On Twitter, I once saw the young, black and fabulous Ms. Bevy Smith say “what you think about me is NOT my business”. While this is true from a personal standpoint, it is not true from an Internet and small black business standpoint.
What you think about me is my business
I wrote an article on my Atlanta Examiner news site that discussed H1B Visa’s, it had over 70 comments and blazed out of control. One comment was very interesting and the commenter said “The writer of this article is a rich contractor who lost a contract and greedy for more money…and we are here fighting over his stupid topic”.
Very interesting comment and a huge assumption on this persons part but it taught me a great lesson. What you think about me is my business and my brand. It is my personal brand that makes him feel this way although he doesn’t know me personally at all. I also don’t know him but I now think about him in a certain light because of his comment.
I also made a comment on a fellow writers post at The Harvard Business Review. Just because I made the comment to someone else’s post, someone reached out to me because they considered me a business leader and scholar. I only made a comment on another prolific writers post. She was smart and had a great topic, not me. You get my drift though, right? Learning how to be successful is about perception on the internet. It can make or break your brand.
What I write about as a thought leader in my specific niche on my LinkedIn gets me tons of respect and business leads just because I start discussions. What the people think about me and the perceptions that they have of me in my niche area is of paramount importance to me. It will not destroy if they think poorly but if they do, it means I need to be careful of my brand and what I say and how I say it.
All black business and famous black folks need to be conscious of perception. In this Internet age, perception is reality. I’m sitting in California right now on a beautiful sunny evening sipping on a bottle of Moscato wine from the Napa Valley enjoying a breeze off the San Francisco Bay. What perception does this make you have of me? It plants something in your mind. I could really be sitting in the projects somewhere fighting pitbulls and you would never know it. Perception is reality. Protect and service your brand now. Your brand is what’s going to lead us out of the unemployment lines and into our own successful small black businesses.
Gerard Spinks is the CEO of Spinks Industries; a Internet marketing and content developer based in Atlanta, GA.
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