Saturday, July 2, 2011

Thing 3: Personal Branding

Branding uniquely identifies someone or something in a simple, easy way.  I do not yet have a personal brand.  In fact, I have been avoiding the topic lately.  I know that I should have a personal brand, but I am still working on what it should be.

Some of the hesitation I have about personal branding stems from an indecision about how to incorporate separate ideas.  I believe that a personal brand should, at least to some extent, reflect the person's professional interests.  I am considering careers on almost opposite sides of the spectrum.  There is definite overlap between the two, but on the surface they appear unrelated.  I feel as if I should create a separate brand for each of them--but that requires doubling my online presence and I am not yet sure if I can commit to such a task.

Another problem I have is technological.  If branding should be distinct, I need to substitute my own design for the templates provided by Twitter, Blogger, and other services.  I experimented with creating one, but discovered that the design tools I currently have limit my images by size.  I downloaded GIMP (http://www.gimp.org/), hoping that it would solve that limitation, but my computer turned slow enough that I deleted the program.  I will keep looking for other methods.

I am still figuring out my personal brand.  As a temporary solution, I have changed the background color on my Twitter account to more closely match the template I am using in Blogger.  Aside from the limitations posed by the character restrictions in Twitter, I believe I use similar writing styles as well.  I will more consciously watch my style on each of them.  Personal branding is the challenge of the week!

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