Remember Tom Peter’s ‘Brand Called You’? It has to be one of my all time fav articles.
From the article: “No matter what you're doing today, there are four things you've got to measure yourself against. First, you've got to be a great teammate and a supportive colleague. Second, you've got to be an exceptional expert at something that has real value. Third, you've got to be a broad-gauged visionary—a leader, a teacher, a farsighted "imagineer." Fourth, you've got to be a businessperson—you've got to be obsessed with pragmatic outcomes. It's this simple: you are a brand. You are in charge of your brand. There is no single path to success. And there is no one right way to create the brand called You. Except this: Start today. Or else.”
Fast forward to ‘now’. Personal branding is bigger than ever. But it’s BRAND CALLED YOU 2.0 now. It’s about being an interesting and desirable brand to other individuals. To peers. To friends of friends. To fans. To followers. To family. It’s playlists and videos and pictures, it’s one’s thoughts and creative outbursts, it’s gaming scores, it’s preferences, it’s portfolios, it's stories you can tell, it's knowledge and skills, it’s an entire personal branding campaign trying to impress everyone except perhaps… big corporations.
What can we do? Give some attention to initiatives that are about helping our residents become more interesting to others. Eric Brown did just that with his writing on the walls contest. Click the link below.
The Writing’s On the Walls at Urbane Apts
Tami, Hi
Thank you so much for the mention, We really appreciate it. A couple of interesting points about the Urbane Sharpie Draw on the Walls Party.
-) It was promoted mostly just through facebook
-) The party drew (13) local artist and (160) guests (when is the last time you had (160) people to a resident event)
-) We rented (6) units from the party
-) Sharpie PR contacted us by 9:00 AM the next day due to the pictures from the party being shared on twitter and facebook, and asked if they could feature the event on the corporate Sharpie bolg, which created outstanding \link love\ for Urbane Apartments web site ranking.
Point being, this stuff works, Social Media Marketing, Web 2.0, New Media or whatever name you assign to it. Apartment operators should be trying these ideas out.