The Personal Branding Blog by Rob Cuesta

Managing your Technorati authority

I noticed the other day that this blog's Technorati 'authority' rating had dropped by a point. Your 'Authority' rating is actually a measure of your blog's popularity, rather than a measure of the worth of the information you are imparting, based on the principle that the more people are discussing something, the  more authoritative it must be. High minded, but you can probably see the flaw in that argument: by that reasoning, the most intellectually stimulating and valuable media phenomena today are Big Brother, the Diana inquest and X Factor :-)

How (not) to do reputation management

I found a great blog post highlighting the dangers of old ways of thinking in a Web 2.0 world. If your gut reaction to someone 'dissing' your personal brand or your corporate brand online is to reach for your lawyer's phone number then you may want to read this post and think carefully about what you're doing, and the effect it may have on your reputation.

3 tips for writing great blog posts

A strong, well written blog can be the keystone of a great online identity, which in turn is a key element of a great personal brand. The problem is that the 80/20 rule applies as it does in so many areas of life: 80% of the really valuable content comes from 20% of blogs.

So, how do you make sure that your blog is helping you to build your reputation, not hindering you? How do you make sure that your blog is one of the good 20%?

Interesting blog layout

I recently stumbled across an interesting site. It's not so much the content I want you to look at - although I enjoyed the site even though my Italian is a little rusty, and it's over 10 years since I lived in Copenhagen! - but rather the layout.

Personal Branding Magazine

While I was preparing for my recent trip to Toronto I completely missed the fact that the second edition of the new Personal Branding Magazine has gone live over at personalbrandingmag.com.

Branding quote of the week

"Your brand is created out of customer contact and the experience your customers have of you" - Stelios Haji-Ioannou, Chairman, EasyGroup

Beware the dangers of email time bombs

When I was young, there was a series on British television called ‘Danger     UXB’. Week by week it followed an army bomb disposal squad as they rushed     from one assignment to the next, averting disaster and saving the day. It     had danger, suspense, strong characters, tight deadlines – all the elements     of good TV.

 

In the work environment, however, these same characteristics are somewhat     less desirable. How often do we find ourselves going from one close call to     the next, defusing time bombs and booby traps left for us by others – or     worse still ourselves?

 

Keep in touch: supporting your brand with touchpoints

A couple of years ago, Mercedes commissioned a market research firm to identify all the 'touchpoints' its customers had with the brand (in other words, all the different ways that customers interacted with the brand). How many do you think there were? 

How useful is an online forum in building a personal brand?

An interesting question came up the other day on a forum I belong to, which was "how useful are forums in building your personal brand?" This was very timely as I've recently been taking quite an interest in how professionals can build a brand based on information and information products.

Forums can be especially useful if you are working in a knowledge-related field and selling products or workshops. Set up a forum for each product or workshop where users/ participants can discuss what they have learnt and ask questions. You then have four decisions to make.

Assessing your online brand

In an earlier post I included a link to the Online Identity Calculator, a tool developed by William Arruda and Kirsten Dixson to measure the strength of your online brand. However, there is one question that keeps coming up...