Personal Transparency vs. Personal Brand

I wonder, when writing my blog how transparent I really should be.  When I first started, frankly, I didn't care and, not too surprisingly, it was a lot of fun.  However, it seems like the stakes get higher when I feel like I have to filter my thoughts for personal branding. 

Maybe the issue is that some level of consideration of personal branding leaves me open for misinterpretation of what I write and that's a little frustrating.  I suppose when I just let it fly I was more comfortable in knowing exactly what I wanted to say and how I said it and if it was misinterpreted so be it.  But when I consider shaping it in some way and it still is misunderstood, oy!

But I wonder whether personal transparency brings us closer together than personal brand building.  (Candidly, I don't 100% understand the concept of personal brand building but I've met some people who have done it really well.) 

When connecting to a personal brand do you connect to that person or their brand or maybe both?

I think brand building feels less emotionally revealing and that in some way less risky.  Maybe that's a good thing, I'm just not sure that it's a skill I'm interested in learning.  It doesn't feel quite as fun.

But I could be wrong.

Comments

[Franziska]

It may work for some people but I find that some of the things you ought to do to build your personal brand is just bollocks. However, most is just common sense and actually good manners. You should have both anyway ;-)