Twenty Set

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 The web is a great tool for personal branding… but like everything else, there are things to watch out for.  Here are three caveats to personal branding on Web 2.0:

Social Networking

Quite frankly, all the social networking sites annoy me.  The first one I had was Facebook and I have little reason to use much else on a regular basis.  Unfortunately, the recent story about how twitter Seth Godin isn’t the real Seth Godin forced me to rethink how important securing social networking accounts are.  Darren Rowse writes:

“It seems that someone (probably a fan by the looks of how it’s being used) registered Seth’s name on Twitter and is using it to simply push out his content from his blog. The use of the account is by no means malicious at this point (in fact it’s probably doing Seth some good because the account has over 1400 followers) however it does leave me with with a take home lesson.

“It highlights to me the important of getting a hold of account names for your brand and name on popular social media sites. Even if you don’t use the accounts that you create it can be well worthwhile securing them to protect yourself from others doing so. This is by no means easy (there are so many of these sites to have to get registered on) but it could be a worthwhile exercise to spend a few hours one day soon to do it on some of the most popular sites.”

Of course, only a problogger would have time to do what’s suggested, but he brings up a good point if you are serious about protecting your name.  (Then again, it doesn’t seem to be doing Seth Godin much harm.)

So far, I’m on MySpace, LinkedIn, Technorati, Twitter, Del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, Digg, and who knows what else.  If you really want to add me you can usually find me by my name (my employer did), or I also go by chicagourbanite.

Truth be told, I’ll probably only interact with you on Facebook.  My apologies in advance!

Investing in Your Name

I love having Twenty Set, but I don’t think of it as “my” blog.  Twenty Set could be sold or could turn into an online magazine full of other writers’ posts - who knows?  In other words, Twenty Set is a brand in and of itself, and I’m just the creator of that brand and thus tied to it - for now anyway.

My personal brand, however, is Monica O’Brien, so when I saw monicaobrien.com free I was quick to grab it.  Go ahead, click here to see it - there’s actually not much posted, except me confessing how bad I am at bowling.  The point is I own it, when you google “Monica O’Brien” I come up, and in the future I can do anything I want with the domain.  Casey Peters of the fast-growing Tennessee-based blog Knoxify admits this is the reason he owns his own domain name too:

“With the recent influx of “protect your personal brand” articles hitting the web, I decided it was time to take back my name. Now, I don’t know but one other Casey Peters so I’m betting I’ll be just fine. But you can never have enough insurance.”

Purchasing your name as a domain name is a small investment now that could pay off big later with all the domain parking going on these days.

Authenticity and Transparency

I tried the “Make Money Online” thing and it sucked.  I made money, but I wasn’t my true self, and I wasn’t talking about things that mattered to me.  Twenty Set makes no money at the moment, but I have an engaged audience I love to write for.  Penelope Trunk says:

“Blogging is a great way to network - if you are being yourself. Blogs are one, big conversation, so your ability to meet people and make real connections with them increases geometrically through blogging. People were very unsatisfied to hear that they thought they knew me but in fact I was not giving them my real name. And people who were just getting to know me got hung up on the name issue - they couldn’t believe that I was so well known by a name that wasn’t my name. Having a pseudonym is like having a wall up between you and everyone else.”

Authenticity and transparency are key.  I did interviews I had to tiptoe through because I wasn’t releasing my real name, and I couldn’t actually network with one of the marketing reps for Details who gave me an exclusive story.  Don’t bother creating a blog if you aren’t going to blog under your own name and be completely transparent about who you are.  It took me awhile to figure out, but now I’m happy with what I’ve created, and I’m able to share ideas with like-minded people.

What other personal branding caveats have you seen with Web 2.0?

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Categories: Blogger, Careerist, Socialite
Tags: Personal Branding

Monica O'Brien is the founder of Twenty Set, a website about personal and professional growth and development for the Millennial generation. She has been a blogger since 1998 when blogging was still in its “Dear Diary” form and in May 2007 began blogging for personal branding and profit.
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