Identities are assets to protect and brands as well as people have to keep up with their various identities. As an individual I try to manage my identity, stop it from being stolen, and keep them all straight online and off. I wish I could change my name in search engines to cover my three different last names that have changed over the years. But I can’t really so I keep a different identity depending on the situation. I have various versions of myself across the Internet - mostly newspapergrl, newspapergirl, and grocerybike.
Now take this a step further - to clients - and I help manage their online identities to varying degrees. This gets confusing! My favorite illustration of this was when I worked for a demanding client who had me comment on other blogs. Well you can’t just spam bloggers, they’ll delete the post, so I made the comments what I really thought. The problem is I was so good at building relationships that bloggers started to notice and reach out to me. But they thought they were reaching out to the person I worked for, who wasn’t really personable at all. In fact, he didn’t respond and then I thought I was doing more damage than helping. We parted ways.
I had flashbacks to the time I was a clown at an event put on by my high school. I knew how to be a clown but then someone loved my clown act so much they decided to buy me a gift. I suddenly got confused between my clown persona and me, Janet. I sort of switched back and forth between them and it was uncomfortable for both parties. We’re acting without scripts, being authentic as much as possible for a corporation made up of people but not a single person or voice.
Corporations have multiple identities (brands) to manage. Now throw social media into the mix. Someone or anyone can impersonate them. It’s easy to start an account and pretend you’re someone else. Who’s fault it when someone pretends they are a company (in this example: ExxonMobil) without that company’s consent. But who’s to stop them? People impersonate people online and of course they impersonate brands, which can be a problem or if they are good, a blessing (Scoble didn’t ask Microsoft’s permission to start blogging about what it was like working inside of Microsoft - but it helped their image enormously).
This leaves me with all sorts of questions. Who’s job is it to decide who is who online? How about to police it? Is it Twitter’s job to make sure people are who they say they are? Is it the company’s job to keep track of their online identity and reserve spots so this doesn’t happen? Should you have put this into your corporate policy that an employee cannot represent the company online in any fashion without official consent? Is it ultimately harmful or helpful?
Until this is sorted out how can anyone trust anyone online?

I don’t know but I do really like Popeye’s attitude. They recently started Twittering, here is part of an interview from ZDNet:

Q. What did you expect to get out of being on Twitter, and what results (of any kind) have you achieved?

A. We are still experimenting with social media and have no real expectations. As for results, we have generated a good amount of interest (folks like you) and we are definitely being noticed.

Q. Any other thoughts you’d like to share on either Twitter or Popeyes Chicken’s social media strategy overall?

A. We will continue to explore social media where appropriate and hope to utilize it even more in the future as we continue our efforts to engage younger consumers.

So they admit their goal is to engage younger crowd but beyond that they don’t have expectations. At least not expectations we’re used to (like ROI). They want to be present, listen, participate, and respond. So, what does that say to me - it says they get it. Really - that’s the point!

I just wrote about how Google is selling off Performics search engine marketing services and keeping the affiliate division. I wish Google would sell the entire division of Performics but they kept the affiliate marketing part. Both seem like a conflict of interest. (Sidenote: Has anyone signed up or tested the Google Affiliate Network?)
What’s interesting to me in the industry is the whole issue of print vs. online advertising or marketing. Clients want PR and advertising to be more seemless - to have both in one place and to measure results across both. But the PR side and the online side are so different that each struggle to figure out how to combine them.
I see it on both sides. We (OrangeSoda or myself) offer press releases to clients for online visibility. To get search engine rankings and a permanent link and online distribution. Clients also want to get press coverage, which we don’t measure. We don’t find and distribute press releases to traditional media or even to individual blogs - but maybe we should. However, it’s not our expertise.

On the other side, PR firms are trying to expand their online offerings to include search engine optimization and social media services. Often it’s tough to define and charge for - as I eluded to in my last post (what terrible anchor text!). Obviously, the biggest players are trying to sort this out, as is the rest of the industry.