DISQUS

Chris Brogan: Develop a Strong Personal Brand Online - Part 2

  • Darren Daz Cox · 1 year ago
    one thing that I don't quite understand is why google only indexes a certain amount of images from my blog and not others. Most of the traffic to my blog comes from people searching for things that my images contain (fine art), happening upon my images in their search and ending up at my site but it's the same four pages every time, pages from last year!

    Every single word in my blog links to those same images, even if I have images that are closer to the search term. it appears that google has branded me with the images it chose to index (and the 90% it didn't!).

    Does anyone know why Google chooses certain images on your blog/website to include in it's image search and not others?
    All of my pages index just about immediately but I can't get a new image to index no matter what I do. help Chris!
  • david usher · 1 year ago
    Hey Chris
    It's true, you are "what Google says we are". When i do a search for a business or a person, if they don't appear on that first page of Google, right or wrong i start to question their 'brand authority'. Your legitimacy these days is very tied into your Google rankings. There are only 2 ways onto that first page, buy your way on or through content and linking.
    David
  • Luke Harvey-Palmer · 1 year ago
    Chris..nice, simple but powerful advice again. As we discussed, I would add scribd and slideshare to this list. For professionals, these are great places to share the content that we as professionals take for granted! Most of us are still causing death by powerpoint, and therefore slideshare is a great first place to upload a presso you are proud of! I see these are YouTube for grown ups (and those scared of video cameras!)..speak soon - look forward to the 3rd episode in the series!
  • adam broitman · 1 year ago
    Chris

    In a world where we truly are how we are found, your points really hit home!

    The rules of identity across a distributed web of self make it increasingly difficult for people to show who they really are (or who they want to be). It is really cool that you are helping shed light on the subject!

    Thanks for the shout out! I cannot wait until the next time we get to speak together (we have to set that up :) )

    Adam
  • Harry Hoover · 1 year ago
    Excellent information on the online aspects of personal branding. I have written a personal branding white paper that is more about your offline activities that may be of interest to you and your community.
  • Jonathan Coffman · 1 year ago
    I agree with your insights, developing a strong personal brand is vital. In fact, I'm working up a guide for the "about to graduate college" crowd right now on how to effectively brand and promote themselves.

    I got my job through social-media so I plan to share some of what I learned about that whole process and the balance between those crazy party pictures on Facebook, and a professional blog.

    Your series is spot on as far as advice goes on the starting steps to developing a personal brand, I wonder where this ends?

    (well ok, my belief is that we won't be talking about social-media much longer, no no, not like that, meaning it'll be ubiquitous and we'll talk about social-media and social-networks the same way we now talk about the Internet. It's everything and everywhere and it changed the way we live.)
  • Luis Sandoval · 1 year ago
    Part 2 was exactly what I expected a spot on article on who we are in the internet world.

    After reading part 1 the other day I came across a video from Gary Vaynerchuk where he talked about personal branding and reputation in a world where businesses are becoming transparent. I highlighted in on my blog, not sure if you've seen it, but give it a look.

    Thanks a lot Chris! I look forward to seeing what other accounts people find useful. I had heard of scribd, but Luke Harvey-Palmer just introduced me to slideshare!
  • Joel Smith · 1 year ago
    A great simple explanation of personal brand. It's amazing how many people don't understand the concept of branding, yet it affects them every day. Thanks for the education.
  • Scott Purdie · 1 year ago
    I really believe that being transparent is important. It improves so many elements of relationships. Theres less shocking surprises and more just gets dealt with and gets done.

    Id like to add Seesmic to the list. To those who dont know, Seesmic is a video conversation site, il start using it so everyone can laugh at my Scottish accent, but primarily because i will become visual to viewers and i like doing new things that sound uncomfortable to begin with, i think it will help me improve.

    Cheers Chris!
  • Rahaf · 1 year ago
    I'd love to talk about differentiation. When there are so many people talking about the same things these days, how do you stand out? How does your voice get heard?

    :)
  • Josh Larson · 1 year ago
    I, personally, like the richness of options that Ning provides in creating a social network for your brand. It's a snap to add in videos, RSS feeds, pictures, events, etc. I've just started using it for my brand.
  • sean808080 · 1 year ago
    great stuff here. absolutely what i've been thinking of for the past few weeks. i've got lots of stuff under my 'internet persona' sean808080 but very little under my proper name sean henriques. i did this for deliberate reasons but now as i have offramped off the corporate path to raise a family i am rethinking that decision and whether it works for me today.

    your insights on this topic are giving me a lot of food for thought about merging the two and the benefits and drawbacks of doing this. no risk = no reward is what they said in mba school so....

    :-)
  • chrisbrogan · 1 year ago
    Rahaf has a great question, and I challenge you all to address it as you will.

    MY thought on differentiation, especially in the social media space is this: there are do-ers, and there are talkers, and I'm starting to sift through the folks I know have successfully executed even a wee bit of a social strategy. I'm starting to pay attention to the people who have their hands dirty, and who are moving on to even bigger challenges.

    Want an example? Jason Falls. If he says it works, it works. If he says, nothing came from it, I'd stop doing whatever he's talking about. Falls is real and has some real bosses.

    But that's in social media. What if you're in marketing or PR? Right now, there are some differentiators. If you can go into a client and do more than talk about what's powerful and transformative out there, if you have examples of work you've done, then you're further along in the game.

    Come to think of it, where isn't a do-er preferred?
  • Rahaf · 1 year ago
    Do'ers fall into the same category as the job search catch-22, in order for clients to let you experiment you have to show your stuff and in order for you to show your stuff clients have to let you experiment, lol.

    But maybe on my own site (which is currently being overhauled) i need to find a more effective way to show my experience. *cough cough* hey Chris, sounds like a just gave you part three. What's the most effective way to showcase your expertise? LInked in referrals? Case studies? Getting published or news paper clips? Video? What do clients want?
  • Illectro · 1 year ago
    Muxtape is a poor choice for music branding because there's no real profile information on the site so you can't really link it to any of your other instances. Plus the fact that it's of questionable legality might not be the best thing for your image in some cases.

    Better choices would be imeem or last.fm, both have done their legal paperwork, and both are vastly more feature rich with proper profile pages. Both sites are also vastly more popular than muxtape which is still very small.
  • Scott Purdie · 1 year ago
    Hey, On Rahaf's point about differentiation, In social media, the people that are different are expressing wierd thoughts, doing strange things and are really just experimenting with everything they do/think. The safest thing you can do is to be risky.

    A good client, should be impressed by someone who thinks differently, the key to convincing them, is in providing logic and examples, with what you are saying.
  • david usher · 1 year ago
    hey chris
    i often feel like im am my own little social media experiment, injecting myself and my community with networks and applications to see which add value and which dont. im always looking for things that get the content out without abusing my users. amazing how many applications dont add any real value.
    ps great post!
  • Joe Palladino (aka Mindfulgeek · 1 year ago
    Chris,

    I've been reading your stuff for a month now and find it to be great reading and terrific advice. The company I work for now is being acquired and my new coworkers "googled" me and asked some questions about what they found. The line between online and offline persona's is blurring fast and with the prices of gas rising I am sure it will blend even faster.

    My question is some people advocate the separation of a personal identity from that of a business one. Why did you choose not to separate them?
  • rizza1 · 1 year ago
    Great write-up. Thanks for simplifying the seemingly complicated technology part. I see this as being used not only for personal branding but also for establishing an authentic, unified and "human" presence online.
    p.s. the smiley at the bottom of your page is a nice touch!
  • Mona · 1 year ago
    Thanks for providing information and prices of different variety of shopping product. I need this info because i am using online shopping services.
    Thanks
  • Michel · 1 year ago
    Online shopping is now a easy way of buying anything which they want by using the internet.so people want to know more about this.
    Its a nice post about the same thing.
    Thanks
  • Liza · 1 year ago
    wow what a nice post about coupons and retail information.
    Its a very needed information because i need some coupons to buy somethings.
    Thanks
  • heidi lee · 8 months ago
    what shell or program is best to puchase for starting a blog?