pr-media-blog.co.uk

Just when you’re waiting for something about Twitter to come along, a digital truck load arrives all at once.

Albert Maruggi - always a reliable listen - has a great podcast about how Twitter is more than just a way of micro blogging what you’re doing from minute to minute (though that happens too). He interviews Julio Ojeda-Zapata about his book “Twitter Means Business” and how Twitter can help build relationships with businesses and journalists.

Uber-blogger, Chris Brogan, gives a more personal take on what Twitter means to him plus some strategies on how to get the best out of it, without Twitter becoming a full-time job.

Finally, Stephen Davies over at PR Blogger, has created a roll-call (or Hall of Shame, depending on your viewpoint) of PR people now, officially, Twitter addicts.

As recession looms, anyone with a line in therapy for digital addictions is going to mop up.

The world of blogging, or should I say the Blogosphere, has had a thorough sifting and analysis thanks to leading blog search engine, Technorati. And some of the conclusions should add something to marketing departments’ “to do” lists.

The graph below shows the impact that blogging has had on professional and corporate bloggers, with the main benefit to businesses being a higher industry profile.

A good example of corporate blogging well done has to be that of Sun Microsystems’ CEO, Jonathan Schwartz, who manages to have a respectable blog “authority level” - that is the number of other blogs linking to your blog - without compromising the company’s image.

Social media expert, Chris Brogan, is one commentator who has lauded Schwartz’s blog for making the company appear human and having that extra, indefinable sheen that goes beyond pounds and pence.

Personal Branding on the Social Web

Why, I wondered does Neville Hobson hold his hand in front of his face in the picture on his blog…and on Twitter…and on…hang on a minute.

Is this a subtle form of personal branding?  Social networks; Facebook, Linked-In and microblogs like Twitter are growing fast and individuals are, if not clamouring for our attention, at least aware that there is a lot of noise out there.  If we are going to build an individual online presence it makes sense to follow some of the tradional rules of branding.  Consistency is one, which means using the same image across a range of networks.  Using a strong, stand out and easy to remember image is another.  Pr 2.0 gurus Todd Defren  and Brian Solis  both do this - Todd has a cartoon style image on his Twitter feed and Brian uses an arresting image with his specs in the foreground on his blog.  

Chris Brogan has just published an ebook on personal online branding so it’s a hot topic.  It’s an interesting read and looks at personal branding from a broad prespective.  What particularly fascinates me is the way in which people apply the iconographic rules that have histrically been used by brands totheir own images of themselves.  

This world has created some rules of its own.  Take a look at the picture above of some of the people I follow on Twitter.  These images are tiny, smaller than thumbnails, so making something work at this scale becomes part of the art.  Colin Byrne  CEO of Weber Shandwick and Deirdre Breakenridge author of the book PR 2.0 both use strong purple colours in their backgrounds to make them stand out.  Aleks Krotoski , presenter of The Guardian’s Tech Weekly podcast uses a close up of her fire red locks as her Twitter image (fifth row, left of middle).

I have no proof that any of these individuals have done anything other than post the first image they came across but whether by luck or good judgement they all stand out.  I have to confess I have toyed with the technique myself.  There is a deliberate use of colour in my profile pic and it seemed to me that if social networks use small images an extreme close up might be a good idea.  Charles Arthur Technology Editor of The Guardian didn’t agree.  He thinks I’m trying to hide a dodgy moustache.