Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with personalbranding

Gotta get the hell up out of here.

Anonymous — Wed, 16 May 2012 13:59:44 -0800

What are productive ways to use a year off from work if I want to make myself more marketable, skilled, and noteworthy? I have a good finance job but lack of passion and a sort of unpleasant culture has started to burn me out. If I stick it out until the end of the year, I could have about $75k saved up to take some time off, recharge, and make myself more marketable for the stuff I WANT to do.

What I want to do: work at a startup, start my own lifestyle business, or invest in startups (as an employee of a fund, incubator, etc). I have the business background, but it seems like I'm lacking a certain rock star/free thinker/risk taker/domain expert vibe that the places I'd like to work are looking for. In addition, with a finance background, I don't have the specific hard skills that a lot of these employers are looking for (e.g. marketing/social media experience, sales, programming). Pure finance people trying to get into these jobs are a dime a dozen, so leveraging just that won't help.

Some ideas I've had for using portions of this time:
*travel to Latin America on the cheap and volunteer in an economic development capacity and make my conversational Spanish fluent (this is for mental peace, cool points, and to increase the geography of my marketability, too)
*learn to build websites and simple web apps and SEO/social media market the shit out of them and use these to build a personal brand
*go to every startup event I can find and network my ass off
*do an unpaid internship with a startup or VC/accelerator/etc
*take a shitty sales job to learn to be a badass salesperson
*figure out some minimally-capital-intensive ideas for businesses to start and "lean startup" them

I'd appreciate more suggestions and any potential pros and cons of my strategy, but I'm not listening to any bullshit about "you should be happy to even HAVE a job." Life's too short to do something you don't love, especially when you're young AND so close to being able to do it. Obviously, I would continue to apply for the jobs I want while doing this.

Additional deets: female, 20s, NYC, no debt, smart, extra personable, but unproven.

Why Can't I Just Be Me?

Sara C. — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 22:19:07 -0800

It's finally time for me to set up a website. Sadly, saralastname.com is being parked by someone who shares my name. What to do? Potential options:

Contact this other Sara C. and make her understand that I truly deserve the domain more?

Buy the .net and hope .com expires someday?

Buy a less attractive variation .com like lastnamesara or sara-lastname?

Come up with a different domain totally unrelated to my name?

This will be a blog and/or online portfolio for my writing. Right now I mostly get paid for travel writing, though I am working in the direction of a screenwriting career. And even if that never pans out, I don't want to narrow my focus too much. A name dealing with writing would be fine and something travel-ish would be ok too. So far I have considered wordysara* and ladysizedbackpack**. Thoughts on either option? Suggestions?

*Though I think it's very reminiscent of Sarah Vowell and The Wordy Shipmates.

**I'm a female budget traveler, geddit?

My 140-word identity crisis needs to stop, already

thisjax — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 05:28:28 -0800

Do I need a public and a private Twitter account? Well, how do I be myself on Twitter in general? I've had a private Twitter account for a few years now. My friends and colleagues* use Twitter and seem to comfortably weave their personal lives and professional interests together on public accounts (and have lots of followers), but I can't seem to develop a level of comfort/communication skill that helps me do the same. I'm concerned that I'll turn off followers if I hop from open data advocacy to what the Americanos are like at that new coffee place to a response to some relevant political issue to a link to some really fantastic Bon Iver cover**. Worse, I'm concerned that I might appear to be some combination of immature, inarticulate, or unhireable thanks to even innocuous Twitter conversations. I'd really like to have a public Twitter account so that I can better engage in online conversation and networking, but do I need separate accounts for my "professional" life/voice and my random-person-in-the-world life? I'm afraid that that seems unnatural and creates extra work without payoff.

I really admire people who can maintain an authentic and inviting voice online, but I feel pretty uneasy about my own ability to do that. How do you manage your Twitter identity/identities? Do you find yourself constantly deleting status updates or simply not participating to begin with? Do you spend a lot of time worried about tone, framing, being acceptable to everyone/a specific audience?

*To put things into context, I'm early-career, Gen-Y, digital native, all that jazz.

**FWIW, I have a lot of trouble feeling comfortable communicating and sharing here on MeFi, or Google Reader, or, well, anywhere online — hell, even writing this question was difficult. I'm unnecessarily self-monitoring to the point where I probably come across as bland because I worry about how people interpret my interests, consumption choices, and communication style. I'm often told that I don't share my (pedestrian) interests with people. So, this really isn't just about Twitter — it's a general social anxiety issue that's gotten significantly worse within the past few years, and it's one I'm trying to get help for.

What kind of domain should I reserve for myself?

zooropa — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 15:01:11 -0800

PERSONAL BRANDING QUESTION: do I get a .me domain or .com domain? I have a question for all the personal branding gurus out there. Should I get a .me domain or a .com domain? Does it even matter?

Here's why I'm asking:

I've been using the flavors.me service for a while as a personal social media hub/online business card. I work in the business as a social media strategist for a Fortune 300 company, so I've been thinking that I should finally get on the stick and register my own domain.

My name is Michael E. Rubin, and my elevator statement is "Seasoned Social Media & Word of Mouth Marketing professional - and a Jolly Good Fellow to boot." With that in mind, here are some options I'm considering:

michaelerubin.com

michaelerubin.me

jollygoodfellowtoboot.com

jollygoodfellowtoboot.me

socialmediapro.me

Thoughts? All opininos are welcome. No flames, please.