Back in December, I fulfilled a lifelong goal. After years of laboring day and night over my keyboard, blogging and tweeting until my fingers cramped up into strange claw-like shapes, I finally reached the point where Google auto-filled my name. It was a triumphant day for me, filled with tears of joy and celebratory showers of champagne, but in my heart I knew it was only the beginning.

Yes, Google did auto-fill my name, but only when I typed in “Rob Frap.” A win, certainly, but a small one. Never content to rest on my laurels, I vowed to keep working on my Google presence until I was able to appear in Google’s auto-complete for “Rob Fra” as well. And from there, of course, I would work for “Rob Fr” and, finally, “Rob F.” About a week ago, my hard work paid off and I achieved this last goal, joining the ranks of the many fine Rob F’s on Google.

As you can see from the picture at the top of the post, I’m just below “Rob Fantasy Factory” and just above “Rob Figliulo” — some rather esteemed company, if I do say so myself! Obviously, my next goal is to have my name suggested after typing in “Rob,” but that’s another level of Internet fame entirely.

Do I have what it takes? Will I someday be able to join the ranks of Rob Zombie, Rob Lowe, Rob Thomas, and Rob Pattinson? Only time will tell. In the meanwhile, I will bask in Google’s glow and the two or three extra visitors that will make it to this blog thanks to auto-complete.

(In case you couldn’t sense it, this post was written with tongue firmly in cheek. While I am happy that I’m gaining some gravitas on Google, and I definitely think you should spend time working to build a strong personal brand online, I’m really not this self-absorbed.)

[comic via Toothpaste for Dinner]

“Personal branding” is one of those phrases that gets thrown around a lot in conversations these days. Not that I’m complaining of course. I use the phrase a lot, and why shouldn’t I? It’s a pretty succinct expression. Whether it’s your blog, your Twitter feed, or your Facebook profile, the way you choose to identify yourself online is, in essence, your personal brand. Considering that I work in the world of social media, it makes sense that it would come up.

The problem is, I’m not entirely sure what my personal brand is, especially when I compare myself to of some of my peers. Take Tim Jahn for example. Through his work with Beyond the Pedway, Tim has made connections at every creative company in a 50-mile radius and has carved out a nice niche as Chicago’s go-to digital video guy. Likewise, Rebecca Denison has turned an aptitude for social media measurement (as channeled through the eyes of a young Gen-Y professional) into a very entertaining and frequently enlightening blog. It’s no wonder she’s a member of the excellent team at Edelman Digital.

Looking at those two and how they have spent time crafting their identities online, I am somewhat envious. Where they have a clear focus, I feel like my web presence is fractured. At first glance, you might say I’m a blogger focused on copywriting and social media. Under closer examination, however, that identity doesn’t hold up. For one thing, I don’t update this blog nearly as often as I should, and, obviously, you can’t be known for something if there’s no content to validate your expertise.

That’s not to say I’m not writing online of course. To the contrary, I’m active everyday creating high quality content for my company, ReputationDefender. Unfortunately, while much of my writing there focuses on social media, it is social media as defined within the scope of the ReputationDefender brand (reputation management issues, personal privacy, etc). For the company, that is good, and it is exactly why I was hired. However, for me personally, it doesn’t help to define my brand as a marketer since it doesn’t appear on my personal blog.

Apart from ReputationDefender blogging, I also spend a lot of time writing for the entertainment news website Screen Rant. In this role, however, I don’t even consider what I do to be blogging, but rather online journalism. While I inject opinion into the articles I write, and occasionally pen longer editorial pieces such as this recent piece about Captain America (NERD ALERT), the focus is on getting the facts right and crafting a clean narrative. In other words, I treat writing for Screen Rant as if I were writing for a magazine or newspaper. It’s a different medium and it deserves a different approach.

Given my competing priorities online, I sometimes find myself wondering whether I should even call myself a blogger or if I should just go with the more general term of “writer.” Perhaps six or seven years ago what I am doing with this website could have been called blogging, but, considering how far the medium has come, I’m not so sure anymore. If you don’t have a clearly defined niche or a regular audience for your primary website, are you still blogging or is it just an exercise in vanity?

What do you think? Am I imbuing the word blog with too much importance? If you spend most of your time writing for some other publication online, does that define your personal brand, or is only what you post under your own name? Let me know what you think in the comments.

Chris Brogan, famed communications consultant, author, and President of New Marketing Labs, set the social media world a-twitter (if you’ll pardon the pun) when he non-chalantly shared his consulting day rate in a recent blog post. The number, an impressive $22,000 a day, struck many readers as extremely high, particularly when juxtaposed against another blog post in which Chris solicited an unpaid intern to be a part of a new project he has in the works.

Now, in my opinion, if someone is willing to pay him $22,000 to do what he does, then Chris deserves to earn that kind of money. This is the United States of America baby. If you’re a consultant and you want to get paid big bucks, set high rates and do awesome work. We are all the keepers of our own souls. Do what works for you and don’t sweat it if you’re not at Chris’ level of success.

Of course, I’m not here to ramble on about my thoughts on the issue (I already did that in a comment here), what I’m interested in is bringing together some of the interesting and insightful analysis that sprung up AFTER Chris dropped the bomb. So, without further ado, here are my three favorite blog posts on Brogan-gate! (Is it okay to attach “gate” to this, or am I overreaching?)

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• Does Chris Brogan’s Day Rate “Anchor” the Cost of Social Media Consulting?

In an extremely insightful post over at Incentive Intelligence, Paul Hebert explains how, due to his level of celebrity in the social media sphere, Brogan’s revelation has set an anchor for the high end costs of social media consulting. In other words, though there are those who may charge more, Brogan’s fees are a good benchmark for what the highest earners could be making. Obviously, the majority of consultants don’t make that kind of scratch, but Hebert explains that Brogan’s anchor may still help lower or mid-level consultants earn more money.

Quoting from the post:

“Assume you are a very, very good social media consultant with great references (maybe even Chris himself) but you only charge $1,000 per day.  Congrats – you can probably give yourself a big raise.  Not that you’re doing anything better – just that the anchor for the work you do is now known and you can point to it and say – “hey, I do similar work as Chris and I’m only $10K per day.”  Your clients may now think your $10K rate looks like a bargain. That’s what anchors do.  They provide context for discussion and allow for comparisons.”

• So How Do You Figure Out Your Self-Worth?

In an interesting post at Justin Kownacki’s blog, Justin expounds upon some of the same themes brought up in the Incentive Intelligence post. In essence, Justin says that the reason people were upset over Brogan’s day rate is because they never knew that money like that was a realistic goal. Rather than sulking about how much money you’re not making, however, Justin suggests that you should reconsider how valuable your own services are.

In an excellent six-step strategy, which I won’t repeat here because you really should just read it at his blog, Justin outlines some of the ways that you can accurately determine your own consulting rates.

Quoting from the post:

“Valuing yourself according to other people’s self-estimations is the easiest way to drive yourself crazy.  But valuing yourself according to your own self-estimation is the easiest way to go hungry, because you never truly understand what your assets are actually worth to the people who don’t know what you know.”

• Why Do Price Discrepancies Exist and What Do They Mean For You?

In a wonderfully lengthy and deeply analytical blog post, Mike Myatt, Chief Strategy Officer for N2Growth, explains the important role that pricing plays in all aspects of business, and why some people will pay $30,000 for a Rolex but “feel a Timex isn’t worth more than $50 dollars.”

What I like the most about Myatt’s post is that he carefully explains some of the complex issues that can impact pricing – the strength of your brand, your competition, whether there is a demand for your services –  and how this complexity must be acknowledged in order to fairly assess your own value.

Quoting from the post:

“Bottom line…pricing is not a taboo subject to be avoided, but rather a key metric that needs to be well understood as well as proactively measured and managed. Pricing needs to be dealt with in the most embryonic stages of strategic planning and needs to constantly be evaluated based upon changes in market dynamics”

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Do you have any insights into Brogan-gate that you’d like to offer? Share your thoughts in the comments.

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During the Great Depression, one criminal caught the attention of the world like no other before him. I’m talking of course about the infamous bank robber, John Dillinger. Over the course of his criminal career, Dillinger robbed at least two dozen banks and four police stations. He also escaped from prison…twice.

By the time he was gunned down in the alley of Chicago’s Biograph Theater at age 31, Dillinger had captured the imagination of the public and secured a legacy that would last for decades. (Not everyone gets to have Johnny Depp play them in a feature film.) Why do I bring up John Dillinger? Because, I believe that we may have our very own Dillinger for the digital age in the form of British fugitive Craig Lynch. If you are unfamiliar with Lynch, allow me to catch you up.

28-year-old Craig Lynch escaped from Hollesley Bay Prison in southern England three months ago. Lynch was being held at the minimum-security facility on charges of assault. Since escaping, however, Lynch has not followed the typical m.o. of a man on the run. Rather than laying low, Lynch carried on his life like normal: visiting old friends, going out to restaurants and bars, and updating his Facebook profile with regularity. One would think that publicly sharing updates online about where he was would have gotten him caught, but, to the contrary, Lynch has been able to evade police with apparent ease.

When the news broke that Lynch was a prison escapee, rather than closing down his Facebook profile, Lynch began to use it to mock his pursuers, sharing images of him enjoying the “free life” and hurling profanity-laced insults at police. As news of Lynch’s Facebook exploits began spreading, the fugitive turned into an unlikely web celebrity. At last count, Lynch’s Facebook fan page has over 26,000 fans from all over the world. While a number of comments on the page express disgust for Lynch and his arrogant taunts, a surprisingly large number of Facebook users are openly rooting for him.

It shouldn’t be surprising that, despite his lawless behavior, Lynch has caught the attention of the public. For some reason, as a culture, we have always romanticized individuals who fight against authority, even if they most often happen to be criminals. The key to Lynch’s popularity, however, lies in the transformative power of social media. In the days of old media, Lynch would have been a mugshot on the evening news and nothing more. Thanks to social networking tools, like Facebook, he is able to reach out directly to the public and augment how the world perceives him. In a bizarre and somewhat disturbing way, Craig Lynch is engaging in a very successful form of personal branding.

Facebook has already said that it will help law enforcement in tracking Lynch down, which is in keeping with the site’s terms and conditions (“We may disclose information pursuant to subpoenas, court orders, or other requests (including criminal and civil matters) if we have a good faith belief that the response is required by law.”) However, as explained in this article at Media Bistro, Facebook representatives have been asked to not reveal how they are involved in the investigation.

At some point soon, I would imagine Lynch will be caught. I just find it hard to beleive that he won’t slip into some kind of pattern that police will be able to detect. That being said, while I abhor Lynch’s actions, it is pretty amazing that he hasn’t been captured yet. It would seem that, thus far, he has figured out how to to lead a public life on Facebook without interrupting his private life.

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“You better watch out, you better not cry.

You better not pout, I’m telling you why.

Santa Claus is coming to town.”

Before I get started with this post, I just want to say that I love Christmas. I love being able to spend time with family, I love giving and receiving presents, and I love all of the cultural aspects of Christmas too (Santa Claus, Rudolph, Frosty the Snowman, etc.) Still, when you look back on some Christmas traditions, it really makes you scratch your head.

Think about it. When we were kids, we were told that an old man named Santa Claus, who lived with elves and reindeer thousands of miles away in the North Pole, was silently passing judgment on our behavior, deciding whether or not we deserved to open toys on Christmas morning. What’s more, there was no hiding from Ol’ Saint Nick, because he could see us while we were sleeping and he knew when we were awake. Talk about an invasion of privacy. It’s a good thing most kids aren’t naturally neurotic, or we’d never have been able to sleep.

Anyway, while I was wondering about Santa Claus and his omniscient gaze, I started thinking about Google. Is there a closer proximation of Santa Claus in the real world than Google? For the first time in the history of civilization, practically all of the world’s collected knowledge is at the touch of our fingertips. From Google, you can find out not just whether someone’s been naughty or nice, but where they live, where they work, what they like, what they hate, how old they are, how much money they make, and much more. If Santa did exist, he wouldn’t carry a long list of paper, he’d just bring a laptop with a wireless internet card (wi-fi gets a little spotty north of Greenland).

The truth is that, thanks to the web, everyone can wield the power of Santa Claus, and not just at Christmas time either. Whether it’s a recruiting manager dismissing a job candidate over a nasty blog comment, or a college admissions officer rejecting an applicant because of an unprofessional Facebook page, we’ve seen the story a thousand times over. It’s about time we realized that how we act online is as important as how we act in real life, if not more so. In the digital age, proactive online reputation management is the surest way to personal and professional success. And for those who ignore it? Well, they’ll be having a Blue Christmas indeed.

Friends, today is a special day for me. Why, you ask? Because today, Google, that glorious fount of all knowledge, acknowledged my existence. Forgive me…I’m a little choked up.

You see, when I started blogging back in 2006 for Experience.com, I had a handful of goals. There were the obvious ones: share my opinions with the world, make a name for myself as a young marketing professional, meet other cool people in my industry and learn from them, etc. And then there was one that was not so obvious: get to a point in life where Google autofills my name.

Now, that might sound silly to some, and I’ll admit, it even seemed a little silly to me at first, but goals are goals dammit and I wasn’t about to give up. I wanted to share something with the big shots like Seth Godin (type in “Seth” and he’s number four, now that’s impressive). If someone goes to look up your name online and Google helps them fill it in, it’s like getting your name on the VIP List of a club. “Don’t worry…I’m with Google.”

So, with that goal in mind, I began to expand my social sphere. I joined Twitter, I beefed up my LinkedIn profile, and along the way I began blogging for my company (ReptuationDefender), for two marketing blogs (Digital Pivot and Beyond Madison Avenue), and even for an entertainment news website (Screen Rant). Through all of these efforts, I began to see my professional network grow, and, more importantly, my stock with Google began to rise.

Suddenly, after months of daily vanity searches, the day finally came. Yesterday, for the first time in my life, when I started to type in my name, Google did the rest. Granted, it wasn’t perfect. As shown in the picture at the beginning of this post, I had gotten all the way to “Rob Frap” before Google showed my name, but that’s okay. Now, I just have some new goals to work toward. Next on the list: Get an autofill for “Rob Fra.”

I always hear people say that first impressions are the most important, but I don’t often hear the same advice being proffered about the internet. In the digital age, isn’t Google where we make all of our first impressions anyway? Taking a proactive stance in managing and controlling how you appear online is a vital part of ensuring your professional credibility. You may not care if Google autofills your name, but you should care what shows up in your Google results. If you’re name is associated with a drunken party picture or an inane comment on a decade old forum, you could be hurting your chances of finding a job, getting into school, or even meeting a romantic partner. Don’t let Google control you, learn how you can control Google and begin proactively building your personal brand.