Comments on: Defining my online brand – should seattleduck.com remain as is?

By: Onward and Outward: Leaving Microsoft (again) | seattleduck

Onward and Outward: Leaving Microsoft (again) | seattleduck — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 23:17:43 +0000

[...] something about this blog and my personal online [...]

By: Beau

Beau — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 07:27:41 +0000

I think you should split =)

Keep seattleduck for the social/marketing side of things.

Then grab kevinbriody.net for your personal blog.

Just my $0.02 :)

By: Brandon LeBlanc

Brandon LeBlanc — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 18:51:13 +0000

I like Alex Barnett’s suggestion of redirecting Seattleduck to kevinbriody.net – doing a re-brand. I did this with MSTechToday. It redirects now to my new blog.

By: Kevin

Kevin — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 17:55:58 +0000

@ Kip – I agree. Thinking about it, the blogs I have stayed the most loyal too are the ones who are clearly identifiable in terms of what their focus is (marketing, tech news, etc) yet also clearly the product of a person I can connect with and relate to. So a pure marketing blog might be better saved for guest posts elsewhere, a group project, etc rather than the mainstay of my online brand.

@ Alex – I like the idea of a unique RSS feed based on tags. I’ll have to poke around and see if there is a WP plugin for that or something I can route through Feedburner. I also think I’m leaning towards the kevinbriody.net/blog option as you suggest. I can dream up 1000 “catchy” blog names yet I want something that a) is “me” online and b) is built to last beyond whatever I think might be cool or neat today. Keeping it simple is probably ideal. I’ll save the cute names for side projects.

If I do the above however, I need to think about either leaving seattleduck.com in place in order to not break the permalinks, or some kind of Wordpress .htaccess hack or migration process to move them all and redirect over to the new blog. Fortunately I have a couple weeks off starting tomorrow, so I feel a project coming on! :)

Thanks for all the great comments. Any more, please fire away.

By: Alex Barnett

Alex Barnett — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 14:28:23 +0000

Kevin – I’d keep the current blog going. Like Kip, I enjoy the mix of of content you provide here. It would be nice to see more of your thoughts on marketing, but I wouldn’t separate that out into two different blogs.

But I would consider a re-brand. Have Seattleduck redirect to Kevinbriody.net – this would help you in terms of marketing and “owning” the Kevin Briody brand. By having seperate feeds based on tags (“marketing” and “personal”) but keeping the main feed as the aggregate of all these would allow subscribers to get just the marketing / professional thoughts related stuff in one feed if that’s what they wanted, but I wouldn’t bother with the effort of breaking the site down by sub-directories – I don’t the the ROI.

Either way, keep up the good blogging!

By: Brandon LeBlanc - A Self-Proclaimed Windows Geek » Blog Archive » Rebuilding my online "brand" - I screwed it up

Tue, 31 Jul 2007 07:12:05 +0000

[...] more to it than simply rebuilding my online brand. I intend to redefine my brand. Kevin Briody is in the middle of redefining his own online brand. In redefining my own brand, you won’t find “Sidebar Geek” here. “Sidebar [...]

By: kip

kip — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 17:19:44 +0000

OK my first impulse, as a lifelong Seattleite, is that anything associated with the Oregon Ducks is beyond hope, and you should strive for something more positive and uplifting: anOregonHuskyfan.com, perhaps? :P

All kidding aside, I would suggest that you keep this blog, focus your marketing efforts here, while still retaining elements of your personal life, and your personality. Your “brand” encompasses all of that, and a split between marketing/personal loses some of the personal elements that define the brand. Now if you want a blog to connect to your family on family goings on, that’s another thing, but the blogs I get the most out of all include personal reflections, off-topic posts, and displays of passion or enthusiasm for causes or events that, while they don’t fall into a “marketing” category, clearly help to move the brand forward.

By: Kevin

Kevin — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 17:07:22 +0000

Well said Scott – the idea of a fresh start is very appealing, and likewise I’ve learned a ton about blogging over the past several years and want to put that to use. Seattleduck has been a great experience, but I feel I could really do better.

By: Scott Watermasysk

Scott Watermasysk — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 17:00:01 +0000

I am thinking of doing the same thing and will likely go the new domain route. I have learned a lot in nearly 5 years of blogging. My life and focus have changed quite a bit and for me, I am looking forward to a new site with a fresh start.