This is kind of a crazy idea, surely not new, but an attempt at driving focused discussion of a timely topic. In addition to good information a topics, there is also some great entertainment value in having a live radio talk show between two people on different sides of an issue, and that’s the intent of Social Media Throwdown.

I was inspired by the many times twitterites exchanged quick tweets about topics from personal branding to a Joe the Plumber reference, however, I wanted something more spontaneous. I am not one to have a favorite medium, but instead one that appreciates the unique benefits of each medium, old and new, that is available. Perhaps this comes from my experience in both radio and television.

I also like the Blog Talk Radio platform, and thank my friend John C Havens, co-author of tactical transparency for turning me on to it a long time ago.

In this first episode we have a leading personal branding strategist and author Hajj Flemings trading points of view with Geoff Livingston, social media and branding leader, who takes a much different perspective on branding of an individual.

We’ll cast this live on Blog Talk Radio Friday, February 6 at 1 PM CST – The listener call in line is: (646) 716-4882 and we will try to get as many questions as possible, hope to chat with you Friday, Feb 6 at 1PM Central.

Time 16:43

About 15 years ago at Atlanta’s Fulton County Stadium, I saw a guy wearing a T-shirt with the following slogan – It’s Not Who You Know, It’s Who Knows You – Right there and then I thought “That’s it, that’s marketing.”

All the other words on this blog help address that single slogan. Chuck Hester, communications director of iContact, a large email solutions provider, and nationally recognized Linkedin expert is the guest on this Marketing Edge podcast Hester is as good as it gets about living the slogan It’s Not Who You Know, It’s Who Knows You. He has more than 6000 contacts on LinkedIn, and they all know him.

Hester lives and breathes the principles of social networking, among them:

1. Giving to the community
2. Introducing people
3. Proactively listening to others (Chuck will never eat alone at any of the hundreds of conferences and meetings he attends)
4. Always willing to help

This simple philosophy, the Pay it Forward philosophy, helps him in all aspects of his life. Yes that includes business relationships, leads and contacts. Is there a quantifiable return on this investment? Sure there is, and those that are really good with numbers can fascinate themselves with all kinds of formulas and algorithms to achieve their desired result. Hester prefers to focus on the relationships, when you do that, everything falls into place.

It’s a wonderful story not just appropriate during Christmas. In this episode of the Marketing Edge podcast on social media, Hester highlights the Pay It Forward approach in social media and in the physical world. His LinkedIn profile is his window to others and visa versa, He created a physical world networking format called LinkedIn Live which celebrated its first anniversary in 2008. We recorded this conversation this summer.

Hester is working on a book due out in the first quarter of 2009,about his philosophy for using LinkedIn. Keep an eye out for the Pay it Forward Chronicles (working Title) We’ll have Hester back when the book is out.

What Are Your Thoughts? Send us your thoughts on how you use LinkedIn or how you get others to Know You. Every comment on the blog or voice mails left on our comment line 206-600-6887 will provide a food item to a local St. Paul, MN food shelf.

On Monday, December 29 drop by the office of Provident Partners to celebrate my 50th birthday, from 12:30pm – 2:30pm at 790 Cleveland Avenue South, Suite 221 St. Paul, MN – hope to see our twin cities listeners if you have time.

This post was inspired by Jeremiah Owyang on the topic of personal brands within a corporate community. In some ways, this is more an issue of individual popularity rather than a personal brand, but I’ll use the term personal brand because it is commonly accepted.

The issue of personal brands clashing with corporate brands is something I’ve commented in the past. BusinessWeek reporter Stephen Baker, @stevebaker on Twitter, asked, “How will social media impact business and change our careers?,” to which I responded:

“Hell, everyone is their own profit and loss center. How will companies deal with personal brands that outstrip the company, that’s an issue, who actually owns the information gathered when working for a company will be a battle ground in the coming years. If a person is able to develop a personal brand while also being paid by a company and decides to cash in on the brand, should the company have an equity stake in that personal brand? Ouch, that’s a tough one.”

Steve apparently found this comment interesting.

There are a couple of factors involving personal brands: First, the global economy and multinational companies focus more on the numbers, not on the people. This is not a criticism, although some people would say it is a short-sightedness on the part of companies, but that’s not a dog in this commentary. The point is the 30-year career at one company is extinct. No more gold watches.

Second, institutional failures: Today’s auto bailout is one failure in a long list of institutions that were perceived at one point to be invincible. One could argue that the perception was wrong, that every institution is vulnerable, Senate seats were always for sale in Illinois and elsewhere, that companies always fudge numbers, only Enron, et al, got caught, but again that is a different argument.

The point is today, the consensus among individuals is that they hold the key to their job security, not the entity that happens to pay them for their work that week. In this “I’m responsible for my job security and my skill set” world, attention is given to personal skills and promotion. Some do it better than others.

The Founding Fathers of Blogging

The key people to thank for the explosion personal brands are, Mr. Rogers and Thomas Jefferson with an assist to James Madison.

Jefferson was a strong advocate for free speech and persuaded Madison to include it in the Bill of Rights. Mr. Rogers told generations that each one of us is special and unique.

Enter Web 2.0, and we all have access to express our freedom and uniqueness.

The Social Media Dilemma

Social media claims to be able to put a human face on an entity, a business. If it is done through one individual employee and this face gets too popular then, some say, it can overshadow the business. This is nothing new. In the past it was usually the CEO.

Take Lee Iacocca. For millions he will be forever associated with Chrysler, even though he was president of Ford at one point in his career. The same is true for Jack Welch with GE, a hell of a personal brand that took root and flourished at GE. Welch turned that brand into the Welch Way.

Today many, many more personalities throughout a company have the ability to gain notoriety to a much wider audience than in the past. Thirty years ago the headhunters knew who the top players were in an industry. Today one can forge a brand while working for a company, however, the question is to what end: individual gain, greater value to the company or, the more likely scenario, both.

A case playing out before us is Scott Monty and Ford. Monty had a strong brand while at the agency Crayon. Ford realized the value of social media and the rest is the present. And in this present moment, Monty and Ford are making great strides together. It is an example of how personal brands can relate.

The Clock Watchers and Good Management

A danger of personal brands is how do you judge time spent on developing a personal brand in conjunction with company goals. Can it be measured in time and type of information disclosed? Consider an employee who discusses faults about the company that may be detrimental to the company but can enhance the employee’s “personal brand.” (Please don’t tell me that every fault, every wart, every mistake needs to lay bare on the Web for the company to be transparent. If you believe that, a.k.a. Bob, then let’s start with you. Sorry that may be a bit harsh, but done for affect I think it works, no?)

More about my experience with personal brands and employees in this article about the Bob case at Media Bullseye.

Discretion, whether offline (“Honey, do I look fat in this dress?”) or online (“Sorry about the nimrods in customer service. If it were up to me I would have given you back your $576.87”), is a valuable quality to possess.

Trust is the critical characteristic in a world that has this ease of access to information and others. Trust is a two-way street. Why? Because it’s about relationships, whether an online relationship or someone you manage and evaluate as their “boss” (I dislike that word).

Owyang has written about four ways companies are addressing the issue of personal brands and social media. Jeremiah, I hope you don’t mind me quoting you directly here to keep the flow going, thanks. Owyang writes:

“How companies respond
Brands respond to these risks in a number of ways, I’ve categorized them based on level of sophistication.

First Reaction: Keep marketing faceless: Lean on traditional marketing, avoid human voices to come through.

Second Reaction: Approach with team or hybrid approach:Rather than encourage personal brands, you may instead see corporate team blogs that have an equal weighting to employees. Another example is with Dell and Oracle employees who fuse their name with their employer –it’s both personal and professional.

Third Reaction: Let the customers be the product face: Perhaps the most sophisticated way to market a product isn’t to put your employees on the product blog, but instead, your customers. I don’t see too many examples of this currently, but you can expect this to be an approach in the future.

Fourth Reaction: Allow personal brands to proliferate: Some companies allow for employees to create their own blogs, generate revenue on their blogs, and be who and what they want.”

Regardless of a company’s blogging policy, people are free to blog. (You are not the boss of me.) If they are blogging about work-related topics, then their work life provides them information useful to their blogging and perhaps their personal brand. Even if they don’t mention a thing about their company, by working they simply gain knowledge about the industry, trends, other companies, etc. It’s just part of work.

There will be situations where either side, company or employee, will need to enforce their policy or their liberty by terminating the employment. Those circumstances, I trust, will become more rare as the corporate culture accepts the reality of Rogers and Jefferson and the blogging culture who wish to blog about their work accept the responsibility of their role in achieving business objectives.

The foundation for each party is trust, the prerequisite for each party is communication with each other, the reward for each party is the knowledge gained from the social community.

The conversation on Chris Brogan’s blog about personal branding, strip malls and billboards has developed in a way that I think is a bit off the mark. I don’t disagree with Brogan or the comment on the blog post by Christopher Penn that many social sites can and are used as billboards for personal brands.

I much prefer that social networks be viewed as cafes, restaurants and bars along the road. Not franchises, mind you, although you might get that feel from some of them, but unique places in which you’ll meet some unique and some of the same people. To this environment you will add your own experience, commentary and knowledge. You will pose questions that may well inspire others to enlighten the group. You get a little sustenance, bid good day and come back as often as you like. Oh sure, there are plenty who come in trying to sell flowers from table to table, but that’s a bit of a drag for everyone, isn’t it?

Now it may be that you only frequent a few of these places, but doing it in the manner I described above will give social media more value for you and others. When I hear talk about billboards and strip malls, it begins to sound a lot like Web 1.0. The fact is both of these gents, and plenty of men and women around the world, add tremendous value to the social community in exactly the manner I described. We are grateful for it, and as a result do visit their general stores (websites or blogs).

I just think the billboards and strip malls metaphor conjures up images that don’t truly address the enriching and unique experience to be gained from what we have before us. Some may seek to post up a sign and hawk some goods along the way. Me, I enjoy having a cup of coffee and a piece of pie, even a $.99 Margarita when I can find one, with the Brogans and Penns of the world. Their personal brand in social media is what they share with me all along this winding road, not just what’s at their stores.