打造个人品牌的重要性被高估了

    本文为与《创业者》杂志（Entrepreneur）的合作内容，最初发表于Entrepreneur.com。

    在最新著作《Growth Hacker Marketing》中，赖安•霍利迪探讨了传统的预算高昂的营销部门如何被更高效的小团队（有时甚至是个人）取代，后者正利用一些可追踪和可衡量的工具来使企业得到增长。

    而且整个过程通常不用花一分钱。这些人被称为growth hacker，已经帮助Facebook、Dropbox和AppSumo等公司实现了“从0到100”的快速增长。

    安德鲁•陈于2010年将growth hacker描述为“营销人员和程序员的综合体，针对‘我如何给自己的产品带来客户？’这一传统问题，他们采用A/B组测试、登陆页、病毒性传播因子、电子邮件营销以及开放图谱（Open Graph）等手段来寻找答案。

    从本质上来说，growth hacker创造性地使用各种营销和分析工具，帮助初创企业以极低成本甚至零成本获得牵引力、用户以及曝光。这是游击队式营销与当今的技术工具结合的产物。

    霍利迪详述了Evernote初期的情况，当时，这家年轻的公司决定绕开传统的营销和广告方式，将所有精力和资源都集中到打造一款人们一来就会爱上的产品上。

    Evernote首席执行官菲尔•利宾在赖安的书中表示：“只有一心想着做出最棒产品的人，才可能做出最棒的产品。”

    如果产品过硬，那么其营销和广告将毫不费力，而且很可能成本相对较低（甚至是零成本）。当然，如果产品本身不行，就算在超级碗（Super Bowl）或世界杯（World Cup）上一掷千金做推广也无济于事，最多也就是令产品苟延残喘一阵。

    我刚搬到硅谷时，经常有人建议我努力打造个人品牌，即以某种方式营销或宣传自己。这似乎有些奇怪，因为当时我刚开始到导航应用公司Waze工作，什么都还没做。

    但那些博客、聚会、连续创业者都反复强调，个人品牌十分重要。他们本应该告诉我（我现在要告诉诸位）的是，作为一名新员工，脚踏实地、努力工作十分重要。

    现在回头来看，“注重个人品牌”是我至今得到的最糟糕的建议。这个建议使我开始考虑其他的事情，而不是做出最棒的产品以及全力投入工作。

    我当时以为，通过以某种方式策划并提升自身形象，我就能更快的增加曝光度、提高个人声誉。

    This post is in partnership with Entrepreneur. The article below was originally published at Entrepreneur.com.

    In his recent book, Growth Hacker Marketing, Ryan Holiday explored how traditional big-budget marketing is being replaced by more effective small teams (and sometimes individuals) who are using trackable and scalable tools to grow companies.

    And usually it’s done without spending a dime. They’re called growth hackers, and they’ve helped companies like Facebook, Dropbox and AppSumo go from “0 to 100” real quick.

    Andrew Chen, who adopted the term in 2010, described growth hackers as “a hybrid of marketer and coder, one who looks at the traditional question of ‘How do I get customers for my product?’ and answers with A/B tests, landing pages, viral factor, email deliverability, and Open Graph.”

    Essentially growth hackers use tools in creative thinking, marketing and analysis to help startups gain traction, users and exposure at very low or no cost. Think of guerrilla marketing with today’s technological tools.

    Holiday recounts the early days of Evernote, when the young company decided to bypass traditional marketing and advertising and instead focused all its attention and resources on building a product that people would come to love.

    As Evernote CEO Phil Libin said via Ryan’s book,“People [who are] thinking about things other than making the best product never make the best product.”

    If the product is good, then its marketing and advertising will be easy to accomplish and probably at a relative lower cost (or no cost). Of course, if it’s a horrible product, millions spent at the Super Bowl or World Cup won’t help sway users. That marketing push will just prolong the inevitable.

    When I first moved to Silicon Valley, I consistently received advice to work on my personal brand — that is, to market and advertise myself in a certain way. At first it seemed odd since I had just started working at Waze and hadn’t actually done anything.

    But the blogs, the meetups, the serial entrepreneurs all reiterated how important a personal brand was. What they should have told me — and what I’m now sharing — is the importance keeping my head down as a new employee and putting in work.

    As I now look back, focusing on a personal brand was the worst piece of advice I ever got. In effect, I began thinking about things other than making the best product or doing my best work.

    I thought that by curating and growing my image in a certain way I would gain more exposure and grow my reputation at a faster rate.