Having a personal 'brand' for your online identity is considered to be very important, especially if you are wanting to develop a professional identity. The Comment Challenge task for today is to consider how I continue my brand through my comments.What name?
Dawud Miracle maintains that you should always use an identifying name when commenting, so that people can follow you through comments. I have chosen to use my whole name as my brand because I want my online identity to be seen as a professional one.
More than a name?
But it was the other day that I got the message about branding being more than a name - it is also about behavior. If my 'brand' in this blog is that of professional midwife and educator, it is imperative that I am consistent and follow that through into my comments and other areas of online life. If I am saying in my blog that one should be professional in one's online behavior, and then abuse someone in a comment, then clearly I am not living up to my 'brand'.
Thats certainly puts the pressure on, and has made me think very carefully about the whole 'branding' issue. If my brand is 'serious health professional', how 'silly' can I be in places like Facebook? Will my 'brand' suffer if I am slightly frivolous in the comments I make?
What do you think? Do you think that the whole 'brand' issue is far too corporate for an educator and health professional to worry about? Or, do I seriously need to get a life?
'Personal Branding: Revision 2 / 20080115.10D.47543 / SML'
http://www.flickr.com/photos/48973657@N00/2193827707 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML
2 comments:
Just a comment from the corner of the peanut gallery...
I personally think that it is nice to see the 'human' side of healthcare professionals.
I was never more reassured as when I had my own primary midwife call me one afternoon, on her own time the weekend no less, just to let me know she understood how upset I was about the vbac consent forms. Yes, I was the obnoxious vbac-ing mom who couldn't just let the pregnancy be. I had to get all riled up over everything.
Anyway. It was a very endearing moment. I look back on so much of my time with her and wish I could count her as a 'friend'. And yes, she is on facebook... I'm not a 'friend' though...yet =)
hi hbacmama, sounds like you had a wonderful midwife - you should ask her to be your FB 'friend' - I'm sure she'd love to be.
I think this post is probably 'much ado about nothing' because in the end, the issues about online behavior are no different than real world. I had to laugh the other day, when this was illustrated so well.
I try to be a very upstanding and respectable member of the community, especially in my students' eyes. But I swear to goodness, they respect me 100% more since they found out the other day that I once ran topless across our local rugby stadium to win rugby tickets in a radio competition.
As with everything, I am sure its all about balance and everything in moderation.
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