For example, I have been managing my own brand for the last few months, mainly to understand how the social media environment operates. I would like to apologise in advance to those of you from whom I have tried (rather shabbily) to hide the fact that I am @mikmakGMI, @misterquality and @beltedradial.
Most of you knew the two former were one in the same. @misterquality came around to address issues not perptaining to motor vehicles, but yours truly @beltedradial, came about in order to allow me to say "cock" every now and again when it was warranted, with out damaging the brands to which I was attached.
The penny dropped shortly after my watching Bob Lutz on @autoline After hours describing how an absence of brand clarity at Pontiac, resulted in the ultimate demise of the General Motors performance arm (despite its self inflicted atrophy in the preceding decade or two). Essentially they denied what they always should have been: passionate with grunt to spare.
That is not unlike my own [d]evolution upon becoming a moderator on GMInsidenews. I still love GMI. It provides a great service, and the Brand Management of that site has seen it go from strength to strength. More importantly, the GMI crew have discussed what type of environment we want, decided upon it and focussed therein to great success. But it is not me. I will still contribute there (if they'll still have me), but continuing to restrain myself is like sticking your finger in a dyke. Sure it sounds like fun, but eventually there will be more holes than you have fingers.
Then one of my favourite tweeters @millionsofmyles mentioned recently how he was going to start a blog. A personal blog.
Honesty; what a concept! Surprised I never thought of it because I spent too much time reading e-books about what I'm supposed to do. (dickhead!)
Which brings us to me (the other me). I will be giving @mikmakGMI an electronic bullet in the head in the next few weeks and taking over the account of @beltedradial as my primary personal account. It will be my honest personal feelings about everything. I will be posting all manner of analysis, critiquing and general noise about what ever I feel like commenting about (but mostly cars!).
@misterquality shall be maintained as I'm sure many of you don't give a rats ass about AILs arising from your annual mangerial reviews.
So allow me to introduce myself. My name is Michael McWilliams. I am a conceptual analyst and technical communicator, a dad, husband, car nut and aussie.
I've also been around the track a few times making me feel (and look) like a belted radial.
Please feel free to post eulogy suggestions for mikmakGMI (note: must be <140>
MORAL OF THE STORY: be honest or your brand will die a slow and boring death.
