Self - Branding

After reading and learning about self-branding I believe that people are branding themselves and don’t even realize they are doing it.  Children today are on the computer before they ever enter a classroom.  Branding has already begun.  Each game that a student signs into requires a username which many times are used over and over to eliminate the possibility of forgetting the name.  Because of this reason, I believe that we should begin teaching self-branding at a young age. 

The internet is a part of life for every student entering our school system.  Since the internet has such a large impact in their lives, we have had to introduce internet etiquette as well as internet safety in our classrooms.  This is a perfect place to insert information about self-branding.   Teaching students that we are beginning to define ourselves through our usernames, the games that we play, and sites that we frequent would be the next step to protecting their name.  Negative self-branding is going to be difficult to convince the students of.  They often can’t see the future and repercussions from choices made today.  Starting at a young age might help stop it before it starts.

Using popular brands that we commonly see and with the help of the internet, we should have many avenues to teaching self-branding.  We could begin the internet safety unit by writing down words that define us and asking students to write descriptive words about each other.  Brainstorming is a great first step in building the positive internet reputation that we are striving for.   

Counselors, in my school, are asked to introduce this unit on internet safety.  Self-branding should be added when internet etiquette is taught.  Students can begin to create their brand with the help of their classmates as I described above.  Allowing classmates to list positive words that describe each student will also add to positive self-esteem which as educators we are always striving for.