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What's in a name?

Friday, August 10, 2007


Did your parents name you Skygirl, TomBoy, Tolly64, SuperMom?

Imagine your office colleagues calling you by the user name you put on your blog. It might soon as well happen. Blogging has taken over a serious turn and bloggers are known by their blogs. Where blogs add a qualification in your resumes, you might as well know the importance of where to use your original name and where not.

When we talk about corporate or business blogging it gets more important to include your name than just a recognition issue.

Popularity Strike- The time and efforts you put in your blog may bring you to the edge of the success and fame. Regretting at that point won’t help, where nobody will actually know you with your real name. You might reach a point where you receive a call from New York Times and they call you FunkyPolly. Trying to induce your real name will not be easy. A company hiring you might also need a proof of your blog been authored by your real name. We have the same problem when approving blogs for Blogging to Fame contest.

Credibility- When serious blogging and advisory blogs are concerned, your readers trust your ability to provide credible information and solutions they are looking for. Your identity builds credibility. Providing your original details helps people to believe you, and help you to lay foundation of taking your online career to the next step.

It is easy to be an expert of your niche as you read and write about it all the time. If you blog under pseudonym you will never get the credit you deserve from it. Moreover, people like to hear from you than your expert online disguise.

Fake Name Issues- In the age of technology and social media, where you build connections, networks and integrate you work life with your personal, you will often get stuck with the two name issue. Dual identity has always fragmented trust, and it can go as far to get you considered as unauthentic. It does not have to be that way, but that is how people will generally tend to take it. Do not create walls between you and your readers with a pseudonym.

Sexual harassment- If you think a username can hide you from online sexual harassment, think again. It is very true that women bloggers get harassed more than men do, but then office harassment is more serious than online. So when you do not stop going to office then why hide under a fake name. The harassment will anyways subject to you, whether under a pseudonym or not. Girls have got smart with experience to handle harassment. Real life teaches them this since they are twelve and a street Romeo winks or whistles at them.

One Place that should hold details about you is the ‘About Me’ Page.

About us/me- The ‘About us’ should hold details of your offline career as well. Do not lie about yourself or your qualifications. Your experience can help somebody. Write about your hobbies and interest. Give it a personal touch. It should reflect your identity and yet your seriousness about the subject you are blogging about. You can include a little about your experiences regarding the same. Use your creativity to define your style.

If your visitor likes your way of your writing and bringing up issues, he would definitely like to know more about you. If you use any analytics service you would often notice that more often than not people click your ‘about me’ page. Finding no information about you may make them think about your credibility. But there are still certain places where it is my sincere advice not to use your name at all.

It’s a time of change, a time to be true to yourself and your readers. They give you their most important thing- TRUST.

Divya



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posted by Divya Uttam, 2:10 PM

14 Comments:

I completely agree with you... I actually tried using psedu names... but i soon realised that it very difficult to manage those and more over time consuming.. therefore I kept to the same name, original name that I have and the only one - http://mokshjuneja.blogspot.com

commented by Blogger moksh juneja, 3:29 AM  

dear the has come and you knw that iam not able to take so many names knw .

commented by Anonymous Anonymous, 6:48 AM  

Divya - I too agree. It bothers me when bloggers use some made up name - why aren't they straightforward and use their real name? It makes me think they've got something to hide. Same with the Avatars - most bloggers are either not using one or they come up with some idiotic picture, a picture of themselves when they were 16 years old (the sepia tone gives it away) or, and this is usually men, a picture of some half naked woman. My real name is Morgan Lighter and my blogging name is MorganLighter. My picture is fairly current. If you saw me on the street you'd recognize me, so if you do - say hello.

commented by Blogger Unknown, 10:14 AM  

How right you are! We're at a time when you have no idea who people are and user/blog names make it difficult to know gender aswell.

Buffy ;)
Leanne

commented by Anonymous Anonymous, 11:26 PM  

I use a psuedo name, nothing sinister behind it though as it is a name I have used online for many years. Having said that I always give my real name on comments and in my 'About Me' section I have my name and a recent photo.

An avatar can be specific if used properly, and from what I gather many are quite happy with mine, if not I do encourage comments.

Morgan is quite right in as much as many bloggers will use old or fake pictures and give away no personal information.

commented by Anonymous Anonymous, 2:13 PM  

Divya,

Great post! In my field (financial planning) I am shocked that I am one of the few bloggers who writes under my real name. As you said, people do not want advice from an anonymous guru. Without my name my advice has no credibility.

Thanks for saying so concisely what I felt.

commented by Anonymous Anonymous, 8:14 PM  

really great post, now i came to know what's in the name....soon i will add my profile page on my blog...thanks for your guidance....sometimes it helps but sometimes don't....lol

commented by Anonymous Anonymous, 6:17 AM  

I also agree to you. If you put your real identity online then you will have better chances of setting the authority.

commented by Anonymous Anonymous, 11:55 PM  

Hey Divya,
i think you will be better Blog Politician.when i read your article i was able to see what to meant from your heart....

Great Post
rony john

commented by Blogger Rony John, 4:06 AM  

Its great to know bloggers having the same opinion.

Collin as far as being clear about you Identity in your 'about us' page. The point is being true to your readers. Whether that be Avatars or Name, your readers have the right to get your correct information. After all they place their trust in you.

commented by Blogger Divya Uttam, 8:42 AM  

That is why I use my real name in my online name. I also use a photo of me as an avatar. OK it's two years old now so a new one is probably due but all the same... One client I had even called me Lord Matt like you might call a person Bob Smith. It was quite nice.

commented by Anonymous Anonymous, 5:42 AM  

I've often struggled with being thesugarmama and being jeanzei. Then, Google QueenJean and see what comes up...pages and pages of me.

for now, we've both converged....dont know how long it'll be til it haunts me -but i wish i only used my real name online ... thanks for the info!
http://www.jeanzei.com
http://www.thesugarmama.org

commented by Blogger QueenJean, 12:03 PM  

thanks for this super tips, i will try to remember this everytime i sign up for something online, i use my name JAZEVOX in my blogs, so i think im in line with what you are preaching...although my avatar is our lovable doggy, i just thought its cuter to have our doggy photo in my avatar?

commented by Blogger Jazevox, 9:29 PM  

I found the fake name issue a bit of an interesting one. As a writer, I prefer writing under a pseudonym which isn't really a fake name, it's just my first name and second name (as opposed to my surname) because my surname can be hard to pronounce. The only way, I think, I can get around this is to start using my pseudonym as a nickname of sorts. Because its true, people think there's a fakeness to it – but all writers use some sort of pseudonym that might be their real name but just said differently (such as C.S. Lewis).

commented by Anonymous Anonymous, 2:41 AM  

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