Branding

This month has been a whirlwind of activity for me in regards to social media. I was asked to participate in a diverse book giveaway on Instagram and be a part of a librarian loop in the hopes to gaining new librarians in my PLN (professional learning network). Both events caused my following to triple in the span on a week. Up until now I’ve had several different handles for various platforms and none of them matched. At the same time I was asked to participate in a podcast for Librarian Influencers. At the end of the interview I needed to share ways for other librarians to get in touch with me. Looking at all the different names I had I realized the time had finally come to create a brand for myself to make it easier for people to find me and recognize what I am all about. This is something I’ve been wanting to do for over two years, but hadn’t been able to think of the perfect name for myself.

Finding a name was the hardest part because there are so many creative people out there! You have to make sure the name you choose for yourself hasn’t been taken by someone else on any platform and you want to make sure it accurately reflects your brand and what you want people to think of when they hear it. I ended up settling on TheNextGenLibrarian because that’s what I aspire to be: the next generation librarian for my students, teachers, campus and community. This can mean being an avid reader, proficient in #edtech, being an ambassador for various apps or websites, getting certified in different areas, being a campus leader, PD guru, knowledgable in research and fact checking, digital citizenship advocate, and so much more.

Once I had my brand the next step was to secure it on all the social media sites that I use—plus more. I was able to get @thenextgenlibrarian on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Goodreads, TpT, Pinterest and secure the domain name for this website. Twitter didn’t allow that many characters so I became @thenextgenlib on that platform, as well as my GMail since the longer version was taken already. Luckily I don’t have to start from scratch on TikTok, IG and Twitter. I was able to change my handle and keep all my current followers and content. If I had to start all over I don’t know that I would have made the change. I didn’t have a website for myself (only for my middle school library), nor did I have a Facebook page set up either. I went about doing both of those things because I want to make sure that everything I share on any platform is from ME—not my campus or district. That was a big reason for making the change as well. I had been sharing a lot of my opinions on my campus’ Instagram account and found that it’s just a good idea in general to remain separate from your campus and district when sharing ideas.

The downside to branding is that I lost some of my recognition. I am on the Sandhya Menon Street Team and when we do our IG lives, I was easily recognized as @oakrunlibrary. However since the change I don’t think anyone recognizes me or my account with the new name. So be aware that it might take some time to get some of that recognition back once you change over to your new handle. For the most part though, everyone has been so supportive of the brand name change on all my platforms. So now it’s important that I take it to the next level, which includes adding more social media platforms with my new brand and building a website and blog so that I can share my journey with others.

Branding isn’t the quickest thing in the world because you do have to consider all the social media accounts you want to use, as well as build a website and purchase a domain name. I did this through Google for the domain and then used SquareSpace to build the website. It’s easy to use and fairly cheap to maintain the cost of the website each month. Having one place where other librarians, educators, administrators, etc. can go to find out all about you is important so the website is a must. Next up will be business cards, stickers and more to give out at conferences and trainings I attend. Soon I want everyone to know that Amanda Hunt is synonymous with TheNextGenLibrarian! Thanks for following me on this journey!