Steve Rubel wrote in a piece entitled, “Marketing Authentically with Personal Brands as Corporate All-Stars.”  I’ve been wanting to write a piece on this for some time, but I’ve somewhat struggled with the tone.  First of all, I don’t believe I have a very strong “personal brand” yet my position at Crocs pushes me into the spotlight and many of our key consumers – especially influential online ones – see me as a “Corporate All Star.”

Rubel’s piece breaks down how to handle “Corporate All Stars” and I have to agree.  I see my work having a great impact in the conversations – even if I have no specific metrics to back them up.  Humanizing a company, as I am doing through Twitter, blog outreach, and other channels has created an interesting dynamic that is creating new opportunities for the marketing of our product.  Our consumers reach out to me to celebrate our products – through tweets, emails, and even blog posts.  It conjures up the observer effect – normal fans of our products ultimately get a boost in their enthusiasm by merely knowing that a person is watching them.  By building personal relationships – albeit virtual ones – die hard enthusiasts are being synthesized right before my eyes.  It’s truly a wonder to watch.

Yesterday’s Twitter contest was a lot of fun and looking through all the tweets (I used the PC based program “The Archivist” to pull Twitter search results) – there’s so much potential for these kind of interactions.  There was the buzz generated – we were a trending topic on Twitter for like two seconds – the potential market research, the brand building – so much.  I wonder how much traction I gained by being “GeorgeGSmithJr” instead of “Crocs.”  Was it anything?  This is a debate that I have with many people.  I’m not sure anyone has the real answer, but until then – I’ll keep doing what I’m doing.  It seems to work.