If you’ve been around here long enough in the online space (and have read some stuff over here) then you’re already well-aware of the obvious increase of personal branding websites (or sitelets).
I think this is generally a good thing, because managing your online brand is a good thing. Although, it does feels pretty super-saturated already, but that’s maybe just me.
But where are we headed with them? Is that all they are going to be? Business Cards for the digital age?
Perhaps hyper-control of customization is the next phase, like Flavors.me. I got a lucky BETA invite and you can see mine that I threw up in about 30 seconds here: http://flavors.me/human3rror
Check how cool it is to customize (video):
Pretty rad, huh?
You know what would be crazy-cool (and definitely different) if our church sites became more like digital calling cards, highlighting active content and streams of content throughout the web. Imagine an entire church who’s only web presence was one of these.
Hmm.
What do you think? What’s the next evolution of personal branding?
Phillip Gibb says
That on a physical business 'card' for physical distribution.
But, with a common api between all these channels and mechanisms then maybe this kind of thing 'embedded' in all profiles
Matt Harrell says
Having just read Gary Vee's Crush It I'm hot for personal branding. As far as organizations, I think it's true that organizaiton websites will eventually be all about how to connect wiht them whether it's on various social media platforms or if it's right on their site. My guess is that many of the big social networks will die off eventually and a few main giants will remain. Every brand/org will have to have a presense their, but these orgs will still have a website. It's really tough to talk about orgs and people at the same time. Persnoal branding is completely differnet thatn organizaiton branding in my mind right now. It looks like these guys could give a Posterous a run for their money though.
human3rror says
where's your personal site matt?
Matt Harrell says
It's pretty boring right now: http://mattharrell.posterous.com/
human3rror says
it's a start…!
Lex says
That's fantastic. I hope that's available to the rest of the world soon, 'cause "Learn CSS" has been on my To Do list for far too long (and it's probably not going anywhere).
human3rror says
haha! it's a great skill…!
Kyle Reed says
I would hope so, but it seems that we are more interested in telling as much information about the church then we are just giving enough information that you do not leave the site feeling overwhelmed.
What a cheap and easy website for a church.
human3rror says
seriously!
Graham Brenna says
I think the future of personal branding will be something in the form of an iPhone app. I think it's going to depend on the smartphones of the future and whether or not they will be able to 'play nice' (app-wise) with each other. If we could transfer our information similar to the "Bump" app for iPhone but have one main-stream app like that… I think it would be a start.
In the meantime I do think that personal branding sites that utilize your digital business card themes and other like themes are the way to go. As far as my printed business cards go… I've created these http://bit.ly/5FJkbU. They are very intentional about directing people to my online spaces.
andydarnell says
I didn't completely "get" it before, but recently have seen the need for it. I've got it on my todo list because I know I have such an eclectic group of visitors that come to my site. Family, church friends, Social Media Friends, Clients, Organic…
I just need to understand how to set it up and how to best do it. I assume I'd do a subdomain on my site.