IN ANY EVENT, Season 2 Episode 4 with Christine Gritmon, Agorapulse

Rachel Moore, the Director of Content and Communications at Hubilo, and Kathleen Timbol, the Director of Field Marketing at Hubilo, marked a great end to another episode of In Any Event Season 2. This time, the very impressive Christine Gritmon joined us to give us a quick glance into the world of personal branding and share some best practices. 

Let’s dive into the key takeaways from this episode. But first, let’s look at the intriguing cutout session on demand gen with Gloria Zhu, the Director of Demand Generation at Hubilo. 

D is for Demand, G is for Gloria — the cutout session

The first live stream of the year was full of amazing moments. Great guests, great discussions, and intriguing conversations. Another reason it was so impactful was the new demand generation breakout session, led by our witty demand gen wizard, Gloria Zhu. 

While giving us quick insights on the current stage of demand gen, she says,

“Going into the new year, businesses are holding back on the budgets, and demand gen leaders are returning to the podium. For them, demand gen is not short-term gratification. It’s more of a long-term gain. Lead gen is back on the table for a lot of companies because of budget cuts. I think many people need to remember that lead gen is instant gratification. It's not going to support your long-term goals as much as you think.”

Thanking Gloria for this interesting takeaway, we look forward to many such discussions about demand gen in upcoming episodes of In Any Event. 

We're talking about branding today

Back to the current episode, we were joined by the very amazing Christine Gritmon of Agorapulse, the personal branding strategist setting the stage on fire. That makes it apparent that this episode of In Any Event focused on personal branding and how it translates to better event marketing and business results. 

Personal branding: What exactly is it?

Christine beautifully defines personal branding as how people perceive your personality in their heads. 

She says, “People think that personal branding is kind of selling this slick, false version of yourself, and it's not. You have a personal brand; whoever you are, you have one because, as I define it, your personal brand is quite simply the version of you that lives in other people's heads, and you want to have some control over that narrative, right?”

The best platform for personal brand

Certainly, building your personal brand is important, and social media is a great place to meet your prospects. However, choosing the right platform for the same can be mind-boggling, and you don’t want to lose your chance at making an impact. There are so many options available, and the wrong choice can lead to misconceptions and misinterpretations about your “brand.”

To solve this dilemma, Christine defines the right platform as any platform you don’t hate, regardless of your business, the industry you serve, or the type of content you create. 

She shares, “Twitter has been the best for me. I show most of my personality and real life on Instagram, but Twitter has definitely had a relationship-building capacity like no other. Twitter is absolutely fire for events. I have made many relationships and connections through event hashtags and live-tweeting insights from events. I've even connected and built relationships with speakers at these events.”

“However, I also know people where Twitter wouldn’t be the right place for personal branding because they simply hate it,” she continues. “I've gotten a lot of social media haters to fall in love with Instagram actually because it's kind of the kindest and the fluffiest. There's the least drama on Instagram.” 

The idea is to choose your platforms, and display your personality the way you want people to see you. Even if you have multiple favorites, go for harmoniously aligning your content — it’s perfectly fine to blend. What really matters is whether you make a point. 

To tweet or not to tweet… 

Christine says, “I’m seeing a lot of people who have been leveraging Twitter. However, with Elon in the room, if the ship doesn’t right itself, Twitter is splitting off into weird Twitter, funny Twitter, and shit-posting Twitter. They are gradually going over to Tumblr, Reddit, etc. Professional Twitter is migrating to LinkedIn.”

This certainly raises the question: Does any social media platform have the potential to end the reign of Twitter? If so, which social media platform is it?

Christine says that there are multiple platforms like Snapchat and TikTok that are rising to the occasion and making their way to the top. While the winner of the war for supremacy is still not that clear, it is certain that short-form video content will definitely rule and so will the platform that makes it seamless. 

Short-form videos will rule

According to a study: 

• Nearly 30% of short-form videos are watched 81% of the way through
• 47% of marketers agree that short-form videos are more likely to go viral
• Users spend an average of 45 minutes at a time watching short videos

This very much aligns with Christine’s assessment: “We just did a whole unit on TikTok in early December and people keep telling us they want to know more about the short-form video because it really is unignorable. It's not just for teenagers dancing anymore.”

Well, we know where businesses can invest to become the next viral sensation. 

While we’ve covered the key takeaways for you, there are a lot of moments from the In Any Event episode with Christine Gritmon that you would want to capture. Head over to the on-demand video right away, and don’t forget to sign up for Hubilo Insiders to stay ahead of more compelling conversations like these.