Why transparency matters—building equity in your personal brand

What if you didn't know the real names of your doctor, lawyer or accountant?

Most social media acquaintances aren't exactly on a parallel plane with professional or collegial relationships — but how about your friends?

In 2008 when I began on Twitter, it wasn't unusual to see people using descriptive monikers instead of their real names. How many people remember @TrendTracker or @TrendyDC? Today we know them as @GlenGilmore and @AnnTran_. I think they recognized their Twitter identities were going to be significant and went public at a point where their major growth was ahead of them. It enabled them to start positioning themselves as brands, and I believe they helped others feel comfortable about following suit. 

It's about trust

I think most of us appreciate it when their connections on social media are transparent about who they are.  If I'm being honest with someone, I hope they'll afford me the same courtesy. What is the point of engaging with or filling one's timeline with less-than-honest people?

A cloak of secrecy signals more than "mystery." It says, "There is a reason I don't want you to know who I am." Deceit is a shaky foundation for real connections. 

How people perceive your brand

In establishing yourself as a brand, simplicity in your name and image and consistency in the way you interact are essential. Your behavior both on and off the public timeline matters. By using your real name, you are inviting people to trust you, and by maintaining a consistent and positive presence across channels, you build relationships with people as well as equity in the recognition of who you are.

Business accounts may not identify the specific person tweeting on its behalf, though many do. Identifying who is tweeting is a good thing because most people would rather tweet with a person than an "entity." When one is responsible for engaging in conversations on behalf of a business, they need to keep in mind the reputation and personality of the company they represent. And if their identity is known, they have the opportunity to project positively for a business, but also build recognition in themselves. 

Using a descriptive moniker along with your name

Highly recognizable and respected people very successfully use non-name monikers, but self-identify using their real names. Reg Saddler, or @zaibatsu, and Heather Frey,  @SmashFit, both are well-established across social media channels with memorable handles that evoke a strong image of their brands.

If you decide to use a descriptive moniker, it's helpful and important to include your real name somewhere in your social media profile and I'll list several reasons why:

• First—You are creating a climate of trust by using your real name
• Second—It allows others to find you by name or by moniker      
• Third—exchanges with someone whose name you know is more personal and engenders the creation of relationships                
• Fourth—By using your name, rather than building equity in a pseudonym, you are building equity in the recognition of yourself and your personal brand. And at the end of the day, in social media, recognition is the form of currency that matters.

Short and easy versus long or difficult

Whatever you choose, make your identity as short and easy as you can. Abstract combinations of letters and numbers are difficult to remember.

Clever handles can be fun, but people can be difficult to locate if their monikers are not exactly memorable, or if you cannot search for them using their real names. 

The substitution of numbers for letters may be good for building a password, but expecting others to remember quirky configurations is unrealistic. Also—adding characters that require changing case on a smart device (phones, tablets), makes it inconvenient for someone to type your name. (Included are underscores and numbers or other special characters.) There are settings in some applications that will "auto-complete" a name once you begin typing, and you can also type once, then copy and paste. But still—isn't it easier when those extra motions are unnecessary?

Changing your moniker 

Once you've established the handle people are meant to recognize, try to keep it. If you change it, you will retain your friends and followers, but unless you've done some groundwork to prepare them for the change, they may not recognize you. 

Chris Luzader (@TechZader) handled this situation beautifully. Chris used to go by the name @The_Tech_Update, but he could see the value of simplifying his name as his brand evolved. He combined part of his original moniker with his actual name resulting in a shorter, simpler handle. But before making the change, he prepared by getting feedback on possible names, and gave his then-large following of 16,000 advanced notice.

Maintaining consistency in your avatar and your brand

Establishing a consistent presence across social media channels — hopefully both in name and avatar — reinforces the identity and recognition of your brand and what it stands for. Think of it this way—your avatar is your social media logo. If "Starbucks" changed its name or logo often, what is the chance you would recognize it? 

When someone changes their avatar on a daily, weekly or fairly frequent basis, it sends a message — "I don't care if you realize it's me." One friend had a maddening habit of frequently changing both his moniker and his avatar, making him impossible to find.

You might know someone on Twitter by "@whatever," but if they circle you on G+ using their real name, then send a friend-request on Flickr using yet another, they undermine the chance of making connections. They might seem familiar, but who are they?*

Trust is the foundation of real relationships

By using your real name and placing trust in others, you are inviting them to trust you, too. By building recognition of your name and avatar, you establish a "brand promise" creating an expectation of what others can expect when they encounter you or your company online.


Relationships matter in personal life and in business. People DO want to know who they are dealing with. By being transparent, the potential gain is greater than the risk.

What are your feelings about transparency? Are there good reasons for obscuring one's identity? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

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*"Twitter for Busy People" will allow you to grab up to 1000 followers, by recency and by avatar. So if you are searching for someone and can't remember their names but remember their avatars, and if they've tweeted recently, you might be able to find them using this site.

Truth in Color

Or, why does my stuff look different on screen versus on paper?

Every designer searches for "truth in color," whether it's finding the right blue to evoke feelings of trust and stability or choosing a green that says a company is forward thinking, environmentally-aware, but also serious, not playful.

Recently I was working on a project that was governed by a pre-existing corporate style guide. For those who don't know, corporate standards, graphic standards, brand guidelines and similar descriptors, refer to a document that delineates important aspects of a company's image. Some of the elements it usually addresses include use of the logo; fonts for print and web; graphic elements such as bands and gradients and shapes (such as rounded corners instead of sharp ones); whether the corporate style is to use illustrations versus photos, and corporate/secondary/tertiary color palettes.

During the course of working on this project, the client noticed how different something looks on screen compared to when it is printed on paper. This phenomena is the difference between how the eye looks at emitted light and reflected light.

Emitted color is projected to the viewer through the computer screen, just as it is with a television monitor. All colors viewed this way are composed of 3 colors: red, green and blue. This color model is referred to as "RGB" color, and it is the model used for all colors seen on the web. RGB is also the model used for traditional color film negatives.

Reflected color is color viewed on a surface, whether it is a magazine, bus card, billboard or brochure. Even backlit posters and banners are still produced as reflected color. The model used is cyan, magenta, yellow and black, or CMYK. CMYK is also known as "4-color process," or "full color". If you use a look at the Sunday comics section and you'll be able to see CMYK dots. In addition to CMYK, there is also Hexachrome color, which uses CMYK plus orange and green. Hexachrome expands the color possibilities that can be achieved in full-color printing.

Another ink model used for reflected color is called a "spot" color. Spot colors are pure colors that are mixed with different pigment formulas, sort of like when you have paint mixed to paint a wall. Commonly used spot color sources include Pantone, Toyo and Focoltone, Trumatch plus custom ink mixes. When a job, such as a 2-color business card, is printed — often it is printed with 2 pure spot colors.

Spot colors can be converted to CMYK, but because CMYK is limited in its ability to interpret color pigments, it's not always possible to convert spot to process with identical results. Also at play is the surface upon which the color appears. A shiny surface will appear more bright and saturated than a dull one.

SO...getting back to that pesky client.

Because emitted color and reflected color DO look different, even though he had a corporate color palette, he wanted to specify different colors to be used in print and web. For print, he wanted to specify a PMS color PLUS a CMYK build that was different than the formula normally used for the conversion. Next, he wanted to specify an even different RGB formula for the web. His thinking was that he'd be able to control the look of his color across various media.

WRONG.

It's a nice idea, but in reality, different monitors (LCD, CRT) have different white points (brightnesses) and color capabilities, and every monitor is calibrated slightly differently, just as different color printers have varying color profiles and produce different output. One of my clients LOVED the way Epson color layouts looked and was always a little disappointed because commercial (professional) offset printing couldn't deliver the same results. Just as monitors display colors differently, when you provide a PDF to someone and allow them to print it out, you've essentially lost control over the quality of the color output.

Especially now when so many people are uninformed about how to even evaluate good color, and based on the inability to control color, my recommendation is to choose colors from a widely accepted color library (such as Pantone or Toyo), gearing it to the dominant use—whether web-based or print. But always be aware of  what happens in various models (spot, process or RGB) and check out what it looks like on uncoated, matte and coated surfaces. This extra effort will help avoid unpleasant surprises, and It's the only way I know to "idiot proof" and, as much as possible, preserve the integrity of intent.