My interest in social media dates back to year 2005. I was at a seminar on personal Branding and the facilitator asked whether if we Google our names anything will show up. None of us has Internet access in the room so that became an assignment for all. I got home and tried as much as possible to locate a cyber cafe where I could do my assignment. I Googled my name and nothing came in my favour. I became embarrassed as I Googled the name of my facilitator who seems younger than I in age and yet he had positive review. He owned the first ten mentions about his name.

I made a determination to do something about that. In the process of time, I have lost major positive review that would have shown up after my name just because I was not consistent with spelling of my name in every online activity. Today I understand better and I am learning the how to get it right. But the essence of this article is to find out from some of my colleagues how strong is our influence or tribe we are building? Or do we even have a mindset of building anything at all. There is this clash of whether quality supersedes quantity. What obtains today is the level of influence you wield will determine what comes to you when you need a job, a recommendation, a referral among many other key success factors.

I am currently reading a book by Julliet Powell  ’33 Million People in The Room’. There is a quote inside the book by Guy Laliberte about how to run a business( which I think is also applicable to personal brand) which says ‘Do business as if you were playing a game, have fun, know the rules and when it is time, make your own’. The import of this is huge. It is good to be an online observer, consumer, and ‘commenter’ but if you do not set up, nurture and build powerful tribe of your own, you will lose out and can never wield much influence.

To corroborate this, this mentioned book also gave the report about a research tagged ‘Reed law and the centre of Influence’. The result showed that ‘effectiveness of large network (and social networks in particular) can scale exponentially with the size and social importance of the network. In other words, Reed law suggest every new person on a network doubles its value’.

This book also cited a research study by UCLA and Boardex looked at the impact of being in the centre of network affects financial success of an individual or corporate organization. It goes ahead to say companies are influenced by their social connections and the position they wield inside the connection will determine their fortunes. This also goes for individuals too. It is also stated that if an individual who is highly connected and occupies the ‘centre of universe’ as top executive in a company is removed or dies, things may not be the same again for that company/ business.

The import of the above is that in the next five, ten years, what is your level of influence or whether you are the centre of the universe in your tribe will determine what your allocations will be. Especially here in my environments. I do know this is already happening in highly developed economy. Talking the talk without locating a tribe you can be part of, where you can learn, have fun and test run your ability to start one will affect your personal brand. Part of the report on the centre of universe that really touched me is that a man at the centre of the universe (power broker, influencer) without enough competencies may be hard to remove or sacked. While we are developing skills and competencies, ability to know how to wield influence, create tribe will go a long way to help us sustain positive perception.

A word of caution here though is that while trying to create a tribe, some will overdo it by destroying already established community of others. This strategy will not help much as others are watching your moves. All you need do is build more friendship walls, learn from established tribe, be patient and start out your own tribe by being willing to give, share your knowledge without ulterior motive to highjack established tribe/platform.

In conclusion, is your brand ‘Google-able’? Where is your tribe online? Are you at the centre of the tribe’s universe? Do you know how the Reed law can work for you? If I will not be termed selfish, become active member of Brand Gavel Community, guest post if you are passionate about what we are discussing here, step up the discussion by leaving comments and expressing your honest opinion etc. One day we will organize an offline networking session; will anyone know your face or remember your name as a community member? Take position now.

Related posts:

1. Personal branding is an opportunity to influence
2. Brands: How to fund your social and cultural capital
3. The brand’s tribe: Recapturing Africa’s lost heritage
4. Personal branding on the fast lane.
5. Personal Branding: Do you really want to get attention?