我、我、我：如何在个人形象管理的时代脱颖而出

By Arwa Mahdawi

So you want to write a bestselling book？ Of course you do. Literally everyone and their dog think they have a book in them. And while not everyone may be able to write， with enough guile1 behind you pretty much anybody can make it to the top of a bestseller list.

Take Lani Sarem， for example. For a few hours in August， the novice2 authors debut novel， Handbook for Mortals， was No 1 on the New York Times bestseller list for young adult literature. Soon after Sarems fantasy novel reached the top spot， however， there was a plot-twist. People on social media began questioning exactly how a book nobody had ever heard of， by an unknown author， put out by an unfamiliar publisher， had suddenly magicked its way on to a prestigious literary list. The answer was somewhat prosaic3： bulk-buying copies of the book from bookshops that report their sales to the New York Times.

在這个社交媒体称霸的世界，网络形象对于成功至关重要，如今诞生了一系列服务来优化你的个人品牌，无论是通过向你提供僵尸粉还是教你如何在一夜之间写出亚马逊畅销书。

Bulk-buying is a tried and tested4 way of getting on the bestseller list and there are even specialist consultancies that will help you do it. However， the practice presents two problems： you actually have to write a book and you have to spend a fair amount of money buying it up. Thanks to the wonders of the modern internet， however， there are less arduous5 and expensive ways to get bestseller status.

The fastest， cheapest way is probably via Amazon. Last year a guy called Brent Underwood wrote a bestselling book called Putting My Foot Down： A Book Featuring My Foot， which consists solely of a picture of his foot. There are no words. Theres no story. Its just a picture of a mans left foot. You see， last year Underwood， a partner in a US marketing company， decided he wanted to tell the world about the“biggest lie in publishing … the word ‘bestseller.” So he took a photo of his foot and self-published it on Amazon.

Heres the thing about Amazon： it has hundreds of uber-niche6 categories you can choose to self-publish in and tracks the highest seller in each of these categories. Hit that spot for a mere hour and you get a shiny “#1 Best Seller” banner for life. So Underwood put his book in the Freemasonry7 category and set the price （another thing Amazon allows you to do） at $0.99. He bought a copy of the book and got a couple of friends to do so. All-in-all it took three sales， a princely8 investment of $2.97， to make his masterpiece the biggest seller in the Freemasonry category and get an orange bestseller banner next to his name. （Amazon removed the book when he published an account of what he had done.）

Underwood isnt the first person to discover you can game Amazons algorithms9. As he points out， theres a whole cottage industry around it： myriad online courses，10 webinars and consultants promising to get you to bestseller status for just a few thousand dollars. While the accolade11 may be hollow， its far from meaningless； as Underwood notes， being an Amazon bestselling author“dramatically increases your credibility and ‘personal brand.” If you are a businessperson， say， and quickly pen a “book” about your theory of Disruptive Blue-Sky Thinking in Game-Changing Workplaces12， that bestseller tag helps establish you as an expert， which helps you land lucrative gigs and generally parlay your faux fame into a real fortune.13

The Amazon Bestseller scam14 is a prime example of what you could call modern “egonomics”. If you want to be successful in the age of the internet， then image is everything. And so numerous services have sprung up that allow you to optimise your “personal brand” by fair means or foul： you can buy fake followers to inflate your social media presence； you can get a search engine specialist to put your website on the first page of Google； you can even hire a“Tinder15 consultant” to enhance your online dating profile.

Having a strong personal brand essentially just means having a strong reputation. However， all too often this is measured by the size of your social media following. Indeed， in industries like the media， having a large social following that you can leverage to amplify your employers brand， has become a huge competitive advantage， if not a prerequisite for being hired. Take， for example， a recent job advert for a news editor role at Mic， an American news startup that caters to millennials. The advert stipulates16 that not only do you have to “identify， assign， edit and publish at least 10 articles per day” （as a contractor， rather than a full-time employee） but you “must have” an “amazing personal Twitter feed”.

Having an “amazing personal Twitter feed” doesnt just help you land an extremely stressful job at a millennial-focused publication， it can become a lucrative career in itself. A large number of advertising dollars are now being diverted away from traditional media channels towards “influencers”， people with large social followings who are paid to endorse brands. According to influencer tech firm Hypr， influencers with 500，000 to one million followers across social platforms can make between $5，000 and $10，000 per post. And estimates from eMarketer show that globally， in 2016，marketers spent $570m on influencer marketing on Instagram alone. Tom Buontempo， president at Attention， a social media agency， explains that “the influencer economy is growing in popularity in part because its more difficult for marketers to reach their audiences because of adblockers.”

Constantly promoting yourself on social media can be very tiring. It can also make you very tiresome. Do you really need to be doing it to get ahead？ Not everyone is convinced. Last year， Cal Newport， an associate professor of computer science at Georgetown University， wrote an op-ed17 for the New York Times headlined “Quit Social Media： Your Career May Depend on It.” Newport argues that“dedication to cultivating your social media brand … diverts your time and attention away from producing work that matters and toward convincing the world that you matter. The latter activity is seductive， especially for many members of my generation who were raised on this message， but it can be disastrously counterproductive18.”

你想写本畅销书？当然，你当然想。几乎所有人和他们的狗都认为自己脑子里有本待出版的书。虽然并不是人人都有能力从事写作，但只要歪路子够歪，几乎人人都可以在畅销书排行榜夺冠。

比如说拉尼·萨瑞姆。在8月份有几个小时，这位新人作家的首部小说《凡人手册》登上了《纽约时报》青年文学类畅销书排行榜第一的宝座。然而，萨瑞姆的这部奇幻小说才登上榜首宝座不久，就出现了情节大反转。社交媒体上的人们开始质疑，这样一本作者不知名，出版商也不知名，从来没人听说过的书，究竟是如何突然变戏法般地登上了一个声名卓著的文学榜单。答案或许没啥新意：从向《纽约时报》反馈销售情况的书店大批量购买这本书。

大批量购买是一种百试百灵的上榜手段，而且甚至有专家顾问来帮你。可是，这种做法存在两个问题：事实上你必须写出一本书，而且你得花一大笔钱去买。然而，由于现代互联网的奇迹，有更加省力、省钱的方法来获得畅销书地位。

最快速、最省钱的方式可能就是通过亚马逊了。去年，一个叫布伦特·安德伍德的家伙写了本名为《放下我的脚：我的脚部写真》的畅销书，全书只有一张他的脚的照片。没有文字。没有故事。就只有一张一个男人的左脚的照片。你看，作为美国一家营销公司的合伙人，安德伍德去年决定向全世界揭露“出版界最大的谎言，也就是所谓的‘畅销书。”于是，他拍了一张他的脚的照片，并自行在亚马逊上出版。

亚马逊的情况是这样的：亚马逊设有数百个超级利基类别可供你选择来自行出版，而且会追踪每一类别中销量最高的书目。你只需要花费一小时的时间，就可以获得一个闪闪发光的“第一畅销书”的标志伴随你一生。于是安德伍德将他的书放在“共济会”类下，把价格（亚马逊允许你做的另一件事）定在0.99美元。他自己买了一本，再让两个朋友买了。总共只需要卖出三本书，一笔2.97美元的“大”投资，就可以让他的杰作成为共济会类的第一畅销书，并且得到显示在他名字旁边的橙色畅销书旗帜。（在他发文讲述自己所作所为之后亚马逊下架了这本书。）

安德伍德不是第一个发现你可以钻亚马逊算法空子的人。正如他所指出的那样，围绕亚马逊算法已经形成了一整套小规模产业：无数的在线课程、网络研讨会和咨询顾问都承诺只需要几千美元就可以让你获得畅销书的地位。虽然荣誉可能是虚的，但绝不是没有意义；正如安德伍德所说，成为亚马逊畅销书作家“大大提高了你的可信度和‘个人品牌。”如果你是一名商人，比方说，并且很快写出一本书阐述你的“颠覆性职场中的颠覆性蓝天思维”理论 ，那么畅销书的标签可以帮你建立起专家的身份，从而让你有机会获得收入不菲的临时工作，并且通常可以将你的虚名变成真金百银。

亚马逊畅销书骗局是你可以称之为现代“个人形象管理学”的最好例子。如果你想在互联网时代取得成功，那么形象就是一切。因此众多服务如雨后春笋般出现，让你通过正当或不正当的手段优化“个人品牌”：你可以通过购买僵尸粉来增加你在社交媒体上的存在感；你可以让搜索引擎专家把你的网站放在谷歌首页上；你甚至可以聘请一名“Tinder顾问”来美化你的网上约会资料。

拥有强大的个人品牌本质上就意味着拥有良好的声誉。但是，这通常是由你在社交媒体的粉丝数来衡量的。诚然，在诸如媒体这样的行业中，如果你拥有大量的粉丝，你可以用他们来扩大你雇主的品牌，即使这不是被雇用的先决条件，但这也已经成为一个巨大的竞争优势。举个例子，Mic是美国一家面向千禧一代的新闻创业公司，最近他们发布了一则广告招聘新闻编辑。招聘条件要求你不仅需要“每天挑选、分配、编辑和发布至少10篇文章”（作为合同员工而不是全职员工）而且“必须”拥有“令人惊叹的个人推特信息流”。

拥有“令人惊叹的个人推特信息流”不仅能帮你在面向千禧一代的出版公司找到一份压力巨大的工作，这本身就可以成为一种收入丰厚的职业。现在大量的广告资金正在从传统的媒体渠道转向“大V”，那些拥有大量粉丝的人收费为品牌宣传。根据大V科技公司Hypr，在社交平台上拥有50万到100万粉丝的大V每发布一则消息可以赚得5，000到10，000美元。eMarketer估算表明，2016年全球范围内市场营销人员光在Instagram上进行大V营销就花费高达5.7亿美元。社交媒体机构Attention的总裁汤姆·博恩坦波解释道：“大V经济越来越受欢迎，部分原因是市場营销人员所投放的广告由于过滤软件难以抵达受众。”

不断在社交媒体上宣传自己会非常累人，而且也会使你感到十分厌烦。为了脱颖而出，你真的要做到这个地步吗？并不是每个人都这么认为。去年，乔治城大学计算机科学副教授卡尔·纽波特为《纽约时报》撰写了一篇题为《退出社交媒体：你的职业生涯可能取决于此》的专栏文章。纽波特认为，“如果你花大力气运营你的社交媒体品牌……这会将你的时间和注意力从重要的工作转移到‘让世界相信你是重要的这件事上去。后一件事非常诱人，对于我这一代在成长过程中一直被灌输这一信息的许多人而言尤其如此，但这可能会产生灾难性的反作用。”

1. guile： 欺骗，奸猾。

2. novice： 新手，初学者。

3. prosaic： 乏味的，平淡无奇的。

4. tried and tested： 经过反复检验的。

5. arduous： 艰难的，费力的。

6. uber-： 指超级的，（程度）很大的，最大的；niche： 来源于法语，法国人信奉天主教，在建造房屋时，常常在外墙上凿出一个不大的神龛，以供放圣母玛利亚，因而后来被引来形容大市场中一个很小的产品或服务领域的缝隙市场。译为利基，指针对企业的优势细分出来的市场。按照菲利普·科特勒在《营销管理》中给利基下的定义：利基是更窄地确定某些群体，这是一个小市场并且它的需要没有被服务好，或者说“有获取利益的基础”。

7. Freemasonry： 共济会，出现在18世纪的英国，是一种带宗教色彩的兄弟会组织，也是目前世界上最庞大的秘密组织。

8. princely： 巨额的，庞大的。

9. algorithm： 算法。

10. cottage industry： 作坊式小产业；myriad： 无数的，大量的。

11. accolade： 荣誉，奖励。

12. 此理论为作者编造。

13. lucrative： 有利可图的，赚钱的；gig： 临时工作；parlay：有限发展，使增值。

14. scam： 欺诈，骗局。

15. Tinder： 是一款手机交友软件。

16. stipulate： 规定，约定。

17. op-ed： 专栏稿件。

18. counterproductive： 適得其反的。