jimbojamz

[jimbojamz]

Creating a Personal Brand

One of the biggest reasons why I wanted to take Branding was to learn more about creating a personal brand. Unfortunately these Tumblr posts are due before we could get to the Personal Brand lecture, but some of my early thoughts and hypotheses leading up to the section include:

Values: What values you stand for? What moral boundaries do you draw? What views do you have on certain topics? Are you easy going or more uptight? These values define us and allow us to navigate life by choosing choices that are most aligned with our values.

Communication: Includes both the things you say and how you say it. Are you a person of your word, do you do what you commit to? How do you communicate? Are you a good public speaker, do you connect to people when you communicate to them? What's your preferred mode of communication - in person, text, calls, video conferencing?

Style and Presentation: Dress sense and how one presents themselves can subconsciously influence how people perceive you. Do you typically have good dress sense, or do you seemingly not care about what you wear? Are you clean shaven or do you go for months without a haircut? Presentation is huge for first impressions and people often perceive those who dress well and look well groomed to be more successful and have 'their life in order'.

Interests and Goals: What are your interests and hobbies? Do you like arts, sports, socializing, traveling? How about professionally, what industry and function are you in, do you have career ambitions? These hobbies and goals create a holistic view of our brand and personality, and humanizes us beyond what is initially presented and perceived. It also causes associations based on the things we are interested in, for example a construction worker might be perceived as a blue collar, hard worker, whereas a scientist a smart, research-based person.

Empirical Data: Often times, the best prediction of someone's future is by looking at someone's past. That's the whole reason for having a resume - so the past can be an indicator of what the person is capable of in the future and contributing to a future role. The historical trends of someones actions and patterns can be telling to the person's brand - do they often work hard? Do they achieve what they set out to do? How do they approach similar problems in the past? Actions speak louder than words, and once an action repeats itself consistently over time, it becomes someones 'Brand', whether they like it or not.

To me, these five factors are integral in creating a personal brand, but I would be curious to know what other factors are involved during the class Branding class. Cheers!

[jimbojamz]

Branding Brainstorming for a Dog and Man 'Mukbung' (Korean-eating channel)

'Mukbung' is a term originated in Korean that is a livestream or video of a person eating food in front of a camera. I have a 3 year old golden retriever called Kloe that I'll be bringing to MIT Sloan next semester, and I already anticipate how busy I'll be taking care of her while attending Sloan full time!

To accommodate for this, I've decided to start a Mukbung channel with Kloe and post our videos on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitch, which will allow us to spend time together and bond over a common interest - food!

Although this will start as a side hobby, I do hope it eventually grows big enough to generate revenue or sponsorships. It will be my first foray into social media marketing and influencing, and I will definitely be faced with challenges in growing the channel, branding, content, and other challenges I simply do not know yet. Here are some early thoughts:

Brand will revolve around (1) the dynamics between myself and Kloe as we prepare and eat food, (2) feature healthy food for Kloe and I'll let her try some of my unhealthier 'human' food as a treat, and (3) interact with the audience if there are livestream comments.

I may start the channel off by eating home cooked food for both of us, but eventually branch out into healthy dog food or food around the area, or have themed streams, for example Saturdays will be Asian food, Sundays Western food.

While I don't know how this will all play out, I'm really excited for this to take off and hopefully can find the time and setup to seriously produce content with my dog. Be sure to follow when that takes off! 🚀 🚀 🚀 

[jimbojamz]

You thought becoming an influencer was hard? Try monetizing it.

Our branding lab project focuses on a classmate's instagram page, @carreirasemfrescuras, which creates working memes and has garnered over 225K followers.

Many of us know it's not easy to become a social media influencer or garner a large following, and some of us might even yearn for it; but you'd likely never even think of how to monetize a platform unless you've reached that stage.

Could it be as easy as running ads on the platform like YouTube? Or advertising a product for a company as a post on Instagram?

How about selecting which product to advertise for? Now you'd start to realize that monetization eventually ties back into Branding.

What does your page stand for? What are its values, and what do you want your audience to perceive of you? In this case it's a Portuguese Instagram page intended for the Brazilian working population, utilizing memes and humor to relate to the audience.

So how would you choose to have a product placement or advertisement?

(1) It'll likely be in meme format, similar to all other posts

(2) It'll have to be creative, funny, and relatable such that the audience might not even notice it's a product placement

(3) It should have some utility or relevance to the audience, for example a productivity working tool for professionals like a calendar app

We'll explore more options as Branding Lab continues :)

[jimbojamz]

Customer Journey of a choosing a Sloan Class

All of us face this dilemma every semester - which classes should I pick! Today I will bring you through the customer journey of choosing a Sloan (or non-Sloan) class, and ways to improve the user experience.

Awareness/Research

Activities: Hear about a class or professor from friends or second years, looking at previous year's bidding spreadsheet to identify popular classes

Motivations: Map out your personal/academic interests and gaps, identifying your anticipated course load for next semester

Questions: Can I trust other people's reviews? How many bid points will this require?

Barriers: 1000 bid points across 5 classes, unmet pre-requisites, scheduling conflicts

Proposed Improvements: Document the bidding best practices and share with 1st years, create a database of past 5 years closing bids each class and professor to increase transparency and awareness

Selection

Activities: Login to SloanBid during bidding period, ask friends on how much they're bidding for the same class, have plan B's and C's

Motivations: Visualize your ideal course schedule, identify priority classes and adjust bid points to optimize 1000 bid points

Questions: Did I bid enough points What are the chances I get off the waitlist if not successful? Can I go as a listener /P/F instead?

Barriers: Opaqueness of bidding process cause students to self-doubt probability of successful bids

Proposed Improvements: Increase spaces for classes that have historically required large amounts of bid points (e.g. >300)

In-the-class Experience

Activities: Attend the first few classes even if on the waitlist to evaluate class content and suitability

Motivations: For waitlisted classes, show commitment to the professor and for registered classes, evaluate if content is suitable or whether a better alternative exists

Questions: Do I like this class and the professor teaching it? How's the syllabus like? Am I currently waitlisted on other classes that could be more appealing to me?

Barriers: 54 unit maximum per semester means I have to select my classes carefully and minimize opportunity cost

Proposed Improvements: Have a transparent waitlist process to see which position on the waitlist you are for other classes, which allows you to prioritize 'the next best alternative' if you have a high chance of getting off the waitlist!

-James Lee