Lately I’ve been working to establish my own online brand / identity. I have GibsonEdu as my name on most social media. It’s sparked a ton of ideas and things to wrestle with that I never anticipated when I made that GibsonEdu twitter account 4 years ago. I was thinking I would go with a brand of GibsonEdu Media and a tag of ‘Educator. Blogger. Filmmaker.’ but that’s led to a lot of questions.
A LOGO?
I’m starting to explore getting a logo made, but I’m trying to figure out what the logo should say. Should GibsonEdu Media just be something that I brand my audio and video work or ALL of my work (including my blog). My natural inclination is to say to brand it all under the umbrella of GibsonEdu Media because blogging is a form of media. But then I think about my actual blog / website. If it were my blog + GibsonEdu Media, I could easily have THOM H GIBSON right at the top and then a tab that’s like ‘CHECK OUT GIBSONEDU MEDIA- MY AUDIO AND VIDEO COMPANY.’ But if I include my blog under that umbrella, then website says WELCOME TO GIBSONEDU MEDIA and there’s links to my blog and my audio/video stuff but you don’t really see my name. Seems dumb to be GIBSONEDU MEDIA- WORK BY THOM H. GIBSON because if that’s the case, why not just drop the GibsonEdu tag and brand myself with my name? I don’t want to do that because I like the GibsonEdu brand…which then makes me lean back to just having GibsonEdu Media be my audio and video work. Sigh. Who knew branding could be so confusing.
SO WHAT ABOUT THE VOICEOVERS?
To make it a little more complex, this summer I started with the freelance filmmaking and voiceover work. The filmmaking is all educational in nature so it falls under the GibsonEdu brand very nicely. The voiceover stuff though is whatever work I find. When I apply for those jobs, I sort of brand myself as the audio engineer with a passion for education, because most of the clients I come across aren’t doing anything educational so they’re more concerned with my audio and voice-over credentials. So then it sort of pigeon holes GibsonEdu Media really into just the filmmaking stuff. I’m Thom H. Gibson when blogging, GibsonEdu Media when filmmaking, and Thom H. Gibson when doing voiceovers. I’m starting to wonder if I should just drop the GibsonEdu 🙁 Maybe Thom Gibson Media?
SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (HOW EASILY COULD PEOPLE FIND ME ONLINE)?
GibsonEdu.com is taken by some Chinese organization doing nothing with it. Bummer. If I were go with a Thom H. Gibson brand, I think the spelling of Thom makes it a little bit more memorable. Do I drop the middle initial? I like how Thom H. Gibson looks, but I like how Thom Gibson sounds and is easier to remember. thomgibson.com looks better than thomhgibson.com. Hm. Then there’s the people that only HEAR Thom Gibson and then search for Tom Gibson, of which a ton of websites of the actor Thomas Gibson pop up. Thom Gibson results in a lot more of my stuff.
ANY OTHER EDUCATORS IN THIS BOAT?
I’ve been looking for educators who do similar work. Searching for ‘educator filmmaker’ ends up with people who teach film in a university. I did find one person though; Sheila Jane of Sheila Jane Teaching. She’s really into teacher entrepreneurship and she started this website (among other side businesses) that’s a network of teachers that will have live video chats with Periscope, sharing their expertise and being able to interact with the live viewers. Sort of like a video podcast. She’s reached out about doing some sort of work together. That’s pretty exciting 🙂 I wonder if it’ll be Thom H. Gibson, Thom Gibson, Thomas Gibson, or GibsonEdu Media that she’ll be working with.
FILMMAKING
VOICE-OVERS
great brand