Cameron Herold gives an unscripted, first-person talk about why he uses social media to share his authentic voice rather than to build a polished personal brand. He describes long-term early adoption of platforms (LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook), explains he posts across personal topics (business, politics, family, religion), and notes he moderates language for certain clients but otherwise refuses to sugarcoat. He also mentions multiple visits to India (1991, 1997, 2012, 2013) and shares a brief travel anecdote.
Chapters
I've been thinking a lot about, I guess, social media in the last 14 years. Thinking a lot about it recently, but thinking a lot about it over 14 years and why I use social media and how to use social media. And today somebody who is a friend on Facebook said, you know, I should be careful with some of my posts because I might alienate some people in building my personal brand. And I responded to them and said, I'm actually not building a personal brand. I could care less about building a personal brand on social media. I'm a fucking human and I have a voice and I feel like sharing it. And I've only got one life to live and I'm not actually going to sugarcoat what I say. And the reality is I've never sugarcoated what I say in business, which is why I'm respected as a business coach and as a thought leader and as a speaker, is because I actually say exactly what I think, exactly what I feel. Sometimes that is tough for customers or clients to hear, but I'm always saying exactly what is, you know, real, or at least what I feel. And no one will ever second guess me for that. Right now I've got a lot of big friends who are, you know, big thought leaders. Names that, I won't say their names, but they're the names that a lot of people follow on social media. They're writers, they've done big talks, it's, etc. You don't know them at all. You know nothing about them because they don't share anything about themselves. They just, you know, are always putting out positive quotes or positive sayings or. Which is fine. I, I do that as well. But that seems to me a little bit shallow. But hey, that's what they want to use social media for and they want to build a brand and that's awesome. I'm not using social media to build a brand. I'm just actually using social media for what it was intended to be, social and to share my thoughts and share my opinions and share what I think is funny and share what I think is serious and share what I think is frustrating and just share. So, you know, I was one of the first 200,000 people on the planet using LinkedIn about 16 years ago. I was one of the very first people using Twitter about 14 years ago. I was the first person that certainly in the management or leadership team at 1-800-GOT junk using Facebook a few months before I left there 13 years ago. And I wasn't ever using it to build a brand. You'll notice that I don't have like, you know, branded pages for my, my normal profile. My normal profile is me. I might talk about business, but I'll talk about politics. I'll talk about my kids, I'll talk about food, I'll talk about religion. I'll post a picture of my coffee cup. I, I'm not doing it for anything else other than that. So, you know, I have some marketing and my messaging and my websites, but I'm not worried about what people are thinking of me because the ones who matter don't mind and the ones who mind don't matter. It's kind of an old quote, but it's so true. So, yeah, I'll just continue posting as me. And I'm sure I've lost a couple clients over the years because of it. But I also know that I've gained a couple clients because of it because, you know, my clients really respect that. Now I'll give you an example of when I will, will be cautious of what I say in my relationships with my clients. I have a client who doesn't like anyone to cuss. So I know that I swear too much. I've probably sworn in this video and he doesn't like it when people swear. So I'm really careful and cautious with him when I'm coaching and when I'm coaching him, his team that I don't swear and I'll do a full 90 minute call and not swear at all. I've done speaking events where I've been asked not to swear. And you know, because I've been asked not to swear, I can do, you know, a 30 or 60 or 90 second bit without swearing. But I can also do a 90 minute speaking event without swearing. You know, I once did a speaking event one time out in, in the kind of Bible belt area of Vancouver called Abbotsford. And unfortunately I swore way too many times and I didn't realize it until afterwards. So I'm very cognizant of that. But yeah, like today I posted something up about, you know, Christianity and it was like a random thing. I thought it was funny. And hey, I grew up Catholic, man. I was a, I was an altar boy for three years. My sister was the first female altar boy in Canada. We, you know, grew up as in the Catholic church. I went to Catholic schools and I'm not Catholic anymore and kind of proud that I'm not Catholic anymore. But I still believe in faith and I still believe in some kind of a spirituality and I don't really think that there's one, right religion. I think it's great that if people want to be religious, be religious, but I don't think that you should be shoving it down other people's throats. And I think that there's problems with some of our politics these days. I think there's problems with not accepting people's sexuality. I think there's problems with, you know, forcing people to wear masks or stay in quarantine. So I'm going to share all that stuff anyway. The cool thing about social media as well is if you don't like what somebody's saying on social media, you can actually unfollow them. Or you can also comment and make a comment and share what you think as well. And if you have a voice, I urge you to use it as well. I think that's something that we need more and more, is all of us sharing our opinions and not just sharing positive quotes and not just sharing articles that somebody else has written. It's funny, I actually even told my social media team recently that I really don't want them posting articles from other people anymore. I want them to just publish my thoughts, my articles, my blogs, my podcast episodes, the media coverage that I've been in, you know, coverage from the Second In Command podcast. You know, all of those. I want us to be sharing because it's me sharing authentically me, and I don't want to just share other people's stuff. So, yeah, if you see quotes, they're quotes from my books that my team is pulling from my books and sharing on my behalf. But I'm not going to sit there and try to be like a thought leader or a personal brand. I'm just. Cameron, I woke up, I didn't script this talk out. I probably could have done it better or worse or engaged more or whatever. I just like sharing my thoughts and my opinions on platforms have been given to us. So hopefully that is a thought worth thinking about today or worth sharing or worth discussing with other people. And this is kind of a cool new platform as well. I'm testing out this. This new platform over here as well. Somebody just said they're from India. I love India. I've been to India four times. I did four or two speaking tours in India, six cities, each time with YPO and with EO over there, and was hosted by British Airways in India. But I've been there four times. My first time was 1991 when Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated. My second time, I was there for a month in 1997. Then I think I was there again in 2012 and 2013. But really a good time for me to get back to India would be soon because I miss everything, everybody over there. Funny story. I was in Bangalore and we were staying, I think, at the Taj palace in Bangalore. And I woke up in the morning and I wasn't sure what to order. And they had the North Indian breakfast or the South Indian breakfast. And so I ordered both of them and just had this huge spread. Anyway, hi from India.
