Forget everything you think you know about advertising

While the classic definition of advertising involves paid public notices, there’s a more profound concept at play. Today, we’re in an era where everyone, from artists to professionals, is selling something: themselves.

One such definition of “advertisement” as defined by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary is as follows:

1. : a public notice. especially : a paid notice that is published or broadcast (as to attract customers or to provide information of public interest) an advertisement for a new car/movie/business. advertisements for job openings.

Which is in line of what is generally thought of when one hears the word “advertisement.”

However, at its core, an advertisement’s purpose is to sell something, whether it be an item, service, or even one’s self. Freelance artists posting advertisements are not trying to sell an item with an inherent market value. When a freelance artist produces art, while they may initially sell their art by the hour, most successful artists do not inherently charge by the hour, and are instead charging for their name. An original Bansky, for example, may have taken them 2 hours to paint, but you do not see original Bansky pieces going for $30-$60. Perhaps add 5 or 6 zeroes to that, and you’re in the range of how much a Bansky is worth. Bansky’s worth lays not in their labor value, not in their material costs, but in their name, the personal branding they built up surrounding the mysticism of their artwork. When a Bansky sells, one is purchasing an artwork not typically because they like the artwork itself, but because it’s a Bansky–a person who has built a reputation around their anonymous identity and reputation as a political activist.

The modern art landscape fails to recognize this importance of personal branding when it comes to selling their art and services. Back when I was very active in the furry fandom, there used to be an artist by the tag Thanshuhai. People commissioned him not simply because his art was incredible–but because people wanted an original piece by Thanshuhai. When you would browse furry communities, you would see a person’s icon and immediately recognize it as a Thanshuhai piece due to his unique and consistent art style, and this would occur with other profile icons with known artists, be it original pieces, or variants of templated “Your Character Here” artworks. One does not need to be Bansky or Picasso to build a personal brand–Thanshuhai and other well-known artists within and outside of the furry community worked hard to build their reputation from scratch, all with the power of personal branding. Thanshuhai can charge more for his art and produce it in limited quantity–and make a solid living off of his art–because he worked hard to sell himself and his personal branding surrounding his name, rather than the art he produces or the labor value per hour surrounding his artworks.

This is why many artists struggle to make a name for themselves, because they lack this personal branding and consistency within their artwork. It is not the fault of AI art (although, that which is trained on copyrighted artwork must lie in the public domain) “taking their jobs” as those who were going to commission them were not going to use AI generators in the first place–and those who have a tendency to use AI generators were not going to commission artists regardless.

The Self as a Brand

Building a personal brand surrounding one’s identity is as old as evolution itself, or at least as old as the history of reproduction–with species screaming and dancing at the top of their lungs to find a mate, trying to sell themselves. It is usually the male that tries to impress the female with what supposedly makes him more special than any other male–his personal branding–and it is the female who decides which male is impressive enough to carry on their species. The courting behavior of animals was the original advertisement, as the male has to sell his personal brand to the female in the form of advertisement. The female would then “purchase” the male by mating with him, and in some species, monogamously for life.

Throwback to that time I discovered a bird call that got the local Sandhill Cranes to attempt to court me. Needless to say, it did not work, as I am not the birds’ target audience. To be fair, I was falsely advertising, and they quickly caught on. Although, apparently the cranes are bisexual, as these are both male and female cranes. Only in Florida!

Throwback to that time I discovered a bird call that got the local Sandhill Cranes to attempt to court me. Needless to say, it did not work, as I am not the birds’ target audience. To be fair, I was falsely advertising, and they quickly caught on. Although, apparently the cranes are bisexual, as these are both male and female cranes. Only in Florida!

Whether I develop a sense of branding on LinkedIn, my personal pursuits (through my work-in-progress of Wynautix), or as a musician or artist, or even colloquially through social media, there is a sense of self I am attempting to advertise in order to achieve a certain goal, through certain KPIs (follower count, recruiter requests, likes, reblogs, commissions, etc.). My identity is to be “purchased” by a certain audience, be it through finding like-minded people or otherwise post reach. Calling one’s personal identity as one’s branding and as “advertising” is sure to be met with much disdain from the younger generation, due to its general attitude towards one’s identity, yet they fail to recognize how their desperation for social media recognition, validation, and acceptance is in and of itself an attempt to sell themselves, their ideas, or their content.

In an era where identity (regardless of one’s political leanings) has become a core focus for society, how one identifies themselves and aligns themselves with their personal branding in order to achieve their dedicated goals is ultimately one that can make or break their success. Oftentimes it is seldom the content itself that is the issue, but how it is presented, be it through disorganization or mishaps, a lack of understanding of one’s target audience, or a lack of consistency throughout personas. The latter can be a huge deal if for instance a content creator has a conflicting personality on one platform versus another. For example, I used to be a well-known music producer in a communist community, back when the 2016 election had radicalized me. As I slowly deradicalized over the years, coming back to a more neutral ground, should I return to producing covers of communist tunes–if my target audience should so come to realize my new support of mercantilism and general support of Adam Smith’s original capitalistic values (albeit, with a general support of Marx philosophically), this could damage my musical branding’s reputation, as my target audience will realize my conflicting personas go against their own personal values.

A consistent persona across all profiles strongly sell’s one authenticity, which is not only a core value of Search Engine Optimization but also a core value of Social Engineering Optimization and giving all of your platforms’ target audiences a sense of trust in you and your brand, who you are, and what you are here on Earth to sell and achieve. Identifying your target audiences, the niche markets, and one’s ability to leverage one’s branding consistently across even the most drastically different of markets (for example, admitting to LinkedIn of all places my communist history) is a skill one must develop in order to formulate the strongest persona that may be able to aggregate market shares one didn’t even think they could accumulate.

If one is unable to sell their personal brand, consider your target audience and the rhetorical style one must utilize in order to achieve one’s goal with that target market. Oftentimes it isn’t one’s brand identity that can be the issue (albeit, if your brand identity includes swastikas and you’re not a Hindu, you may want to consider the fact that perhaps your brand identity IS the issue) but how one presents said branding to their specific markets, as different markets require different techniques to optimize one’s footprint in the market. One’s stylistic choice of the presentation of their branding can make or break their success in their Social Engineering Optimization goals to sell their brand.

Know Thy Brand

No matter who you are or what you are trying to sell, you must be thoroughly aware of exactly what it is you are trying to sell and achieve, and know your target audiences and niches well enough to advertise yourself and your brand to that target audience, be it a product, a service, or even your own sense of identity. Furthermore, you must know how to adapt your style to sell the same product to different target audiences (for example, my self-identity as a data center to the otherkin community, the queer community, or LinkedIn), as different markets are keen to buy the same product–if only one’s marketing style is adapted to the market.

If your personal branding appears not to sell–one must understand that they must first identify what their brand identity is in the first place, and have a strong sense of identity (be it one’s own identity, or the identity of the brand they are trying to sell)–if you don’t even know what you are trying to sell, how will anyone know how to look for your brand to buy? Additionally your branding’s marketing style on Facebook will differ from LinkedIn, and TikTok, and any other platform you are attempting to use to advertise your brand–and you must stay consistent across all platforms, all while tailoring your rhetoric and style to meet the target audiences. Understanding the market and adapting one’s style to better meet the market is how a skilled marketer can make their mark–or in the cases of courtship, be it bird or human, land a mate, in the cases of OKCupid and Tinder.

Segmenting your market and developing a brand that is able to cover all market niches can make or break your success as a brand or even as a person (is courting recruiters on LinkedIn so much different than courting mates on Tinder–the call is different, but the goals are the same: to sell one’s identity to a prospective buyer). By first forming a strong sense of personal identity and branding, identifying your target audiences and niches, and identifying which KPIs correlate with your sense of success, one can navigate and adapt their identity for any landscape, and achieve success through the power of one’s organization and adaptability to the markets.

It’s not about who you are, it’s about how you sell yourself. And when nobody is buying, consider how you’re selling. Sometimes a change in one’s style can make or break the market.