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Who Owns Your Brand
Posted by admin in Personal Branding on October 13th, 2010
Are you establishing a presence on Facebook?
500 million+ people have created Facebook accounts so there is a good chance you are one of them. If you have plenty of Facebook fans and friends you are in the business of building a personal brand.
But who’s brand are you really building?
Is it your brand or is it the Facebook brand you are building?
I would suggest it is the Facebook brand but maybe you don’t care as long as you are networking your brand via Facebook.
But who really owns your Facebook presence?
Well not you because facebook can delete your account any time they wish to and as far as personal risk management is concerned it’s not an acceptable risk for establishing a personal brand.
But ask yourself this:
If you owned your own domain name and established a blog or website to network your brand, who would own the brand?
You would.
It makes good sense to use your own domain name for personal branding. Your name as a domain should dominate the front page of Google when people search your name. You can use the blog to connect with people and you can link it to your Facebook pages with your domain being the central hub of your brand.
A domain name only costs around $10 year and web hosting around $15 month which is peanuts for the benefits they present.
So take charge of your personal brand and register your name as a domain and start building your blog.
Posted by admin in Personal Branding on October 13th, 2010
Gary Vaynerchuk must be the king of personal branding, anyone with over 800,000 Twitter followers is doing something right. Gary has embraced social networking and his passion for it bursts through in everything he writes and produces.
Our favourite video is of Gary’s presentation at the Web2.0 Expo NY.
And the power of a personal brand.
Ash Morgan
Posted by admin in Personal Brands on February 19th, 2010
Great news, a good friend of mine Ash Morgan who is involved in the advertising and marketing industry has just launched his own website, Visit it here.
Is Your Brand Open To Abuse
Google have just launched Google Sidewiki which uses a browser sidebar to allow visitors to post and read comments about the web page they are viewing.
Sounds like a great idea, people can visit your web site and leave comments to let those that follow see what they think about you, your opinions or even comment about the way you look.
Unfortunately comments left on sidewiki cannot be moderated, at least not by you which to my mind leaves the whole system open to abuse.
Let’s be honest the world is full of creepy people, deviats, those with malicious intent and the downright insane but Google is giving those people the freedom to visit your website and leave comments that cannot be moderated by you.
Oh and I didn’t mention the spammers, I would suggest right now spammers who peddle porn, Viagra and the like are licking their lips at the possibilities sidewiki is presenting to them.
So how will sidewiki effect you?
Well if you have worked hard developing your online personal brand, Google have given anyone the ability to attach graffiti to your brand.
Here’s how it works.
1. Download the Google Toolbar (It works with IE and Firefox)
2. Make sure sidewiki is activated.
3. Visit any webpage.
4. Click open sidewiki
5. Post your comment.
Now anyone using the Google Toolbar can see what you have written, good or bad.
To my mind the whole system in it’s current format is open to abuse, web site owners cannot opt in or opt out of the system nor moderate the comments.
Right now I’m saying to myself ”Google what are you thinking of.” I’m sure they have a plan for sidewiki that will leave all parties happy but in it’s current format it’s wide open to abuse and will cause real stress for many business owners.
What Am I Bid For nathanrees.com.au
Posted by admin in Personal Branding on August 21st, 2009
Political parties in NSW have been having a lot of fun with the domain name nathanrees.com.au. Nathan Rees is the Premier of NSW but does not control his domain name. Yes you read that correctly, the Premier of NSW does not own his domain name. Now ownership of the domain name has fallen into the hands of the Premier’s political foes The National Party.
I think the Nationals will be too nervous about doing anything with the domain other than not hiding the fact they now control it. They are also enjoying that the press are suggesting that the Labour Party didn’t register nathanrees.com.au because they are preparing to dump Nathan Rees as Premier.
This is a powerful example of why it is important to own and control your own domain. If your name was to fall into the hands of someone who really wanted to harm your good name (your personal brand) they could easily do it.
Eventually you would uncover them for what they are but the damage would considerable whilst you did so.
Socialising