Despite teacher leadership trainings and general awareness built by cruising Twitter in the wee hours, I have not spent a lot of time developing a personal "brand" on the web. Sometimes, I feel like I should maybe break my web identity up into teacher leader, dabbler in possible money-making ideas online (ebay, teacherspayteachers, craigslist or whatever) and... what? "Me"? Mom? Writer? Half my Twitter feed is news articles and Tweets about politics.
This was the same problem I faced when I started this blog many years ago. I still haven't resolved it. I recently started a Teachers Pay Teachers store, despite feeling slightly trashy about selling work that I would give to my colleagues free at the drop of a hint. I haven't sold anything except a winter break bingo set, so I started playing with Buffer, an app to help me post links to my TPT products trying to drum up some traffic. I know my products don't have cutesy thumbnails with bubble-headed people of various skin tones, and I have yet to be consistent about the types of documents and support (lessons) I include, but my products are inexpensive, and good learning tools, so I am going to keep going slowly and figure it will build.
But, I feel a bit inauthentic using a buffer to post to my Twitter feed (@mshintonsainz). I don't want my followers to feel as though I am a robot. I am not going to robot-out everything... but it becomes fuzzy quickly, right? I have actually stopped following people who filled up my feed with repeated babble and advertisements day and night. Why wouldn't others?
Is it possible to do okay with this mish-mashy type of web presence? Do I really need to develop a series of brands?
Questions I will continue to consider... probably over the summer!
Later, friends!
