The future of (personal) Branding

Tim: [00:00:00] I'm Tim Panton and this is the Distributed Futures podcast.
Vim: And I'm Vimla Appadoo
Tim: and this time. We're talking about branding and particularly personal branding.
I mean, I think. What we find me given that we all have careers that span multiple jobs. It's not like the old days you joined one business and you stayed there from cradle to grave effectively as we move from job to job. One of the things we try and take with us. She's our personal brand and to what extent that belongs to you or the company and how and how you get recruiters to do with your personal brand and I think.
So building a brand for yourself, which you can then kind of lend to your employer is a whole interesting space. I mean, I don't know how you feel about that. But like ownership of your own identity almost
Vim: definitely it's something that I think about quite a lot particularly because the stuff I talked about generally outside of work and [00:01:00] the stuff I talked about inside of work a different.
So I always have two different brand identities, but have somehow merged them together and interestingly when we one of our , "she says" Manchester sessions, which is a networking group for women in Manchester. We did a session about building a personal brand and how you use it your life experience as a way to enhance your career, but by separating the two
Tim: and holding that separation is I think increasingly difficult when you start to see brand development being in places like Facebook.
Vim: Yeah.
Tim: That's a huge Challenge and I wonder whether it's more a challenge for women than for men, but I'm not sure about that.
Vim: Well, I think there's the I don't know if you've seen it but in like an article recently there was an image of a Tory MP [00:02:00] conservative MP with young conservative student and a picture was pulled from the students Facebook profile with him saying negative words about the NHS on a t-shirt on like a freshers week night out so there and they'd like the clickbait headline was.
Something along the lines of careful who you surround yourself with because of x y and z and I thought it was really interesting how that line has merged and it is even. Not just merge but become all the more important in to who we become in the careers that we have.
Tim: Yeah, I think that's terrifying.
I mean, you know the idea that you have to think about what you wear on a freshers week night out and it's going to affect, you know, your career chances 10 years down the line. That's like that's really terrific. [00:03:00] Actually.
Vim: It's terrifying absolutely terrifying. You can't have a past anymore.
Tim: Whoa, you have to have a past but it's got to be squeaky clean. And and that's that's stupid. I mean, that's the political environment on the other hand when you look at some of the kind of other. Environments this super forgiving of like we're I'm watching with amusement the kind of the Ultimate Classic hacker the guy who got done for credit card fraud many years ago.
He's massive credit card fraud. He's he's now like a star of the infosec. And so, you know, I like everybody knows. I mean there have been multiple books written about like exactly how bad he was but now somehow he's using his parlaying that Fame into the ability to [00:04:00] to to do like well, I mean make himself a business which I think is really I mean that's a person is using a what should in Theory being very negative.
personal brand to spin up a business which is kind of really interesting you can do that.
Vim: And I find that building a personal brand as a business aspect from particularly interesting because I've often thought. Am I getting opportunities because of the personal brand I've built for myself or because of my ability to do my job?
And I think ultimately it's both. It's I've been good at talking about what I do and building that personal brand but I'm good at what I do enable which has enabled me to build a personal brand but it throws up more of that kind of imposter syndrome type thinking of like it is this is this. Am I worth it?
Is this really happening aspect?
Tim: Right? Right. I mean I know what you mean and I think be really interesting. Hopefully to [00:05:00] listen to to what Hermione's got to say on that front because she's made a basically made a career out of generating a personal brand being on on on on American television actually and then parlaying that into brand building for startups. So she she uses her massive follower count and that she knows exactly what she's doing and she's not, you know, she's not it's not just followers. It's like the whole but she basic she's doing a huge amount of good for a start-up she can get visibility for an otherwise invisible start-up and that's a really that's kind of that's the other side of what you're saying I think is that, you know, she knows exactly what she's doing.
And it's a very conscious like yeah play that interesting.
Vim: Yeah, really interesting that it's all the more important that we started thinking about the things that we are endorsing. So by retweeting [00:06:00] this a my endorsing the product person their history and what is that aligning me to and how is that going to affect my personal brand as well?
So I think that's a whole other. issue was in and of itself and particularly when you've seen the rise of kind of Instagram celebrities who make their careers out of kind. Featuring different products through Instagram or Twitter or whatever it is the whole influencer economy, I guess.
Tim: Yeah. Yeah.
I mean, I think that's and and what troubles me about that. Is that it some personal Brands don't work in those environments like, you know, if you're not photogenic or your natural style is actually much more discursive than than fits into a tweet then both Instagram and Twitter on ideal media for your brand.
And so you end up having to change the way that your brand works or what you would naturally be your brand your [00:07:00] authentic brand. Perhaps you might say to think the media that work. I mean that's always been a problem. I had a. I worked in Holland for five years. I learnt Dutch and what I found was that I think my touch wasn't quick enough and precise enough to have a meeting in Dutch and work the way I would in English.
I had to be much more kind of sitting back and listening to the whole conversation and then just interjecting one or two. Really critical points because I couldn't like I couldn't just do the chitchat. I had to like narrow it down to the focal thing that I could get out and short sentence and so my style in Dutch in a Dutch meeting is completely different from that in English meeting.
Just kind of weird actually and I think the same is true for media, you know, New Media like Twitter and Instagram. Now the way you present yourself to those aren't the way that you present yourself in real life. And I don't know if you've had that experience [00:08:00] where you walk in when you meet somebody who you've dealt with on Twitter and they are surprised to find out what you're really like.
Vim: Yeah a hundred percent so there's even an people that have followed me on Twitter and I don't know who they are and it's kind of become will be will refer to me as my Twitter handle and it always takes me by surprise that I forget that you can have followers that you're unaware of and they see what you're tweeting and they see what you're up to and can called on can call on that but I think that's that's also me not being conscious of enough of the things I put online to build that brand.
Tim: Yeah, but it's also to do with the fact that Twitter's of one too many Medium you're saying something but you're not necessarily interacting with all of the people who you're saying that thing who you're saying public but it's somehow people feel like more connected to you than you'd feel connected to them.
It's asymmetrical.
[00:09:00] Vim: Yeah,
Tim: which is interesting how you manage that I think is quite. Complicated and I think we're still learning.
Vim: Yeah, definitely. It's a whole new form of communication and relationship.
Tim: Right? Right. I mean and I I think we need to learn how to do this because it said at the beginning I think that jobs.
Actually come out with its you know, how you how you land. The next job is a lot to do with how you presented yourself on GitHub or Twitter or conferences or whatever like that like that. I mean certainly it is for me. I don't know about I mean other spaces, but I imagine the same true for you.
Vim: Yeah. Definitely. I think any any job where there's an element of online. They're going to be looking at what you do online all the presence that you have all the things that you're reading or. Commenting on or the discussions that you're taking part in. I think it will plays apart into it. And if you're not having those [00:10:00] having that online presence, they expect to reason for why so is it because of data is it because of security is it because you don't want to have a personal brand by all of those stuff then come into play.
Tim: Yeah, so you've of almost got to give excuses for like for not doing it now. Yeah, definitely tricky anyway, so yeah, listen to the the chat I had with Hermione and hopefully there's some some stuff in there for us to a salute from.
Hermione: I'm Hermione Way and I am an entrepreneur and marketing executive. I've been in the tech industry for over 10 years now and I work with startups. I've worked with big corporations like American Airlines and increasingly working with a lot of blockchain startups and I love personal.
I like branding. I love getting people excited about products and Brands and that's me
Tim: cool. So I'm kind of somewhat of an ignorant person about branding and [00:11:00] I sort of think I might do it by accident, but I don't really know what I'm doing. I have kind of other people who who helped me with that.
So so what do you mean by branding?
Hermione: branding is something that somebody else can instantly recognize you by whether that be a logo and name sound? For example, I shared a post last week which had to copy coffee cups. And there was one cup with that was indistinct no logo on it. I know the prices of the coffee was at one pound fifty and then you had the Starbucks logo on the other cup and it was three pounds 50 and you know just by adding that green logo Starbucks.
It's a brand obviously it's going to Starbucks is a brand that people the companies are working on for a long time. But just by adding that logo, you know increases the value so so much. So, yeah, and that's another thing that's fascinating about building a brand it's creating value. And I think that's super interesting in the age of the internet [00:12:00] where you're selling pixels, but you're actually creating a brand and I'm giving that brand value
Tim: right?
So, I mean we keep getting told by. But people that part of the value of a company that we are building is what the brand is and trying to express our brand values about like, you know, what is it that we're we're trying to convey to a customer like so that they expect the thing is it's an instant like message about what it is that we do and who we are and trying to convey that in a in a way that's memorable I suppose.
Hermione: You have to think of it of it as I can't you have to think of companies is just like people so, you know, there's Sarah. Oh, she's nice. You know she shares a lot. Yeah. She really helped me out the other day or oh there's I share so she wasn't very nice to me last week. Yeah. It's just like companies you say.
Oh, there's Facebook. They misuse my data. Oh and there's myspace. They're getting their a bit old. Now, you know, it's just just like you just talk about a brand [00:13:00] just like you would a person so it's kind of like. Someone someone said your name, what would they say about you? What were the one of those values that your brand has
Tim: have a funny story about that.
I did a conference talk at the conference and the first news like moderating that that session that room for the day came up to me afterwards and thank me for the talk, which is nice and he said Tim that was surprisingly reasonable and I'm thinking what like do I have a reputation for being unreasonable then like obviously I do but I'm unaware of it and I'm not.
That's a good thing or not. Actually, it's because that's the other thing that's interesting is that brand isn't always doesn't have to be a positive thing. So I was fascinated by by Ryan Air like all of their stuff. They keep getting precious about like how they're not going to let you use the toilet and they're going to charge you for you know, sitting down or whatever and what they're doing with that is emphasizing how cheap they are.
Hermione: Yeah, yeah.
Tim: Yeah, actually really really clever. So it doesn't have to be a positive [00:14:00] thing. If you know what you're doing
Hermione: well and actually, you know, I love the expression the quote that all press is good, press you know, what they are doing is keeping the brand in the headline change basically saying going to charge you to take a shit on our plane.
Right, but you know, that's that's when you know, keep them in the kitchen on the daily. Now, I keep seeing the news people keep talking about them. So I actually think you know, obviously I do not agree with Donald Trump's politics, but I think Donald Trump is amazing at PR because every day when we open up Facebook, what do we see and who do we see in the news feed?
Donald Trump he said something controversial again. So yeah.
Tim: It's never a Democrat is it
Hermione: no, no no exactly exactly. So, you know, we live in this sort of brash world where you got it always be shouting about yourself always shouting let your achievements. To stay to stay in the attention feed.
Tim: So you said you think that it's no different [00:15:00] from from a person, you know, you talk about brands in the same way that you talk about people.
I'm interested in that overlap because I mean you in particular and I guess me sort of by accident we have personal brands that we carry over into the work we do and do you find that like, is that a new thing or. People always done that.
Hermione: No, I think before and the old well, you know the old world of work and 80s and 90s.
There's very much the separation of you go to work and you're in work mode and you come home and you can relax and be yourself. I think increasingly as the world of work has changed people like Richard Branson have been cutting off people that his tie. In other people's ties and saying like look guys.
Let's just be one person and with it we should be the same home as we are in the workplace. I think I think people are coming around. To the fact that you know work and play should be one of the same and you can just be the same person to throughout and I also think it's less stressful as well. You [00:16:00] know, when you have to put on a front and try and pretend to be somebody you're not as very stressful and it's not authentic and it comes through like that.
So yeah, and the world of work is complete has completely changed so much that even I left London 10 years ago for Silicon Valley and London was still quite sort of corporate everyone wearing suits and I've come. Back and there's literally a co-working space on every single corner. Like it's all about flexible work flexible working.
It's all about wearing trainers to the office. There's been the whole metoo movement women are not refusing to wear high heels, you know that the whole world of work has changed.
Tim: Right. I'm not sure to what extent that to London phenomenon. But but I had a really interesting conversation few weeks ago with Lucy Rogers.
Dr. Lucy Rogers. Who did she was a she was a judge on robot wars and stuff, but she's actually now she's doing an interesting thing which is about the maker economy. So she's really [00:17:00] into into Woodwork and creating things but she was saying part of that conversation was that you know in the old days you were the blacksmith The Village Blacksmith and that was not only your job but it was your status in society. And so it's actually relatively recent that we've recently that we've separated those things. She's her. I mean that part of that conversation was around like well actually let's try and you know do the thing that we love and try and make some money out of it which is sort of really kind of what you were saying but slightly flipped on its head
Hermione: exactly where we're living in a time now where it's never been easier to start a business, you know, literally my mum open has a Macbook shape.
I showed you how to set up a Squarespace website and if she goes, you know, like anybody Now can do a start-up. So yeah, we're living in times where you can literally turn your passion into a business. So and Pat passion is a very personal thing
Tim: and that comes back to the thing you were saying just now in about authenticity that like it's much more easy to be authentic as [00:18:00] about is possible to give you a brand and authenticity.
If you actually do mean mean it and you do care it's harder to do it if you don't.
Hermione: Yeah, I mean the the fake is just I didn't know there's so many copycats, but if you don't have that original enthusiasm and that original passion, yeah, it's just it's just kind of flat dead brand than my opinion.
That day, I mean if you look at TechCrunch, right? Yeah, it's one of the world's largest technology blogs and I think the way that Michael Arrington set it up and the way that he wrote and the way that he was very honest about companies has follow through even though he's sold sold them told the rag and left and I think his his his style continues true to the writers today.
So I think once you have that brand value, it can continue through
Tim: so that that's interesting. So you've basically kind of the idea that the brand value actually might live longer than the staff who [00:19:00] set it up or or even the founder or even possibly the initial products. Like you can have a brand value that that goes on from one product to the next
Hermione: definitely.
Yeah, I'll go surpasses surpasses human. Yeah, definitely and it's about setting it's about intention. It's that setting that. Intention at the beginning and that can carry through
Tim: that's really kind of scary. That means that if you're doing a start-up you have to think about this stuff or does it just like happen organically.
Do you think
Hermione: well too far? I know companies that state agencies thousands and thousands of pounds to come up with their mood board and what their brand value stand for and they spend weeks, you know weeks or months doing this and it's to me it's a bit of a waste of time in all the companies that I've set up.
The brand values have just been set by the founder has been extremely passionate about that area and they've you know, they've been the creating a new brand they've just set those sort of unintentionally from their from their passion of wanting to solve something [00:20:00] so I know yeah, I think the best the best Brands the ones that you think of uber and Airbnb and Tinder even you know, their brands that were.
That that the new age Brands and the become household names and they were set up from their Founders encountering their problem. So say I think that's the best way.
Tim: Yeah, so we'll again that's kind of coming back to us and just see that it's much easier to be authentic if you if you do care about the thing and it's kind of difficult though for a so I spend spent the time and spending that.
Quite a lot of time at the moment with in the information security Community. I mean always kind of been interested in them, but I'm actually sort of working in that space at the moment and and they they're fascinating because the particularly the hackers will have brands that are not personal. I mean, they are personal but they're Anonymous in some respects.
Oh, yeah, they'll deliberately not be photographed. They'll be quite happy to have [00:21:00] press coverage of what they're doing, but it'll be under a pseudonym because. On a separate their real lives from from their work lives now. I know that's an extreme example, but I guess there must be other cases where you really don't want your real life too kind of impinge,
Hermione: what is interesting you say that because I've been a total over sharer for 10 years.
And I literally I farted and I would post it on Facebook. But now I've kind of turn the other way and I don't want to share my kids photos and so much of my life because. If so much media that can use that against you, you know your stories every day of a Mum. For example her baby got sick and then they find one post on Facebook where you said O Part Parenthood is.
And then Social Security social services use that against you so we are living in really scary times I think and yeah, I think I think the separation which sort of going the other way now and the separation is beginning to happen and people don't want to post so much [00:22:00] online. Even or even on my local train from East Anglia from Liverpool Street to the home in Suffock.
Facebook and now having paper adverts up saying we're sorry we missed use your data. I mean what it's just crazy that a digital company is having to grovel by sticking up posters everywhere.
Tim: Yeah. Well, I suppose that most part of that may be that posters cheap these days. I don't know what poster spaces.
Hermione: Well, I'm not on not gonna try first class Train play.
Tim: No. No, I guess you're pretty you're paying over.
Hermione: I didn't I didn't think Facebook would have an issue with the money. It's just the fact that you know, obviously data has become such a data protection and security has become such a Hot Topic with the Cambridge analytica Scandal that people are waking up and the fact that you know massive company like face because apologizing is really kind of interesting.
Tim: Yeah interested me the flip side of that which is sort of surprised me slightly [00:23:00] as Apple is is not making a huge amount out of the fact that they're doing things differently. They don't collect that data. Well as kind of strikes me as odd that they're not turning that into into a Brand Story.
Hermione: Yeah, you know interesting.
So why do you think the the security Community are sort of hiding their identity identity?
Tim: Well, a lot of them it's part of the job. So I mean the really entertaining people are that are the physical pen testers who will go in and find out if they can get into your office and steal your documents.
I mean physically steal them and they like they can't if they if people know what they look like then like. Security guards to be on be on the lookout for them and they you know part of their thing is they'll rock up in a high-vis jacket with a clipboard and say I've come to look at your air conditioning and and if your if your front gate security guard lets them in and lets them into the computer center, then you failed the test.
But they have to be anonymous in order for that to [00:24:00] work.
Hermione: I thought you were working with secret agents right now.
Tim: I'm not I know these people that's all you know, it's because I'm actually on the other side of this. I'm kind of doing defense pretty much so, you know, what we're doing with within the iot space is trying to build iot devices that are a bit more secure and a bit more private than but it means I end up going to need some of these conferences and finding out what they're doing and I think they are a
interesting case in terms of us say the personal brand because a lot of them are selling their services in exactly the way that you know, you and I are in sense of being publicly visible but it's a it's an avatar. It's an alter ego that's publicly visible and not the person themselves, which I think is is funny.
Yeah, it is really
Hermione: as well John the Facebook's techcrunch's John Biggs the other day announce that he's not posting any of his personal stuff on Facebook because his. Account got hacked and I think they were there is a change sort of happening.
Tim: So what do you think [00:25:00] then that the substitute for that is what people going to like--how'd if you do want to build up a personal brand imagine you're a musician or you know, you want to sell your own handcrafted knitwear or whatever and you want to build a personal brand.
How do you do that?
Hermione: Well, well then the old days you would just start posting online and trying to build a following. That's how I've done it basically just be an interesting person and post stuff that's different and have a look at what your competitors are doing, see how you can iterate to do things differently and grab attention that way but.
And if people don't want to be building audiences under their real identity, it's going to get a bit confused and a bit crazy. But I think your point about authenticity is really really important. I think more than ever, you know, you look at the celebrities and holly hollywood. Now, they're starting tech companies and everything's becoming far more.
Sort of real [00:26:00] and people are not putting so many so many filters on things. I feel
Tim: yeah. I mean I kind of little bit old-fashioned. I think that some filters it like we're like you're saying about the kids, you know, we're not necessarily going to post as much about about what the children are doing just because it's like.
Well, it's a family thing and we had a very very interesting conversation with some people in the Far East and and their attitude towards privacy is quite different from that in Berlin and wewe. I'm in Berlin about half the time and that's like a classic privacy play people understand privacy.
There in a very personal sense. But but in in the Far East it's about family. Like the expectation is that your family will know all of your business, but nobody outside the family should necessarily
Hermione: interesting and just and what about you because you have children. What are your internet rules with them?
Tim: Well, I never mention them by name. I always refer to them as like, you know, number [00:27:00] one son or smallest daughter. Yeah, so I never mentioned the by name. I never published pictures of them without their permission, right? And that's really unusual. You will see very few. Pictures of my children on Facebook or anywhere actually, I mean if they want to that's absolutely fine.
That's but that's like I'm not doing it and one of them is pretty much not on social media and the other one is you know. Visible and does, you know, it's kind of kind of interesting but I don't know where they get. I mean, I don't think either in the desperate interested in Facebook these days they tend to hang out in in smaller groups.
Hermione: Oh, yeah, that's another thing to do with marketing. It's all about private group these days so building a channel and telegram building a community on WhatsApp, but, you know having a price private messenger group because as I said, we are entering this new area where people are wanting. Be so public.
So yeah, if you're looking to build a strong marketing channel, go go with one of the encrypted apps.
Tim: [00:28:00] I was I was having lunch with a couple of marketing friends of mine in the other day and they said yeah 'dark social'. I think what stock social it's the way it is it's groups closed groups on Facebook or Instagram or wherever but you can't you have to be invited in and there's a little slightly like a clique but on the other hand, it's interesting is the whole new phenomenon.
I'm still sort of getting my head around it.
Hermione: Well, I'm working with a lot of blockchain startups. Doing ICOs and the best sales channel. The moment is building a community on telegram. So a lot of my job at the moment is just finding relevant people who would be interested in the product will bringing them into being bring them into the telegram community and then keeping them engage with videos and ten photos and it's you know, that's not a that's not a public Channel as a private channel.
So yeah, it's funny how my job actually has changed from. Public sphere to a private sphere and I haven't really thought about it before today.
[00:29:00] Tim: It's not really private but it's smaller group.
Hermione: Yeah, it's yeah. Yes. It's still public. You're right, but it. It's not public as in people can't follow you the way they follow you on Facebook.
That makes sense.
Tim: Right right know for sure and you can kick them out as well.
Hermione: Yeah, and you have to as you say have to be invited in
Tim: I wonder how you whether that's like, I mean I suppose that's like the the musicians have always had like, you know the fan clubs which would give you early access to the album or whatever or you know, the tickets half an hour earlier that kind of stuff.
So I guess it's a. It like that.
Hermione: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. It's interesting. I am going to be interesting to see where it goes from here because I mean did you feel that way as well as free and being very public call idea or social media now, it's going more private.
Tim: Well, I found myself finding the social media less and less Pleasant to be on so I actually don't you know, like the fun of it was engaging [00:30:00] with my friends and and and now like.
In the public forums that's almost impossible because your deluged with with stuff. You don't want to deal with it either, you know politics or adverts and I don't care about right. Well, I mean I do care about those but that's not what I want. To be in that space for
Hermione: yeah. Yeah. Well, I've you know people have said to me.
Oh, why don't you just go offline completely but the internet brings me all of my business and you know, I last year I literally put one link online to my branding workshop and I had a very good year business-wise and connect with a lot of people and so, you know, but being on social media brings me so much.
I mean it brings me my whole life because that's how I make my income I would lose so much to be off it
Tim: I think that's right. I think it's just a question of managing like what it is that it can do for you. And I think that the platforms are changing and that's that's kind of the fun thing in what we do is that you know, we're [00:31:00] trying to understand what it is that the.
What the platforms can offer you and that changes from year to year. So you mention Telegram where else you are you active where I'll see where else do that people might not obviously think about
Hermione: what'sapp up telegram. I'm looking at steam it which is a blockchain social network where you get paid for your posts.
That's also an interesting business model, you know Taste of turn around and said, okay, we're going to share the revenue from advertising we get with our content creators. You know, they are essentially being paid to post on Facebook. I think that would be a really interesting model. I don't know if they've been more spam or more sort of original content.
Tim: Yeah. Yeah. Well, it depends a bit on how the engagement how the you get paid with you get paid by engagement or you know, and I think that's the issue. That was it that you've always if it's by engagement than there's always the temptation to sensationalize to to make clickbait. [00:32:00] Basically.
Hermione: Yeah.
Yeah,
Tim: and I think that's the that's part of what we're trying to get away from in. These clothes groups is is we don't necessarily want we're trying to raise the quality a lot of the times when we're joining a small closed group with like 20 people because there's a quality threshold, but you don't get in if you're going to shitpost the whole time or maybe you do if it's a shitposting group, you know, which are actually quite entertaining I can recommend that but yeah, yeah,
Hermione: are you aware of how crazy I mean how Tech has just infiltrated everything in the last 10 years.
I mean. Have you noticed I mean literally, I mean you've been in Tech way longer than me, but I mean literally everything technology is touching everything these days that you are you aware of that or you are you so far deep in it that it's not you're not aware of it.
Tim: I'm kind of a know I'd get every now and I get now and then I guess surprised when somebody says, oh, yeah.
No, I'm doing it online teddy bear business or something like that and I'm thinking, you know back in the day you [00:33:00] would have known you would have done an online, you know computer disk. So ever but but the idea of like selling teddy bears from your house. I mean, I know somebody friend of mine sells.
Specialist magazine so she buys she kind of goes around buying these magazines and then sells them and these basic is allows her to work from home. Why don't you buy some online collects them finds the ones that are interesting and then resells them to people who are interested in them. So she's basically just running a Clearinghouse for for this, you know number of kind of specific old magazine types.
And and I cant even remember what the topics are actually it's like horses or something, but you know, But she makes a living out of that.
Hermione: Yeah. Yeah,
Tim: just like really strange when you think about it.
Hermione: Is it is it is it's a it's an amazing time. We're living and I think
Tim: but so so have you like how do you feel about how do you feel about Snap for example, you mentioned Instagram, but you haven't mentioned Snap is there a reason?
[00:34:00] Hermione: Well, there was kind of like a big, you know Snapchat sort of Revolution when it first started a couple of years ago two or three years ago and everyone. sortta went on Snap, I've got an au-pair. She's 18 and she loves Snapchat. But I feel like there was like a big rush and now people aren't really using it so much, but I know that younger generation are so I guess it just depends on your age and what you're doing.
Tim: We still like catering to the young in Tech. Is it is it still that everything is aimed at like under 25s like it used to be or do you think that's going to shift?
Hermione: What I think as technology has Diversified, you know yesterday. I was reading about my friend got 3 million in funding for her dating app for the.
The 50s over-50s dating only so I think there are more Niche things coming about but I think the the main the main apps and services do focus on the younger generation.
Tim: It's interesting. So so and therefore if we're doing this this brand [00:35:00] coming back to Brand if we're doing brand advertising we kind of inevitably or brand building we kind of and using social media what kind of inevitably are aiming at.
What is now probably the poorest section of society?
Hermione: I know I asked it quite well, that's why I think there's all this break out stuff and break out apps and in these new sectors.
Tim: What do you think about physical events like, you know showing up at conferences setting up workshops all those sorts of things did
Hermione: yeah, I still think you can't be face-to-face, you know, there's just nothing like hanging out with someone and meeting somebody in person, you know their mannerisms you just you just can't replace even Skype.
You just can't replace. So I still think there's a lot of (indistinct ) in fact this year. I think my networks been rather quiet on the business front. So I've been going to a lot of events and making new connections and it works, you know. See Event Event still there are now too many events.
So many events. You can be going to like [00:36:00] three or four events every night if you want to
Tim: Right but but in terms of building a brand how do you choose which events to maybe put time into or do you sponsor them or like where how do you know? Where's the line? Now? How do you I mean I'm stealing free consultancy from you here, but you know,
Hermione: it just depends on your objectives, you know, you need to look at which speakers are going to be at which events, you know.
If you're trying to aim for a specific Niche or type of person needs to look at the event attendee list and then you just need to sort of go to the ones that you feel going to first going to suit. Your, you know, your goals.
Tim: Hmm But you do think that a physical like getting out there and physically being present and visible this even anything that gets me is that they did the numbers feel like they shouldn't work like the audience size is maybe 50 or a hundred whereas in theory on.
A Facebook post might reach a couple of thousand but somehow it still seems to be [00:37:00] worth it.
Hermione: Yeah, I mean it's interesting because as I said last year I put up one link to my mentorship program and I got so many sales and this year. I put out the same link and my network feel stagnant. It feels like people have seen it before I've got no new people in my funnel funnel.
So that's what I've been going to physical events to get new people into my network into my funnel. So yeah, I still think you need that element.
Tim: Hmm. Okay. So when I my sense is that we're moving away from. The pure digital and into a more kind of mixed of mix of personal actually meeting people or any right hanging out with them in quite small groups in order to establish essentially to establish authenticity you get so you get a sense of what people are from those sorts of environments in a way that you just don't on on Facebook anymore.
Hermione: Exactly. Exactly. And I think I was reading an article about Millennials or then Generations [00:38:00] Z. Next Generation, whatever they called, but apparently that they're not really into drugs not only in to drink they really instead of sitting around trying different tea bags different kinds of cheese together.
I mean obviously not all of them. But I mean our au pair the moment she's 18 years old and she's so got so much self-control. She loves social media, but she's yeah, she's all about being authentic and talking and you know being real as opposed to just being. Some fake person on social media.
Tim: That's remarkably encouraging that's kind of, you know, makes me feel happy that this maybe the kids are all right after all.
Hermione: Yeah, I think the kids are all right deaf and I'm excited to I know said the next generation are so environmentally conscious, you know, they really there's a guy called Boyan Slats.
And he's I think he's 19 from the Netherlands and he's invented this technology that takes plastic out of the Ocean. And here's his Hardware's being [00:39:00] tested at the moment in San Francisco to clean up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which is accumulation of millions of pounds worth of trash in the Pacific Ocean.
So, you know, there are more and more kids like this one it and instead of wanting to build a dating app or something trivial. They're actually trying to use technology. Save the planet or to reverse the effects of climate change.
Tim: I think that's that's that's interesting that there are like, it's still Tech based or not all of them.
But a lot of those things are tech based but they're using them to to change people's lives in a kind of positive way, which I think you know previous generation were was all about.
Hermione: Consumerism
Tim: well generating attention and money basically was what it was about. So when
Hermione: I say that they said in order for the world to survive consumerism has to end capitalism has to end and I think we are entering that new era now, I think brexit and Trump and the last big blips before this new age that we're going to enter of [00:40:00] clean living.
I mean, I think they'll look back on this generation. They're like, oh my God you guys drank you guys smoked you guys had toxic cleaning products in your House, like what? Do you guys think of you guys with eating crap food? You know, I think we are entering a clean cervera.
Tim: Gosh. How do you Market to people with no vices?
Hermione: I know right?
Tim: Hey cool. Listen, thanks so much for that. I think that's a great place to leave it.