My Personal Brand Has a Split Personality…

As I mentioned in my first blog post, I’m going to try to use my blog as a space to reflect my personal thoughts, not professional thoughts. Don’t get me wrong, I love my job and have a great career but I’ve always struggled with where to draw the work/personal line in the sand. So excuse me as I reflect a little bit on how exactly to do just that.

As a business development professional I am in the business of building relationships. I’m a connector.  I introduce great companies to great PR people and watch great things come out of it.  I’m fully aware that every interaction I make with a potential client and current clients must be a valuable one to demonstrate that not only are the account team members knowledgable, but that I am too.

Great, but what happens as my prospects and clients start to friend me on Facebook, follow me on Twitter and ask me why I haven’t checked in on FourSquare lately?  At a previous job I built my personal brand online because my company didn’t have a Twitter handle or blog, so I acted as an extension of the company’s marketing initiatives and became an expert in their space.  But now, my company has a Facebook page and Twitter handle, one managed by  a team of staffers and the other managed by one of our principals.  So, now what?  Since most of my interactions with prospects are confidential, I can’t really say what I’m doing at any given time on the social networks and  most of the time, I don’t want Twitterland, FourSquare or Facebook friends to know what I’m doing or where I am on a professional level, because I don’t want my competitors to know my strategy and who I could be talking to.   So, if I can’t talk about our strategies publically or tell people where I’m going and what I’m up to professionally…how do I effectively build a professional personal brand?  All I’m left with is my true personal brand, myself. Can you see why I feel like my personal brand has a split personality?

So should I break up with tools like LifeStream, which updates my AIM, Twitter (which updates my LinkedIn,) and Facebook all at the same time and use each social network separately yet strategically?  Let’s face it, my husband, family and friends don’t really want to learn about SEO, PR and marketing and my prospects and clients could care less that my road trip home from my sister-in-laws house took 5 hours longer than it should have.

I’m curious, how do you manage your professional brand and personal brand?  Where do you draw your line in the sand?

Taking the plunge

If you were given the choice to swim in water that was dark and murky with a few big fish and lackluster coral or water that was various shades of turquoise and blue with vibrant coral, turtles, dolphins, sharks and perhaps a whale or an octopus…which would you choose?

In the dark murky water you can be sure that you will see those ancient fish and a few other sea monsters. There is a chance that in the clear water you may be taking a risk but you will have a dive master guiding you along your way, pointing out which coral is safe to touch and which is not. He’ll introduce you to sea cucumbers, giant clams and sharks on a completely and strategically guided tour to help give you the best underwater experience possible.

Have you made up your mind yet?

As you can see from my pictures, I chose the clear water with the dive master. (He even took this picture.) While diving was a new experience for me, I liked knowing that by putting my faith in the hands of a dive master I would have a much better experience and payoff. At the end of my first dive I was even convinced to immediately jump back in for a second dive!

For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Melanie Collins (formerly Stachowiak.) I’ve been working in the world of PR, marketing and advertising for seven years now. I’ve worked in newsrooms at major local and national news networks, as an advertising sales account executive at Boston radio stations and even at a newswire service where I helped companies from start-up to large public companies receive media, search engine and social media visibility. I have had the great fortune of getting to know folks at local and national ad agencies and PR firms which led me to my current position at SHIFT Communications. 

My recent scuba diving trip really opened my eyes to the many choices and changes that I’ve made in my life.  My boyfriend propsed…I said yes.  We got married…I said, I do.  We became homeowners…crazy!  Then, I chose to get out of some dark and murky water and dive into the clear water with a new dive master and I changed jobs.  With all of this change,  I haven’t had much time to sit down and breathe so I’m using my blog as a  space to decompress, keep in touch with my friends and family and let you in on a few snapshots of my life.    I hope you enjoy.