Personal Branding for Disney Fans

In the past week I have been researching Personal Branding for a project for school. Its a concept that in great part has come about with the emergence of the internet and the rise of social media. In case you don't know what personal branding is, its basically the concept of making yourself a brand and marketing yourself and your skills. For example, Coca-Cola is a brand owned by the Coca-Cola company. For personal branding think of yourself as Coca-Cola the company and your personality and skills as Coca-Cola (the drink) which you have to market to the public.

While I was researching this topic I kept trying to think of someone I knew that had done this successfully. At first I couldn't really think of anyone, but then I remembered a friend I had met while working at Disney. His name is Paul Chadkin, a Disney World cast member, and he has been quite successful at branding himself as your go-to Disney Parks information hub.

When it comes to personal branding, social media is your friend. Once you find your niche and decide how you want to market yourself, social media is one of the best ways to start connecting with others and getting your name out there. Paul has done this incredibly well. He has a presence on twitter and posts regularly with updates about what is going on in the Disney Parks. As a cast member, Paul has the ability to go to cast previews and hear "backstage" information which many other Disney Parks "tipsters" aren't able to do. Paul has an parks update report, called the D-Report, which he posts on his blog as well as on Disney discussion boards. In addition to his own report he also guest writes for other well known Disney fan sites such as StudiosCentral.com. 



The fact that Paul has 727 twitter followers and is on 71 lists shows me that he successfully created a presence for himself in the very crowded Disney fandom universe. Personal branding, a concept and process which can seem very vague can really work. Paul's success, to me, proves it. 


-M