Cross posted on The Personal Branding Blog
As an early thought leader in the area of managing your online brand for career and business success, I'm delighted to witness how this concept has been taking hold over the past several years. Web portfolio, profile and online reputation management companies are popping up more frequently. In a new business category, having "competition" is good news. So, what's the bad news?
Templates Are Not Congruent With Personal Branding
All of
these companies - the do-it-yourself services - use templates to help
you create a web page (or mini-site) designed to showcase your personal
brand, experience and proof of performance. It's absolutely fine to use
these services to develop a quick, low-budget Web presence or to add to
your volume of on-brand Google results beyond your primary website or
blog. Often, having something positive that comes up on page one when
someone Googles your name is better than having nothing. But, think
about it. Templates are cookie cutter, and you want to be distinctive
if you are truly expressing your unique value to your target audience.
Templates are like renting an apartment where you are not free to paint
the walls and nail on your own artwork. Sites with custom designs are
analogous to architecting your dream house that is an expression of how
you live. As William Arruda teaches, your personal brand should be
associated with superlatives:
greatest, strongest, best! Don't you want to have a stand out Web presence that
differentiates you from your peers and competitors? If you answered yes, then using a template "as is" is not the solution.
A Good Use of Templates
I'm not saying that you need to
create a website from scratch. Of course, you will want an easy content
management system to make updates yourself. In fact, templates can be a
great starting point if they can be customized with your
professionally designed banner and the fonts and colors are selected to
exude your brand identity. We do this all the time using TypePad, and
WordPress is another viable option.
Check out examples of branded TypePad sites for our clients:
www.williamarruda.com
www.edobrienhr.com
www.shipleymunson.com
The client's brand is primary, and the design of each of these sites looks quite different even though the application that we used (TypePad) is the same and not obvious.
Design is an opportunity to communicate your personal brand on a visual level. As a first impression, pictures really do speak louder than words, and a great design can grab a visitor's attention and keep him or her on your site.
Designing a Brand Identity System for Brand You
The
critical first step in any online identity campaign is defining your
authentic personal brand. Remember, this is not about spin or packaging. You must be clear about what you want to communicate
before making a bunch of digital fingerprints that will be difficult to
remove when you change your mind. To discover your brand, do the exercises in Career
Distinction, join the Reach Branding Club or work with a
Reach-Certified Personal Brand Strategist who specializes in your needs (just check out the contributors to this blog for starters).
Then, draft a design brief (there is an example on page 157 of Career Distinction) and share it with your designer for input. A design that you feel proud to represent your personal brand is usually the result of a collaborative effort among you, your personal brand coach and your designer.
The best way to illustrate this thoughtful process is to give you a concrete example. Read the bright idea behind my brand identity (Why Goldfish?) to see how my brand attributes, strengths and passions were translated into my brand identity system. If you like what you see, let's talk about creating your online identity campaign. Look for the relaunch of Brandego this fall.
