Pointing to Your Self Brand

I received an interesting comment the other day via the Affiliate Summit Social Network. One person contacted me and she wanted to know how my trip was and how eager she wanted to meet me at ASW. I replied back and we conversated and an interesting comment stuck out.

You know though, you have a trait that I noticed in most of the pictures……You point your finger….That is cool…..that should be your logo….or icon, favicon, whatever.

Also I remember Joe Tech stated ‘time to do the two gun salute’ when we took pictures. See below:

I tend to’point’ my finger to the camera like ‘ahh’ ‘ooo’ ‘haha’ - but my attitude towards the camera is just me enjoying taking a picture. With the comment Teresa provided to me I kinda of thought to myself, she is right I point in all of my pictures. I was also going to use this ‘finger pointing’ as my brand. I think I am pretty well recognized with my fingers pointing. This branding is my own unique way of saying ‘Ian is here’ - ?

But what is branding and why is it important?

Well me pointing fingers is a way for me to ’self brand’ who I am. Self branding is totally different from the term ‘brand’ as a brand is relative to a bigger picture such as a company. For example the ATT logo is a globe and it represents ATT and not the CEO of the company. Brian Littleton and his sweater vest is a form of self branding - he always wears a sweater vest. This represents his own personality and characteristic. But how do you acquire brand? Do you just claim it?

Right now - I think self branding is discovered among your readers and what they say or write about you. A self brand can not be just made up by you. You can not wake up the next morning and say “hmm I want my ‘finger pointing’ to be a brand.” To me that does not make sense because how do you know if that is your brand if no one else is recognizing it. If no one recognizes it then there is no point to have it as your brand. Since someone mentioned my ‘finger pointing’ I think it is safe to say my self brand is my finger pointing. Too bad its not my stuntin jersey style - lol

So someone can talk bad or good about you, this would be considered branding as well. Someone is creating that image of you and if you don’t pose to carry yourself thoroughly you will get poorly branded. As I stated you can not create your brand, it is others that create it for you. Your audience will create it for you and since your audience creates it your brand can become viral.

But your self brand is important to many readers out there. How can someone immediately recognize you as a person or superstar <- I am almost there. Face recognition is fairly simple - but self brand has personality and class thrown in it at the same time. I really did not look at my finger pointing as a form of branding - I always want to do something with my hands when in front of a camera, so I point. Everyone just stands and looks pretty while I point my fingers.

But self branding and branding are very important in a business, it sticks ‘you’ out and makes you look more unique. Below is a video on branding rambling - look at my watermark - lol