How To Lose Friends and Alienate People

Personal branding has become one of the buzzphrases of the modern marketing lexicon. And while it has its place, it's easy to take the concept too far and lose the personal side of the equation altogether. So where once people were dealing with individuals on a friendship level, now they find themselves dealing with commodities that market themselves relentlessly to everyone in their circle of acquaintances. My social (and social networking) circle comprises a number of musicans, artists, and writers, people whose work often is a major component of their identity. Consequently it's natural for them to engage in a certain amount of marketing in the course of their daily conversations and activities.

But lately I've noticed that the promotion to emotion ratio for many is increasingly tipping in favor of the marketing. Ironically, as businesses go out of their way to put a human face on their brand, and engage people in personal conversations, these personal "brands" seem to be headed in the opposite direction, slamming their contacts with post after post about events, book or cd releases, contests, etc. without so much as a how do you do inserted in between. Worst of all, many of these communications are either generated mechanically or sent out wholesale, further depersonalizing the relationship.

Conversation has become a lost art; people are in continual broadcast mode. Little wonder that societal relations are devolving to a point where polarized groups fire cannons of rhetoric at each other in an unceasing bombardment, and yet appear to be utterly unable to have a reasoned, thoughtful, respectful discussion of issues from a variety of perspectives. That would require listening, and a genuine desire to hear and understand the person on the other side of the table. It would require time. Tweets don't take much time at all.

It's a strange paradox: seems like the more contact social networking enables, the less genuine human interaction there is. And the easier it becomes to see people as mere profiles to target for the next "Brand ME" marketing campaign.