A Snow White Dome

When fiddling on my blog today I noticed that, in my header image, I had brown or pepper and salt coloured hair. Nowadays my dome is snow white.  My branding should reflect the person that I am. 

I liked my old image that showed me waving while frolicking in the ocean. I liken my genealogy environment to a body of water where I can swim - a place where I can relax and have fun, play in the shallows or dive deep, it's somewhere that can throw up challenges and surprises. 

When holidaying in Vanuatu earlier this year I was enjoying a swim in a glorious lagoon when Mr Geniaus snapped a photo of me enthusiastically waving and showing my white hair plastered to my head. The image shows me in a happy place as I am when playing in my genealogy world. 

Over I went to Canva where I created a new header using their Blogger Header template. I've uploaded the completed image to the blog. While I may tweak it over the coming days it will remain basically the same until I next fiddle with my branding.  Next task is creating a new header for the Geniaus Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/geniauspage

The new header - created with Canva

GeniAus Favicon

There are often several browser tabs open at once on my computer.

It has been said that pictures speak louder than words. I can identify many of these from the little Favicons that display in the browser tabs but when I have  some with the same little icon it's hard to distinguish one from the other. I found directions from Chick Croll on how to do this here https://blogging.nitecruzr.net/2018/10/adding-favicon-2018.html. This used to be a fiddly process but it is so easy now.

Until recently if I had three or four Blogger blogs open I could not identify which was which without reading the small text in the tabs but now that has changed.

Now I just have to look for for my familiar GeniAus portrait Favicon to find my blogger blog. I can also easily identify Myrt's Musings from DearMYRTLE's favicon.

My open browser tabs

That little portrait is an important of my branding - several years ago when I was going to change my portrait to a more lifelike/real photo one of my genimates said "You can't do that - it's part of your brand. So now I use it at every opportunity.

Together with my internet identity GeniAus it make my content easily recognisable.

How's your brand?

This morning I read an interesting post from a school librarian who was talking about social media and branding. So much of what she said is also true for genealogists and family historians.

Ashley Cooksey said in her post Social Media Profile and Branding  "One of the most important things a #ConnectedEducator can do is to build a stellar profile and create a social media brand. You may currently be thinking, “a brand is for a company, fast food restaurant, or shoe, not for a teacher.” Well, my friend, I disagree. Your profile gives followers a quick snapshot of who you are as a professional (and a person). Your posts will develop your brand. Think of this as your digital footprint."  The same goes for a Connected Genealogist.

In the article Ashley answers to three questions:

• What do you need to include in your profile?
• What should you post? And how often?
• Why is it important to brand yourself?

I cannot think of many family historians whose content I instantly recognise. Some that I recognise are those with unique usernames/aliases (or as I call them AKAs) like The Chart Chick, Dapper Historian, Lonetester and ScotSue. These unique names have much more meaning than Mary Brown or John Smith. When I enter the search term GeniAus into Google the majority of the results that are returned are about or by me, ie relevant. I imagine that DearMYRTLE has a similar experience but I am sure that poor Mary Brown and John Smith aren't so fortunate. Do you consider the person who may be trying to find your pearls of wisdom via a simple search?

I am astounded when I visit blogs while writing welcome posts for the GeneabloggersTRIBE blog that quite a number of bloggers don't have a Profile or About Me statement. If we want to connect with our readers we must give a little. Have you checked your profile lately? Does it give the reader a hint of your personality and background. Readers like to know a little about those whose ramblings they are reading.

Some genealogists have one photo or graphic across all of their social media channels. Do you recognise these? 

This is a slide from a presentation I am giving at #Congress_2018

EXTRA added an hour later. If you are going to use a photo (unless it's one of you as a child) make sure it is recent and an accurate representation of the everyday you.

The Legal Genealogist has all of this branding stuff sewn up. She has a recognisable AKA, uses the same photo regularly and even wears her pink coat to many geneaevents. I hear that the coat is now threadbare and that Judy has commissioned a replica.

Does your branding need a makeover? Perhaps you should read Ashley's post Social Media Profile and Branding.