Posts tagged evaluation

Measuring Your Online Personal Brand

December 7, 2008 · Filed under Brand, Business, Marketing, New Media · Tagged , , , , , , , ,

Ever Googled yourself? If you haven’t, don’t get all high and mighty, thinking that only narcissistic people would do such a thing. Today, you need to be aware of your online presence, and your ability to be found. I strongly suggest that everybody be highly aware of their personal brand, but things rings especially true if you have any interest in being a thought leader in your industry. When somebody searches for your name, what kind of information do they find first? That helps dictate your personal brand. When somebody searches for the kind of things you know about, will they find you? You should want them to.

Google is the best search engine to use when evaluating your ability to be found online. Why? They dominate the world of search. According to Hitwise, Google occupies approximately 72% of searches in the United States (although most stats I see put them in the 60-70% range). Yahoo is second with about 17%. There isn’t much else to go around after that. Google gets several hundred million searches each day. You need to have a presence.

We can talk a little bit more in another post/conversation about how to increase the chances you have of showing up on these Google search engine results (SERs), but it should be clear that your personal brand is affected by how you fare in Google SERs. 

Today, I was turned on to another evaluation tool (I know there are some people who abhor evaluation tools, but I see value in them, so deal with it). Phil Barrett wrote a post about the Online Identity Calculator – a tool that asks you a few questions (really only takes a few minutes) and then leverages Google to evaluate your online identity and measure it by placing you in one of four quadrants.

You know I like these kinds of evaluation tools – anything that you use to track/measure/evaluate your personal brand?

Here are the results of my Online Identity Calendar:

Mike McDowell's results - Digitally Distinct

Mike McDowell's results - Digitally Distinct

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What Does Your Blog Say About You?

November 21, 2008 · Filed under Creative, New Media · Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,

 

Photo from joelogon

Photo from joelogon

 

Well, what does your blog say about you? More than you would think. Certainly spilling your brain on the page should reveal who you are, but there are also quite a few services that you can use to evaluate your blog, and in some cases its gender or its personality. Is it possible that your blog writing style could be very different from what you believe your personality and characteristics are? Sure, I think so. People can change their mentality when they write; they can change who they are.

Wordle.net is able to generate a word cloud that shows you which words you are using the most in your blog. This is not a tally list, but a visual representation of your most often used words. The words that are used most appear larger. It’s a nice visual snapshot of the words you use most.

Gender Analyzer uses Artificial Intelligence to read your blog and determine if it was written by a man or a woman. Behind the scenes, a text classifier hosted at uClassify.com has been trained on blogs written by men and women. A month ago, Gender Analyzer told me that my blog was written by a woman. However, I must have written about very manly things since then, because it now realizes that this blog is written by a man. And to keep it that way, let’s load this paragraph with some uber-masculine keywords: football, chicks, balls, beer, mustache, fight, piss, gun.

Typealyzer analyzes your blog to tell you what your Myers-Briggs personality type is. It also gives you a really cool visualization of a brain map that shows the part of the brain you’re using when you write. This blog (mikemywords.com) is an ISTP (Mechanic). The site’s description is this: The independent and problem-solving type. They are especially attuned to the demands of the moment are masters of responding to challenges that arise spontaneously. They generally prefer to think things out for themselves and often avoid inter-personal conflicts. The Mechanics enjoy working together with other independent and highly skilled people and often like seek fun and action both in their work and personal life. They enjoy adventure and risk such as in driving race cars or working as policemen and firefighters.

This is somewhat peculiar, because for years, my Myers-Briggs tests have shown that I am an ENFJ. An ENFJ (which you can read about through the hyperlink) is quite literally the opposite of an ISTP. In Myers-Briggs, you are an E or an I, an N or an S, an F or a T, a J or a P. So, ISTP seems to be the opposite of ENFJ. Again, perhaps proving the point that your “blog voice” may be quite different than your real self. 

This is something to be conscious of. Who are you when you are writing your blog? Who do you want to be when you are writing your blog? After looking at the word cloud, the gender and the personality of your writing – do you want to change the style of your writing to better fit who you actually are?

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