Carolyn Erickson

“They” say it’s important. And I do understand that, other than being a GREAT way to rationalize too much time on the Internet (”That wasn’t just idle chatting … that was Social Networking!”), having contacts all over the world is of tremendous benefit to writers and other businesspeople.

Maybe I would join more social networking sites if the sign-up pages didn’t hit me with the hard questions right off the bat.

Like, “Name.”

I suppose if you’re Plurking or Tweeting for pleasure and not business, you could call yourself bikergirl93 or whatever. But for businesspeople this is a question of branding. If your network is designed to make you easy to find, recognizable, and to establish your online presence, it seems logical that you would call yourself the same thing on all the social networking sites.

But every time I start to enter my name, I get struck with a niggling of self-consciousness. What if, in an unguarded moment, I post something too personal, or too dorky, or worse — confuse “it’s” with “its”?

It’s probably too late. I’m sure I’ve already done it. But I wonder if you pause before naming yourself on a social networking site. If you’re building a brand on the Internet, what things do you take into consideration when using social networking sites? Do you mix personal friends with business contacts? Do you carefully censor yourself?

If not, how do you think this affects your brand? If you do… how do you do it?

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