Why Bother Social Networking and "Branding" Yourself?

[Brian]

These days, it seems that one has to market themselves as a "brand" in order to make a name for themselves. For some people it's easy...especially if you're a celebrity or politician, but for an average person such as myself, not so much. You do what you can to put yourself out there, to promote your talents, promote your products, or even just to connect to people with common interests.

That's hard to do if you're considered "unique".

I've tried blogging, Facebook, Twitter, even YouTube, to market myself as an average guy with certain talents and interests. Apparently, the posts have gotten very few responses have been often ignored. Nevertheless, I keep trying, but the results are still the same.

Just so I don't want all this to make it look like it's all about me, I do try to be supportive of other people and their interests. I have a friend who has a podcast that I visit every week. Another person recently had a children's book published and I purchased it to help ensure her success. But trying to get people to purchase a book I've put out is like pulling teeth. Tried to obtain funding for said book through Kickstarter, but got rejected. Which is okay..if they had actually explained why.

In the end, I feel that all the effort to brand yourself is not worth the time if after a long while nothing comes out of it. What then is the point?