If you’re like me, you participate on a lot of social networking sites.
Part of signing up on these sites is picking a username or vanity URL (i.e. Facebook.com/JoeSmith). I try to keep my username consistent across all the sites I spend time on. I do this for three reasons:
- My personal brand is important to me and using something like “JayTheVikesFan22″ isn’t as descriptive as “JayLane”
- I want to make it easy for other people to find me and connect with me online
- It’s easier for me to remember my username or vanity URL if I consistently use the same thing
Nothing is more frustrating to me than when I go to a site to create a username and find out that the username/vanity URL I want is already taken. For example, I had to settle for Facebook.com/jaylane2 instead of what I wanted (Facebook.com/jaylane). I was able to get the vanity URL I wanted for my company Facebook page though (Facebook.com/JayLaneMedia).
I recommend going out and signing up for accounts on social networking sites (i.e. Twitter) even if you don’t have immediate plans to use them. They are free and it doesn’t hurt to be a little proactive.
There are great Web sites that will go out and check what usernames/vanity URLs are available for you instead of making you go to each individual site.
Check out a couple of the options below.
namechk
namechk is a free service you can use to see if your username is available on some of the most popular social media sites (145 of them to be exact)
In the example below, I’ve typed in “joesmith.” You can see that it’s available on quite a few sites.
KnowEm
KnowEm is a provides a similar service but they will actually go out and register the usernames for you depending on the type of account you sign up for. They have a free service similar to namechk.
My suggestion to you is to check on your desired usernames (your name and/or your company name) to see what’s available.
If the usernames are available, go sign up and protect your personal brand.
If you don’t, you might regret it later.
Have you found any cool tools for protecting your online personal/company brand?
Recently, a friend on Facebook turned me onto a really cool (and really free) Web-based photo editing application called Picnik.
Picnik allows you to upload pictures directly from your computer, apply cool effects, and then save them back on your computer. You can even share the newly created pictures through your favorite social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and Flickr.
Since I’m pretty horrible at picture editing (using a program like Photoshop), I thought I’d give Picnik a whirl and see what kind of pictures I could create. I have to say the results were pretty impressive.
Note: They do have a premium version that you have to pay for. It does include some cool effects. I half-expected the free version to suck but there are a lot of great effects to choose from.
Below is a snapshot of Picnik’s interface. It’s really easy to use. Click to view full size (pops in a new window). BTW – You’ll notice that my face has different shades of color. That’s from the screen shot (not a desired effect in Picnik).
The Picnik Interface - You can choose from over 30 free effects, countless typefaces (for dropping in text), a touch-up tool, 7 frames (including my favorite Polaroid). There are also cool editing tools like red eye removal, cropping and sharpen.
I had a picture of myself that I wanted to put on my About page but I thought it was too boring. I thought this picture would be a good way for me to test out what Picnik could do.
Here’s what I started with:
Here are some pictures I created with Picnik:
Polaroid frame with text
Pencil sketch effect
Cinescope effect
Okay, so the subject of the photo is still a boring. At least now I can easily add some cool effects that would take years to master in a program like Photoshop.
If you’re looking for a cool (and FREE – did I mention that?) tool to give your photos a punch, give Picnik a whirl.
Are you graphically challenged like I am? When I’m creating a Web site, I tend to stick to 1-2 colors that I like. That is until I came across the Color Scheme Designer.
You can pick a color that you like and then it will recommend three other complementing colors to use as headlines, background colors, links, etc.
It shows you everything on screen (including the hexadecimal values) including an example of what your Web site page could look like with the color scheme. There’s a light page example and a dark page example.
Don’t like the recommended colors, let it pick something else.
If you’re looking for some help with your site’s color scheme, the Color Scheme Designer is a great resource.
Visit the Color Scheme Designer Web site >>
Let’s say that you have a company selling digital cameras and that you want an easy way to find out what’s being said about you and your company and your products on the Web. Sure, you could go to Google and type in your company name or product names and see what shows up in the results. But that takes too much time.
What’s the easy solution? Google Alerts.
You can put in what topics you’re interested in and Google will send you emails letting you know when content relating to those topics shows up on the Web. There doesn’t appear to be a limit on the number of topics you can track. Decide if you want to receive emails daily, as it happens or once a week. In addition, you can choose what type of content you’re interested in. Some options include blogs, videos, or news. Or you can choose “comprehensive” which includes everything. See screen shot below. Click image for full-size.
Using Google Alerts does require that you have a Google account but it’s extremely easy to set up.
Google Alerts is definitely a great way to keep track of topics you’re interested in. What are you waiting for?
Visit the Google Alerts Web site and create your own alerts today!
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