Who goes there: Your online brand and identity

All this deep social media thinking has me wondering about the best way to manage, wrangle, control and cajole my online life.

While many folks have connected to me through Twitter*, I've been trying hard to create some brand consistency across the web. That's why I started this blog and gotten a separate new gmail address - themkokc@gmail.com

But, of course, at last count, I think I have five different gmail address, plus a yahoo mail account, plus a work account. All of those e-mail addresses have their own address books.** My pal Sam Sims wondered aloud this past week if contact forms online will soon have spots for social media usernames. I'm hoping for a big hairy Google solution.***

And, as I try to build up my following on Twitter, I realize I've let my LinkedIn profile go dry for weeks. I also need to get a better account for YouTube, Yelp, Vimeo, UStream and the list goes on.

The key, and something I have tried to preach during the recent SM Speech World Tour, is that honesty is the best policy when it comes to online identity. I hold with that, but there is also the problem.

So many possible portals puts pressure on a user to keep things fresh because each site offers a possible interaction.**** And any possible interaction is a possible life-affecting***** interaction.

What I would advise is sitting down one day (I'll probably do it this weekend) and get all of your social ducks in a row. Make sure you are signed up for everything. Have a consistent username across all platforms and make sure your web is good and tight, everything linking to everything overall.

Why do this?

* First, it shows that you are on top of the tech. You should be able to sign up for new sites as they come and integrate them into your personal social media branding plan, instead of catching up with sites that people mention over a cocktail at Rococo.

* Check out wikipedia or some of the big social media news sites to get good lists of these sites.

* Figure out what the strengths of each is for you and that will help you figure out the best way for you to use it professionally.

* Use sites the applications out there which enable you to post across multiple sites (last.fm, etc.) and it will save you time.

* Include Google reader and your rss solution in this mix.

* Even if you don't do anything on a site, at least you have squatted on your online ID.

FOOTNOTES
* - @mkokc, ranked No. 16 in Oklahoma City. Take that @bbjsports!
** - Somewhere David Allen's head just exploded.
*** - What else is new?
**** - Hey, didn't I meet you on www.fansofbillnyethescienceguy.com?
***** - I looked it up a couple times and still don't know if that shouldn't be effecting.