What's my Brand?!
What with all my websites (some of which have died and perhaps need resurrecting), blogs, MySpace and Facebook profiles, Linkedin blah blah blah - I've been thinking a lot about my personal brand - that is, the image of myself I want out there in the world. My work is increasingly online and while the primary way that clients still find me is through word of mouth, my online brand will become increasingly important. At the moment, it's all over the place - I was maintaining two identities (that aren't necessarily all that separate now): the professional one and the arty farty gay one. Why the separation and is it necessary? I've decided, no it's not especially as there's more crossover now, what were once my hobbies are now part of my career. The only thing that I balked at (for a millisecond) is the gay thing - some of my photographs have lesbian boobs in them after all! Then I thought, well, if a client or prospective employer has a problem with that, do I really want to work with them anyway? Hell no.
Web Worker Daily has some great posts on managing your online personal brand:
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I've been keeping my blogging and my professional branding completely separate so far. Mainly because I really don't want any client or colleague stumbling across my blog (since 90% of my content is complaining about them after all). But additional reasons are that I like the freedom to redesign my blog on a whim, and my current professional site is so outdated I wouldn't want to extend that branding to anything let alone something regularly viewed by other people!
I really need to pull my finger out and finish my new folio site. I'll definitely have a read of those links before I do so.