Skip to main content

Branding Myself

You may have noticed that my posts now say TorontoCarol rather than Mrs C. I've been trying to brand myself for awhile now, and other than becoming confused about who I am, I haven't done well.

I suppose if I had only one interest and had a clear focus right from the beginning, I wouldn't have this problem. But when I started online, I had a blog about Canada, a blog about computers, a blog about myself and on and on. See where I'm going with this?

I started off calling myself TorontoCarol and that's how I'm known on the Internet marketing forums. After all, I'm a native Torontonian and Carol is a very common name otherwise. Even Carol Bremner is owned by people I've found out about online from England and Australia (none of them related and one I wouldn't want to be mistaken for). So TorontoCarol was fine for the forums and worked well with my Canada blog.

But I have a company blog too. TorontoCarol doesn't sound very professional. There I just go by my full name, common or not.

Then there's the computer blog. Toronto has nothing to do with computers, so I started using Mrs C. Then I started blogging about grandparenting at my supergramma blog and created my first product for grandparents. So Supergramma was a good name there.

By this point, I can hardly keep track of who I am. Can you imagine what will happen in the future when my memory decides to work part-time? I'll have to pin a badge on myself so I remember my name.

Obviously, I have to make a decision before I have more names than a cat has kittens. I found out about a site called namecheck where I could go and enter the name or names I want to brand and see in what 2.0 sites the name is being used already. This was a big help.

As a result, I found that my real name was in use at a few sites. Mrs C was being used all over the net, so that was definitely out. TorontoCarol I had the corner on, but like I said, it wasn't right for the grandparenting market I'm trying to do. Gramma C was as popular as Mrs C and even SuperGramma was being used on eBay, Twitter, and Ning.

I had to make a decision. Who am I? I decided on Supergramma C and set up an account on Twitter, eBay, and youtube to start with. I'll try to do a few at a time until I corner the market on the name.

So there you have it. The long, drawn-out explanation of why I am signing these posts as TorontoCarol. What are your thoughts on branding? Am I making a mountain out of a molehill? Does it really matter?

Comments

  1. Krisj5/06/2009 02:53:00 PM

    You can always try something abbreviated like SGC or GrandmaC or similar. Long names can have their problems.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Carol5/11/2009 09:41:00 PM

    Thanks for the tip Kris. You're right, long names can have problems. Since a Twitter name counts as part of the total number of Twitter characters, it wouldn't leave much room for comments.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Our Mastermind Progress

I mentioned in the last post that I was going to be involved in a mastermind group to help promote one another. So far we have met once on Skype and twice on a teleseminar. These are my observations so far: Our Skype meeting was a lot of fun, but didn't accomplish much. I don't use Skype often and the others did only for one on one text chats. When the first two members got on Skype, it was fine, we could see and hear one another well. As soon as someone else entered the call, the video capability was lost. Once four of us were on (member number five couldn't attend that day) it was hard to hear properly. There was a lot of phone interference and we kept getting dropped from having a group call. We finally gave up and called it a day. The next two sessions we've used a teleseminar service. I have a free trial for InstantTeleseminars so we used that. The advantage here over freeconferencecalling.com is that there were local phone numbers for the American members of our...
2 comments
Read more

Jet Lag and NAMS 4

Okay, it wasn't a jet, but I did take a 747 to NAMS. And yes, I've been back for a week now. But it takes me a while to recover so you won't get all the juicy details for a bit longer yet. All I can say is I took loads of notes, hung out with some amazing people, and wish they didn't live so far away. I learned a lot and really enjoyed the sessions with Bob 'The Teacher' Jenkins, Karon Thackston, and Kathleen Gage. Of course all of the presenters were great, but those three I got the most from. And I had a 15 minute consultation with Mark Hendricks as well. The last NAMS I didn't think I had anything to discuss with him, but this time I forced myself to sign up. I was super nervous, but he was very easy to talk to, and he actually liked my idea for a membership site. I'll talk more about that another time. Once I get my notes organized, I'll give you my top ten takeaway points. Now the challenge is to do them, not stay in learning mode. So ...
2 comments
Read more

Using a Virtual Assistant - What Could YOU Delegate?

At some point, we all realize we can't do everything ourselves. When that happens, it's time to start thinking about hiring the services of a Virtual Assistant. My life has been so much easier since I started working with my VA. She does all the techie things I can't do, keeps me on track, motivates me when I get discouraged. If you're wondering how outsourcing could help you, here are some of the tasks that can be delegated to a VA: * Responding to customer e-mails and phone calls * Scheduling business and personal appointments and interviews * Bookkeeping: invoicing clients, receiving and paying bills, reconciling bank statements,  tracking expenses     and tax records, working with your accountant * Internet research and fact checking * Planning travel for speaking engagements and seminars * Maintaining newsletter and customer mailing lists * Managing website and newsletter ad sales * Handling registrations for teleclasses and workshops * Maintainin...
Post a Comment
Read more