CPD 23 – Thing 3 – Personal Brand – Further Thoughts

I said at the end of my previous post that I might come back to this thing later in the week. The reason for that is that I was aware that my initial thoughts were fairly general. The google task was more focused but I didn’t really talk about my own ‘personal brand’.

This blog and my twitter account now share a similar visual identity. The background image for both is a picture of trees. I’m quite happy with this idea. It links visually with my name and it creates a calm, reflective image. In the case of this blog the metaphor of going for a walk through a forest fits neatly with the journey motif conjured up by the title. It also fits with the idea of a librarian as a guide.

To be honest I only recently changed the blog. I tidied it up for thing 2 because I wanted to make a good impression on any visitors. It used to have an inoffensive but unexciting theme featuring some clouds and a lighthouse. That did fit my journey based title but it didn’t stand out.

The description was even worse. It was very much a generic librarian blog description. I’m much happier with the new one. It gives readers a clearer idea of what the blog is going to be like. I wouldn’t normally phrase it like this but I suppose I’m saying it fits my personal brand better. It fits the thoughtful, friendly image that I want to get across.

The picture of me is also new. It’s different to my twitter picture. Is this a mistake? I can see the argument for using the same picture across different platforms. My reasoning was that my twitter picture has my fiancée in as well as me. I didn’t think that would work on a professional blog. I chose this particular image of me for a mixture of reasons. Some personal, others more ‘brand’ related. It is a picture that brings back happy memories. That’s Halong Bay in Vietnam in the background. On a ‘brand’ level it fits the imagery of travelling beyond what we know, travelling together into the unknown to experience new things.

My facebook profile has another picture again but that seems like less of an issue because it is aimed at family and friends. This blog is obviously purely professional and I increasingly only use my twitter account for library related stuff. This brings us back to the issue of the divided nature of identity but I think I covered that in my last post. Essentially I feel we need to accept that everyone has slightly different identities depending on the different audiences and contexts that are parts of their lives.

Let me know if you would like a critique of your ‘personal brand’. I promise to be very polite. Rudeness doesn’t fit my brand image.