WillBurrus.com

Here is a really intriguing presentation by David Armano, VP of Experience Design at Critical Mass, on the shift that we are experiencing as we evolve into the networked age and how it is impacting our communication, our perception of relationships, and our lives.

Digital Lifestyle personal brand, social media, social networking

Facebook is Dead.
So I had an interesting epiphany today. Facebook is dead. Interactive Marketing killed it. I know this sounds a bit grandiose but hear me out.

We all know the great story of how Facebook came to be. It was created by some Harvard kids to essentially automate (again the 'Remote Control factor') the paper facebooks that students would use to get to know one another on campus. It eventually grew into a huge community of users who use it to keep in touch with their friends lives. Great technology, right! Great purpose. It helps us to stay in touch with people. Score one for technology once again helping peoples lives...

Enter the Dragon
Being the cool useful technology that it is, it quickly grows to 127 million users. That’s sounds like dollars and the marketers want in! They are going to throw anything at Facebook to get the attention of anyone in hopes that a viral spark will be lit and massive amounts of business will be driven back to the client! Can you blame them? 127 million people is a BIG audience? Not a problem. We can deal with some branded mini-apps and we consumers enjoy exploring our advocacy powers for brands we like. Heck, I just convinced someone on Facebook NOT to buy a Samsung Insight (I think) because I found out it was a piece of crap! Either way, I still have my community of real friends whom I can keep in touch with from afar…

Here comes evolution.
OK. So we created a cool tech, and we let the marketers in to monetize it and give us some face time with brands, but wait…something doesn't feel right. I have a lot of friends now…some of them aren't real people…some of them I don't really know that well! Oh well, it's kind of cool and gratifying to see my list of friends grow. I wonder if I can get a many friends on Facebook as I have connections on Linked in?

The Point
So what is the point of this rambling narrative? I was at a conference recently where the presenter listed his count of Facebook friends as a credential to validate his net worth or value on the internet. It was listed right along with the amount of blogs he authors, columns he writes, education background, etc. As I was explaining this in a client meeting I suddenly realized… our value on the internet is quickly becoming directly attributed to the amount of people we have access to through these social networks. The amount of people you can share a thought, link, pitch, idea, or product with at any given point is critical to your success of your personal brand. This in itself is monetizable, similar to how a user registration database full of email addresses is valuable to a web based business. If you have a massive reach on the internet, I have to believe that companies would be willing to pay large sums of money to advertise to your network through you.

And now…the Amway Effect
So your 'friends' aren't really friends anymore. They are now all potential customers. If my goal is to market my personal brand and try to be successful in this new networked age, should I try to build my list of connections as much as possible on all of these networks, irregardless of if I have a personal relationship with these users or not? If I want to validate myself in my field, how many Facebook connections makes me interesting? How many make me a rock star?

Score another one for the Marketing folks. They have turned our precious Facebook into the ultimate PR tool. Or maybe we technology folks we're just naïve in not seeing the PR potential of a technology that communicates to so many so easily.

Suddenly, I feel conflicted. What do you think? I'll think I'll blast this post out to my network on Twitter and see if I can't gets some clarity, or at least some consolation.

interactive marketing, personal brand

Have you ever searched for your own name on Gooogle? What came up? Were you surprised to see artifacts from attemtps at Social Networking, or pieces of old emails, or maybe even your address, phone number, or other personal pieces of information?

I have come to realization that we can no longer hide from Google. It has taken over, and it has indexed everything that it can find on our lives. For many, the results of a Google search are the first impression of you that a potential employer, business partner, friend or stalker may find. I know I have recently been hiring, and honestly I didn't read the resumes until I was walking to the meeting room, but you can believe I googled them before I got out of my seat! For business folks that do anything interactive, this is becoming the new barrier to entry. How can you be credible if you don't participate in the basics? For the rest of the world, this is quickly becoming the new cellphone.

I recently came to this realization, which is what prompted me to setup this blog and try to stick with it this time. (This is my third one :-)) I did a search for myself and it pulled up some info from Linked In, some references to ventures I have done, and of course, some references to my cousin, whom is the president of the American Postal Workers Union and has a similar name as mine. Two things struck me like a brick when I did this search:

1. I can no longer hide from the internet. It has indexed us all, and unfortunately , has a perfect memory.
2. I can, however, control what comes up on the first page when people search for me.

How? By participating. At some point, we are all going to be forced to drink the kool-aid, and build an online identity. Whether that is through blogging, Social media, or even just commenting and leaving reviews, More and more, you are being judged on how the internet presents you.

Scary huh? Trust me it is only going to get worse. The very definition of privacy has been rewritten and frankly, there is not much we can do to change it back. But you can take charge of it. My goal is simple. I want to own the first page of results in Google when you search for me. I also want to know what copy is coming up and make sure that it is reflective of where I am now, particularly from a professional perspective. I am even going to try to make it SEO friendly, so that I can use this to my advantage!

It's kind of like nurturing your Personal Brand!

To many of you, I know this is academic, but I have been a technologist for quite a while, building these very tools that are causing this paradigm shift in communication now, and I never bothered to embraced them. I didn't want to 'expose' myself like that. If I am feeling late to the game, then I have to imagine that there are quite a few more of you out there don't even know the game is on.

Consider this your wake up call.

I am documenting my immersion into this new web, networked age. Feel free to follow along and I will share what I learn.

digital life, personal brand

So, at the end of the day, your website, blog, online portfolio, e-commerce store, or whatever is only as good as it is easy to find on the internet. If you can't draw visitors to your internet place, you are severely decreasing your chance to capitalize on this new digital economy thing. Your ability to be easily found can be tuned up with 'SEO' or Search Engine Optimization. Now, one of the key tenants of SEO, is the ability to be found easily in what is called an 'organic search'. Simply put, this is the type of searching that most of us do: You go to Google, you type in a query, you get bombarded with information.

TIP: Everything on the internet currently comes down to one thing: 'Free' or 'Paid'. I suggest you go for the 'free' until we HAVE to go for the 'paid'. My goals is to immerse myself as deep as possible without having to pay anything.

So anyways, organic search is your friend if you have anything on the web, that is unless you don't really want to be found. Thinking about organic search, I came up with my first process steps for Digital Immersion:

• Host your own blog. This is your hub and no matter how many social networks you belong to, THIS will never fold on you and make you lose your information. This blog engine I am using is called BlogEngine.NET and it is sweet. The great thing about using a blog as your hub is that it allows you to syndicate your content easily into RSS feeds that others can subscribe to.
• Register your own name and point it at your blog. This is a bit of my own special sauce. If your goal is to immerse yourself into this digital economy, then you are essentially your own brand. Might as well start with your own name. 
• Make some posts about yourself with the same headings you would use on your resume. This way, when people (like potential employers, business people, etc. search for you, this stuff will come up in the results. You know thats good stuff. Just admit it. 

personal brand