Researching Personal Branding on Day 27

May 27, 2008 at 11:08 pm | In 31 Day Comment Challenge, Blogging, Dr. Kirsti A. Dyer, Medical Profession, Ruminations Blog, Teaching, comment08 | 4 Comments
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I wasn’t exactly sure what constituted a “Personal Brand” so I started today’s activity by trying to figure it out. I found Michele’s Martin’s post on Building Your Online Brand: Start with the Message. She looked at two aspects, a personal brand and the elements of your personal brand:

What Is a “Personal Brand”?

Your personal brand is the perception that people have of you, as compared to other people in similar positions.

The Elements of Your Personal Brand
Your personal brand is the sum total of information about you that people will use to form an impression of your value. Your appearance, your personal characteristics, your work experience and education, your strengths, your passions, your work values and your accomplishments are all factors in developing your brand.

For Michele, the goal of personal branding is to create a consistent, positive message about who you are and what you stand for that will make you stand out from the crowd.

Determining my Online Identity Score

After getting a definition of a Personal Brand, from there I went on to determine my Online Identity Score following another one of Michele’s posts on What’s Your Online Identity Score and What Does it Say About You? She recommended running a little experiment:

  • Type your name (with quotes) into Google.
  • Look at the first three pages of results–how many of these references are about you?
  • How many of those results would convey the right message to a future employer or client?

I discovered 19600 documents using my name as Kirsti A. Dyer (my preferred branding). All 30 of the results on the first three pages were actually about me. The results were the same if I ran the search in Kirsti Dyer.

The results show my diverse interests from Journey of Hearts website, to teaching, to work with Grief, Loss & Bereavement, involvement with NICU Parent Support and the various websites where I have published articles.

One of the interesting discoveries was a post on WinterQuake Blog, Thoughts in a Bottle on the Ocean from last week that featured one of my old poems, Darkness from circa 1996. It helped me realize that the information that we continue to make available on Journey of Hearts, which has been online now for over 10 years, is still very helpful for those going through loss.

Career Distinction’s Online Identity Score

As part of the What’s Your Online Identity Score and What Does it Say About You? Michele recommended using the handy tool from Career Distinction to calculate your “online identity score.”

While I didn’t get a number the way that Michele’s example showed I did get the following response:

Congratulations. You are digitally distinct.

This is the nirvana of online identity. Keep up the good work, and remember that your Google results can change as fast as the weather in New England. So, regularly monitor your online identity.

I wonder if that means I got a 10 out of 10?

Thoughts on Personal Blog Brand

I filed these under the Reflections & Revelations for Day 27.

Continue reading Researching Personal Branding on Day 27…

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