, meaning that you either have to hire someone else to start building community for them and getting the buzz out, or part of their time that they could have been making the show BETTER is going to be wasted on doing PR for themselves.

So, no… I don’t think culpability for a show’s “failure” follows the talent AT ALL, unless the REASON for that failure was the talent’s ability to entertain.

~Bill Cammack

Social Media Category: billcammack.com/category/social-media
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For some reason, they’re still outputting SXSW podcasts. This morning, I listened to one that was released four days ago, entitled “Logos: Why They’re Irrelevant and Can Actually Hurt Your Business”. I thought it was an odd and wacky title for a panel discussion, so I decided to check it out. I also wanted to see if what they had to say had any relevance to my personal involvement with logos, or the lack thereof.

Here’s the direct link to the mp3 of the discussion.

I thought the presenters made valid points, especially when it comes to startups and not already-established companies. If nobody knows you, your company or what you or your company does, there’s no need to spend a lot of time on a logo. What does your logo symbolize? Nothing. Because you don’t have any ‘cred’ yet. Let’s say you’re selling soap. You have no track record, so nobody’s going to be looking for your logo as a symbol of excellence. You can put your box on the shelf next to already-established brands as well as generic store soap, and your logo won’t help you sell your soap AT.ALL. Once you get down the line and you’ve established yourself, people might recognize your logo and pull your box off of the shelf as a preference over other brands.

Another problem occurs if your company changes focus AFTER creating a logo. If your logo is a boot and then your company becomes a human search engine firm, that boot’s no longer relevant and either needs to be phased out (costing you more time and money) or worked around.

A third issue isn’t with the logo itself, but in how people access your site to begin with. How much good is your logo doing you if people are only spending SECONDS on your site at a time? Where is your logo placed? What size is it? What does it tell people about your business within that couple of seconds? What do people really look at during that time? Graphics? Text of the information they were searching for?

There were more good points and the audience brought up counter-points, but again, the logos they referenced were of already-established companies, like Dell. Dell already has a track record, so seeing a symbol of theirs might prompt you to pull their item off of the shelf. If it had been a logo for the “Mr. Startup Computer”, it’s not going to mean anything without a track record.

After I listened to this hour-long discussion, I thought about my own experiences in “the space”.

When I started ReelSolid.TV on May 27th, 2006, it was after quite a few discussions with several people whose opinions I valued. I had hours of discussions about focus, the types of videos, transparency… everything that we could think of that it would have meant to take what I already do for broadcast and corporate clients and put it on the net.

I decided that I wanted to do a ‘station’ or a ‘channel’ instead of doing Bill Cammack Televison or the Bill Cammack Show, because I didn’t intend to stick with ReelSolid.TV exclusively, and it didn’t make sense to me to hand off a show with my name on it to other people to produce and edit. Once I had the name, though, I felt like I needed a logo. I had made something with a physical film reel, and we kicked around the idea of using a rock, as in “solid like a rock”. For some reason, as important as I felt a logo was at the time, I didn’t have time to wait to figure that out and started doing my videos without an actual logo, yet with a specific font I liked to use for my opens and closes.

I also had ReelSolid.TV burned into my videos. I figured out pretty early on, thanks to the videoblogging group that people like to rip RSS feeds and act like you uploaded your work to their site. So the way I see it is “Take it all you want. It still has my name on it. Thanks for the free publicity. :)”

So I put in work as “ReelSolid.TV” without a logo, figuring I’d get around to it at some point. On April 01, 2007, I met Cruxy.com‘s Nathan Freitas. We exchanged names, which neither of us recognized. I had never heard of Cruxy.com either. When I told Nate I did ReelSolid.TV, he was like “OH! I’ve seen your show…” and brought up a video that I had done in December 2006 about men’s suits @ Phil’s 1908 here in Manhattan:

I had remembered that someone had given me props for the video and I had thanked them for it on a forum. When I got home and checked… lo and behold, it had been Nate I had electronically communicated with ~4 months ago, but since it was text-based, with no images attached, I didn’t know WHO it was that I was interacting with.

More importantly… Immediately upon noticing Nate’s different reaction to my actual name and the brand I had been building for 10 months at that point, I realized that whenever I decided to step out from behind ReelSolid.TV, I was going to be anonymous and basically would have to mention ReelSolid anytime I wanted someone to understand “who I was” and what I’ve done in the space. From that moment on, I switched my “brand” from ReelSolid.TV to BilCammack.com and recently, to “Bill Cammack”.

What that has to do with logos is that if I had attached one to ReelSolid.TV like I intended to from the beginning, now, I would have been Bill Cammack with the logo of a rock. :D booooo hissssss. On top of that, Nate might not have recognized ReelSolid.TV as a brand if my logo had been, say, a rock with “R S” behind it. It would have been another level of abstraction that I would have had to climb out from under if I wanted my propers for my accomplishments.

Ultimately, what ended up working for me was leaving out logos altogether. I saw that people were already ‘confused’ as far as what a ReelSolid.TV production meant. In my particular case, it’s in my best interest for people to know the name of the person involved with the production. That way, they can google me and I maintain my position for “Bill” behind Gates & Clinton.

Having said that… I *did* end up using a logo of sorts. I use twitter by the website because I parse entries visually. I can tell by scrolling which icons represent entries I need to stop and read and which I don’t. I found myself getting thrown off when people changed their icons. :) I would stop to read something, then realize it’s someone I’m not reading, memorize their icon and keep rolling. Also, on other social sites, I would realize that people were using different icons for themselves and, let’s call it “diluting their visual brand”. I decided that unless I had a strategic reason not to, I was going to use the same icon when I joined social sites.

So, similar to how my name became my brand name, my picture became my brand logo. This has had the interesting effect of people recognizing me the first time I meet them, but not being sure where they saw me before. It’s also had the effect of my friend Sean Bohan ‘complaining’ that every time he goes to some site, I have a presence there. :D

As far as this website, most of the hits I get are from people searching for specific information. Just like the panel stated, people dip into my site and dip right back out. :) There’s like a 20% chance that they’ll go to a second page and about a 0% chance that they’ll go to a third page. :D So a logo has nothing to do with my website. People either show up here and know whose site it is, or they don’t know and they don’t care. Mostly, it’s people that are searching for answers to their questions that they find on google and aren’t coming to personally socialize with the site owner, so I haven’t bothered to use my uniform icon/logo for this site.

So, did I agree with the panel? Yes. Other than “Target”, which is really simple, I can’t recall a logo for Flickr, Facebook, MySpace, Ning… I know the icon for iTunes… Basically, I don’t pay attention to logos at all. I think that until your business is in the position of demonstrating value to your potential clients, a logo does nothing for you as it represents nothing at all. When you ARE generating added value, I think you STILL want to consider whether you want to dilute people’s understanding of who it is that’s really making things happen, especially if you’re doing everything yourself.

Like they said on the panel, time is money. Time wasted creating a meaningless (to consumers/clients) logo would be better spent on improving the technical aspects of your app/product/site or decreasing the amount of time before your launch. If you HAVE to have a logo, make something decent-looking and QUICK or pay a student a few dollars to spend THEIR time creating something for you. Most likely, potential clients will respond more favorably to a solid app without a fancy logo than they will to an app that looks nice, but has a spotty performance record due to misallocation of development time.

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