Establishing an internet identity - your original brand

The word 'brand' is much overused in marketing discussions.  I think that a brand is a means of claiming ownership of a particular product or service, and the modern expansive use of the word 'brand' actually means a symbol of public identity.  I have ranted about this before. Branding is what you do to cattle – part 1 & part 2.

In internet marketing, more so than in most other types of marketing, a clearly established personal or business identity is of prime importance.  The various types of legally recognized identities are well established, whereas a brand identity can be all sorts of made-up fluff disconnected from anything accountable.  The question, Who are you? cannot be easily answered in the online world for the reason that deception and misrepresentation are so easy to accomplish and so difficult to detect sometimes.

A firmly established identity should be sufficiently detailed to answer these questions: 1) Who do I sue and where do I serve the lawsuit if things go south?, and 2) Where do I send the police if my credit card number is stolen?   Membership with the Better Business Bureau and the local Chamber of Commerce is not too much.  Any little scrap of additional credibility helps, in this justifiably mistrustful age.

One frequently overlook opportunity for establishing a solid online identity is the simple matter of a domain name registration.  A domain name registration is public information and it can be found and looked at online through any number of different services.  All too often, however, I have encountered business domain names registered through anonymous proxy services where the actual domain owner is hidden from view.

But, so far I have never encountered a real good reason to justify the added expense of  an anonymous proxy domain name registration.

An anonymous proxy domain name registration is a means of hiding identity.  Much of internet marketing can be said to focus on clearly establishing identity.  It seems crazy to me to try to promote your identity and hide it at the same time.

Identity is difficult to change, but brand names are extremely portable.

A box of Pillsbury brand cake mix has nothing to do with the Pillsbury Company, which no longer exists, and it is not very easy (at least for me) to discover by whom or exactly where the stuff is manufactured. If you have a hankering to start an airline, you want instant name recognition, and the name Pan American World Airways strikes your fancy, cut a deal with the Tomlinson Corporation of Honolulu, Hawaii. According to the U. S. Patent and Trademark Office, Tomlinson is the current owner of that trademark. It is using the brand to print on t-shirts for sale to tourists.

- Branding is what you do to cattle – part 3

Tom Fox
Louisville, Kentucky
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