Look in the mirror. What reflection do you see? What’s the answer that you get when you ask, “Who am I?”.

It doesn’t matter if it’s a personal mirror or one with a business face – they’re one and the same at the end of the day.

How you view yourself has a lot to do with how you’re viewed by others.

Do you see yourself as the no-nonsense type that doesn’t stand for any bull? Or the caring type that listens to everyone’s questions and concerns and tries to help wherever possible?

Maybe the answer is somewhere in-between, or nowhere near either.

Your view, and that of other people, is what shapes your brand, personal and professional.

If you want to come across as narcissistic, you will. If you want to be known as the person that never listens to others and does exactly what you want, you will. If you want to be known as the hard-assed boss, you will.

But you know what people buy from? The brand. Sure, the product is important, but generally it plays second fiddle to the service. Your brand gets known for its service and is the currency on which your fortune (or lack of) will be built.

I’m a consumer. If I hear about two companies that have exactly the same product and price point, but one listens to its customers more than the other, I know where my money’s going.

If I hear that Jim has built his hugely successful business by being a dick to his staff for no reason, I’d rather shop at Joe’s less successful business. Why? Because I’ve heard he knows all his employees’ likes and dislikes and when their birthdays are. He also listens to feedback from staff and customers alike and acts on it to make his service better.

We all know who and what we want to be. Yet we don’t always make the right decisions to get there. Ours isn’t the only opinion that counts – not if we want to be truly successful. We know who we are, but others know who we could be. This is what makes a successful brand.

Your brand is your voice but don’t be afraid to let others shape it.

photo credit: Tasayu Tasnaphun

Who Are You? originally appeared on Danny Brown - under a Creative Commons license.

Comments aren’t usually high up on the list of monitoring and watching what’s being said online.

Yet they should be, as a recent post by David Henderson and the subsequent conversation in the comments section show.

I won’t go too much into the actual blog post or the comments, as they’re both recommended reads and will give you a far clearer view of who may be in the right or wrong. What the post does highlight is that a blog comment can go even further than a blog post at painting an individual or company in a less than flattering light.

The gist of the post and resulting conversation is that David Henderson suggests that WordPress is an excellent medium for hosting your own online newsroom. Countering this is Steve Momorella of TEKgroup International, a company that develops and maintains online newsrooms.

What could have been a good discussion about both the validity of having your own online newsroom and how good WordPress is at running such a tool instead develops into a messy claim/counter-claim regarding the post and follow-up comments.

David seems to take umbrage with a comment made by Steve about the usefulness of WordPress and calls it a lack of understanding on Steve’s part. Steve is unhappy about David’s “disrespect” and so points out an error on David’s website.

This then results in other commenters joining in and by the end of everything, there’s a veritable “he said, she said” feel to everything.

While it makes for hugely entertaining reading, it also shows how a simple blog comment can taint someone’s view. I read David Henderson regularly. I respect him immensely and find him to be a great source of information and knowledge (although his constant putting down of PR does jade, after a while).

I didn”t know Steve Momorella prior to his comments on David’s blog post, but I do know of him now. Because of that blog post and its comments, I felt both David and Steve came out a little less positive than they otherwise might have.

While Steve’s comments have merit, they did come across as slightly leaned toward promoting his company which could be classed as comment spam. Whether that was the intent or not is down to Steve’s interpretation.

For David’s side, I felt he was being a little defensive and it maybe encouraged Steve to counter more than he would have.

From an outsider’s point of view, it could be seen as Steve is a promotional spammer and David doesn’t like comments that disagree with him. I know this isn’t the case with David and I’m guessing it’s not the case for Steve.

But see how easy a conversation in blog comments can sway a point of view?

Are you always thinking slightly about what you say and how it’s said when you comment on a blog? Or do you feel that it’s not something to worry about too much and just say what you feel regardless? Can comment conversations get away from you?

The comments are yours (no ironic pun intended).

photo credit: Andi♥

Blog Comments and Reputation Central originally appeared on Danny Brown - under a Creative Commons license.

I’m beginning to wonder about Twitter, though.

The micro-blogging company isn’t having a great time of things at the minute. From network stability issues to the recent malware attack, it’s been a testing time for Twitter.

Thanks to a new website, it could become even more testing – yet Twitter doesn’t seem particularly bothered. Should they be?

Fake-Twitter.com is a site that allows you to choose any Twitter user and make a fake Twitter status update. This is then posted like a tweet and, at a glance, looks like the real thing. If you’re not a Twitter user, you might even think it’s the genuine article.

Even if you see that it’s fake, I’m guessing that the fake tweet will show up in search engine results and look like a genuine post. You can see how damaging this could be to someone’s name or brand. So, far from being a little bit of fun, Fake-Twitter.com is ethically questionable.

So where is Twitter in all of this? So far, nowhere – yet don’t you think they should be taking action against the site, in order to protect its own users?

Even if that was legally a gray area, Twitter could take down Fake-Twitter.com for copyright breach on the site’s design, which is just like the real Twitter set up.

Maybe there’s no response yet because Twitter is busy dealing with the malware attacks on their servers – so here’s some help to the Twitter team:

1. The Fake-Twitter domain is registered at GoDaddy.com under the name of Ryan Cornwell of Columbus, OH. You can get full details – address, email, etc – here.
2. The site itself is hosted at DreamHost.com, which is located in Brea, CA – so there should be no issues with overseas hosting legalities.
3. One of the co-creators of Fake-Twitter.com is Twitter user @topherchris – I’m sure you could ask him about Fake-Twitter.com, abuse of the site and the design copyright issue.

There’s not a lot more I can (or should) do – I’m not a Twitter employee and I have my own tasks at hand. But I am a Twitter user that cares about the Twitter community, as well as the potential damage this could do to individuals and brands,  hence the collection of information for you.

It only took me about half an hour to collate all the details and do some digging on the people behind it.

The question now, Twitter, is what are you going to do about it?

How about you? Should Twitter be taking action or is Fake-Twitter.com just a harmless joke?

• Update April 13 – As of 9.00pm EST, the Fake-Twitter website is closed following an official takedown request from Twitter.

photo credit: kaioshin

Does Twitter Monitor Its Brand? Fake-Twitter.com Suggests No originally appeared on Danny Brown - under a Creative Commons license.