Thursday 7 July 2011

CPD23 Thing 3 - Consider your personal brand

Better late than never, hey? Well, in all fairness, I do have a pretty good excuse as I have been jet-setting this last week to Cyprus and enjoying sunnier climes. Back to reality though, and back to CPD23!!

When I first set up my blog and my twitter account, I hadn't really thought much about "my personal brand", although I did make a conscious decision to use the pseudonym of London Library Girl in both cases, to make myself more easily identifiable. I really admire Jennifer Yellen's decision to use her real name, and I can understand how this makes things easier when it comes to networking and being recognised on google (among other things). I have to admit, when I initially started, I liked the anonymity, as I felt I wasn't under pressure if I made mistakes, and people wouldn't blame me personally if my blog was completely rubbish!!

After googling myself, the first thing that appears is "Carley Deanus: Facebook" - with a link to my account. Unfortunately, nothing appears in relation to my blog, but this is probably because I previously had never mentioned my full name anywhere on my profile. Typing in "London Library Girl" into google instead brings up an immediate match to my blog page - hurray! In light of this, I have now added my full name to my blog, so maybe this will make a difference to future google searches (only time will tell!) I have also included a photograph of myself on both my blog and twitter account, to make myself more recognisable at future events. I found this really helpful recently, as at the recent CILIP Information Day one of my twitter followers (and fellow future UCL postgrad) recognised me and came up to introduce herself in person!

One thing I think I think I could improve on is to create a LinkedIn account. I've not really had any experience of this before, but this is something I aim to do as soon as possible. I might also perhaps look into changing the background of both my blog and my twitter account so that they are both the same. It's something to think about, anyway!

If anyone has any comments about the layout of my blog or any suggestions for improvement, I would be very happy to hear them!

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