Renewing Your Brand
By Samantha
Seikaly
Renewing Your Brand. In the midst of the pandemic, all sectors of life have virtually been shifted online - from online education to online weddings, the world has undertaken a monumental shift in social engagement. As we spend increasingly more time online, we create a more nuanced network of our own data and presentation on online spheres, especially through social media. In November 2020, GCP SUCCESS hosted a live interview with Timothy Fare-Matthews on the importance of self-branding in a predominantly online world. It has become apparent that social media is one of, if not the most, important tool for professional development - a tool that now more than ever can be used to maximise social and professional reach. Timothy Fare-Matthews is the owner of First and Ten Productions, a production house in Dubai that has been a pillar of the city’s media industry, having worked with Pope Francis, Will Smith, Red Bull and many more. During the first national lockdown in the UAE in March 2020, Timothy and his colleague, Sebastian Bates, launched FTEN X Academy, an online networking community for Dubaibased business owners.
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From organising live interviews with business moguls, to offering services for multimedia course creation, Timothy has established himself within multiple networks by constructing a self-brand through his expertise.
“Branding is what people say about you when you’re not in the room” Praising his early efforts to self-brand, Timothy noted that “With our branding (...) we were able to kickstart a product. It’s called the FTEN X Academy, and that enabled us to build a community and also sparked my own personal brand as well.” Timothy emphasises the universality of the self-brand as something that everyone should focus on, as “there’s the brand of the business, and there’s also the brand of you.”
Every social media post and account is part of your brand, from your WhatsApp picture to your LinkedIn cover photo – but how much are you paying attention to your social media? Despite the trials of attempting to develop a self-brand, Timothy maintains that “it’s all about being active”. “It will develop, you won’t get it ‘right’. It will always be changing - we change as humans all the time; we learn things, we read things, the people we hang around - it’s all an influence. Be open to change, and know that you won’t get it right. Just start.” In a time of continuous online events, lectures, meetings and engagements, it has become our second nature to immerse ourselves into social media and the virtual realm. What we choose to do with our time online can alter our future possibilities by taking the effort to renew our own self-presentation on social media.
