Friday 1 July 2011

One's Brand

Well, this was a very interesting exercise, as thinking about how I might be perceived by people looking at my existence on the web was not something I'd ever considered before.  Not that there's much out there, at the moment.  Googling myself, I came across my entry in LinkedIn, Twitter, and Oldfriends.  All sites I'd joined at some stage, but hadn't done much with, so it was lucky I could still remember which email and password I'd used for each site.  The other entries referred to work related documents e.g. council minutes, list-serv entries, newspaper or magazine articles, etc. or my participation in the Otago Peninsula Challenge over the last 2 years.
After doing the above search, and reading the articles suggested in Thing 3, I decided I could stop being quite so dubious about how much control I can have over content that appears on the web, and actually take control.  I particularly liked the statement in Andromeda Yelton's article, Person branding for new librarians, where she states "Start with your strengths and grow organically.  If you write, blog...If you're a social media wizard, get out there on Twitter and Facebook...You don't have to be active everywhere, learn what works for you."  So, small steps - get a hang of blogging, because I quite like to write, and don't worry about Twitter (does anyone who tweets ever get any work done?) at this stage.  I also changed the background design on my blog, to reflect my personality more (I would be interested to know what readers of this post think it says about me, if anyone wishes to share their perceptions); revealed my name; updated my profile with a few work-related details; and uploaded a photo.  I did a similar exercise with my LinkedIn entry.  It's a start, and I'm looking forward to the journey ahead.

1 comment:

  1. Hi Anne-Maree, I think it's much nicer to have a photo and name to talk to than just an anonymous blogger. As for your new updated look, I think the background matches the name WalkingLibrarian. It's a fresh, healthy, out-doorsy atmosphere.

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