You can stop talking about yourself and your stuff… never!

Check out this post from Chris Brogan: You Can’t Talk About Yourself Enough, Apparently.

Chris Brogan has had a big name in the blogging and social space for a while.  He was a very popular speaker and travelled the country (world?). I’ve met him in person and he has even let me guest blog on his blog.

Things have changed quite a bit in the landscape and I’ve heard less of and about Chris than a few years ago, but I’m not plugged in as much.  But he still has a great following and is quite influential.

This blog post doesn’t surprise me one bit.  In the post (which you must read – it is short) he talks about the Owner Magazine, which he runs.  When he surveyed his subscribers… the people who supposedly are reading all of his stuff, too many said “huh? What is Owner Magazine?”  As if they hadn’t ever heard it mentioned before.

Chris says:

“I swear, to ME, it feels like it’s all I talk about. I tweet almost 30 tweets a day almost every day pointing people to Owner. My About page starts by saying I’m publisher of Owner magazine. Ditto my social media profiles. My LinkedIn profile leads with it. I link to it all the damned time. And yet, people keep saying, “Oh! I didn’t know you were producing a business magazine.”

He goes on to say that he is thinking we do need to talk about OURSELVES more often, contrasting what he has thought and said before.

I completely agree.  People ask me how you get more blog readers, more people in a LinkedIn Group you started, more people talking about you to their peers, more ________.  The thing is, you can’t say something once and assume that people get it, or care, or will remember later.

A big part of branding, whether it is personal or corporate branding, is repetition of the right messages.

Can you believe that even though I talk about JibberJobber, the job search organizer, all the time, I still have people who think they are on JibberJobber when they are only a member of my LinkedIn Group (JibberJobber: Career Management)?  I have had people say “Yeah, I’m on JibberJobber!”  But they are only on the forum.

Same thing with my blog… this blog.  People read this blog and when I ask them if they are on JibberJobber they say YES!  They don’t realize that there is something much bigger, the JibberJobber App.

I have people who have read any of my three books, watched thousands of hours of my training videos, met me in person and heard me speak at conferences… and they don’t know what JibberJobber is, or why JibberJobber is so critical to them.

It’s not like I haven’t mentioned it before.  The only reason I bring this example up to you is that I guarantee the same thing is happening to you.

You THINK people know you are a product manager, but they really don’t get it.

You THINK people know you need their help with networking and introductions, but they don’t even think about you, even when an opportunity comes their way that you would be perfect for.

Whatever you THINK people know or think of or about you, let me tell you, you are probably wrong.

Until you hear them talking to someone else about you the right way, they don’t get it.

And that simply means we need to continue to share our message and talk about ourselves (the right way).  Don’t believe me?  Go read Chris’s post again.