Fast Company Calls Me “The Pied Piper of Facebook”!
It was my pleasure and honor to be written up on Fast Company’s blog today. Three cheers to Wendy Marx for her great journalistic talents. I was delighted with the write-up (and could hardly wait to share with my mum, ha! :))
Wendy and I first connected via Facebook (of course!). Wendy has been called a B2B Buzz Guru and writes a Fast Company blog about careers, social media, and personal branding.
[Pic of flute - that's me the Pied Piper. LOL]
Personal branding is sure a hot topic these days. What does having a personal brand mean to you?
To me, as I’ve talked about on my own blog posts, it’s often a case of showing up as your authentic self. Yet, you have a strategy. You’re deliberate in your intent. You have an underlying objective (but it’s not at all like a “hidden agenda.”)
So, that’s on a personal brand level.
Then, there’s your business - what products and services you offer. Who your target market is. What problems you solve. What results you help create.
You could boil brand down to one word, as Al Ries talks about in his book, Focus.
What one word do you own in the minds of your marketplace? e.g. Levi’s� owns jeans. Kleenex� owns tissue. Xerox� owns copy. In fact, we often come to transpose the brand for the actual item. Can we do that for a person and their personal branding? Perhaps.
For me, it’s not my intention to own the word(s) Facebook, Twitter, social media… or Pied Piper. 
If I could own one word in the minds of my community members, it would be relationships. Okay, we might need to bump that up to two and make it relationship marketing.
How about you? What’s your 1-2 words?
Make A Comment: ( 7 so far )
7 Responses to “Fast Company Calls Me “The Pied Piper of Facebook”!”
Shama Hyder
April 8th, 2008
1-2 words? Hmm… that’s hard!
‘Help Others’
‘Congenital Heart Defects Awareness’
Those would be my picks.
Congrats on the great exposure your Facebook course is getting, Mari - and the growing ripples. Fun and exciting to watch 
All success
Dr.Mani
Dr.Mani
April 8th, 2008
Congratulations on the write up. To your point about owning a word: there is a risk of losing your brand equity to the product or product category. If you sneeze and ask for a Kleenex(R) would you really care if I handed you a Puff(R)? The test of a brand is not just in recognition, but also in reaction. When a brand name becomes a surrogate for a product name it is a symbol of achievement, but also a sign of weakened differentiation.
David Cohen
April 8th, 2008
Congrats. I think most people associate you with Facebook at this point
Dan Schawbel
April 8th, 2008
Hey Mari
Great posts! I learned alot just from this page alone!
Just for the record… I want to own “custom graphics”.
Heather
Heather Colman
April 29th, 2008
[...] dubbed me the “Pied Piper of Facebook.” So, to get you started, here’s my list of ten reasons you need to be active on [...]
Why Facebook? Social Networking for Fun and Profits! by Mari Smith » Blog Archive » 10 Reasons To Use Facebook for Business
August 28th, 2008
My first two words are Authentic Living or Authentic change. I am not yet sure or it is both. Thanks for this post. It helps me focus on what is important.
Iyabo Asani
http://www.AuthenticChangeAgent.com
Iyabo
August 28th, 2008
Congrats Mari! = )
Go Facebook!