Your Brand...Does it help?
About-Updates ·
Many of us out on social media create our own brand or “handle” that they use for Twitter and/or blog sites. I, myself, took that step in the fall of 2019 with the creation of Captain Hyper-scaler. It started with this blog site and as the past 18 months or so have passed, it has become more known.
As I began to do more training and content for others, I began to think about taking that brand a step further. I created a company, had a logo created, and started down the path of trademarking Captain Hyper-scaler.
Company creation and logo design were no problem. I began to use the logo more within social media. I already had a Twitter handle of @DwayneNcloud, but used the logo as my profile image. Getting the trademark registered was definitely more than I expected. I applied back in the Spring of 2020 and officially was awarded the trademark (technically a service mark “SM”) from the US Patent and Trademark Office on January 5, 2021.
I thought that others might wonder about creating a brand, so I started this post. As I started to think about what to share, an idea came to me to ask some of my community friends about their experiences with branding. It was great to see the results to this. Let’s start with the responses to my questions. Keep in mind that this is a small sampling. If you are reading this and would like to participate in the survey, I have it in a Microsoft Form that you can access: Creating a personal brand survey
Of the group surveyed, the brands that these individuals are using ranged from less than a year to over five years. All of the responders used their brand for their website/blog and social media, but only half were using it for a YouTube channel.
What was interesting to me was question of whether your brand is more recognized than your name. Of my sample group of four, one said “yes”, one said “no”, and two said “maybe”. I think that I fall into that “maybe” category myself, or even somewhere in the 50/50 where if you ask someone if they know Dwayne, they may say “I don’t know”, but if you say “He’s Captain Hyper-scaler”, they may say “Oh, yeah”.
I asked for some additional feedback on where the name came from and how the brand is received. These answers were great. Tim Hermie (aka Cloud Boy) had a very similar story to mine about how it came about. Like me, he was tagged with the name by co-workers and decided to register the name. That is exactly how my name came about. I was planning on starting a blog and didn’t have a name, someone in a training class called me Captain Hyper-scaler, and I said “I’m going to use that”.
I think that what I found out overall is that the brand doesn’t take over anyone, but it can be used to tell people a little about yourself. If you are just using that name for social media and blog posts, then you might be more recognizable by the brand than your name. If you use the name for branding, but still put yourself out there with videos and speaking sessions, then others get to know you for you.
If you are trying to find a way to brand yourself to get noticed, find something that can get you noticed for what you are about. This helps to build your brand. It can also help you to step out of your comfort zone and meet a lot of great people….it has for me. Captain Hyper-scaler has definitely benefited me in making me more comfortable in stepping out and growing over the past 18 months. And I want to thank all of the people that I have met virtually in that time doing it. I especially want to thank those that helped in the information gathering for this post: Tim Hermie (aka Cloud Boy), Richard Hooper (aka Pixel Robots), Gregor Suttie (aka Azure Greg), and Joe Carlyle (aka wedoAzure).
Until next time. Be happy and be safe. Thank you.