Big (Better) Blogging Changes

The time finally came. After dabbling in way too many conflicting practices regarding my personal brand and social media I decided to tighten things up. The changes I have made don’t necessarily constitute a rebranding of myself but rather just a better expression. I know change is hard, but in the social media world it is also a constant. I am confident that the changes I have made will help me out 100% as I move along. With that said, I would like to present to you the new tweaks to the Don’t Blink – Brent Reser brand.

If you are reading this post right now you can see my biggest, and most important, change. After over a year and roughly 200 posts on my most recent blog, Don’t Blink, I have moved it over from Blogger to a Word Press template. With the amount of people I have reading my blog each day and with the frequency that I post, I needed to switch over. After purchasing my domain name and accepting the generous offer of my friend to host my blog, I am at this point now. I am excited.

No longer do I have a long, eyesore of a URL that I did when I was still posting to Blogger. Now, I am simply at www.brentreser.com . My blog now carries with it more professionalism, more legitimacy, and more credibility. But really, brentreser.com is not just solely a blog now, it is a website. Make no mistake about it, the site is definitely a work in progress. While I have successfully transferred all of my posts over to my new site, much work must be done.  Just within my posts I have a lot of reformatting and relinking to complete, kinks that inevitably showed up during the transfer between Blogger and Word Press. Beyond the blog part of brentreser.com I also have to develop the “stuff” that will make it into a website. In time I will add several pages, such as a bio page, a multimedia page, a guest page, a professional page, and much more. In addition, I will introduce interactive options so that all of you will have a better chance to participate in dialogue with me other than just through the generic comment feature.

You might be asking yourself why did I decided to debut brentreser.com before I had most components up. I struggled with this dilemma but in the end I decided I needed to start sending my followers to the new site. For some of the people who read my stuff, especially my older fans, redesigns can take some getting used to. I thought, why not start that process sooner than later? I also wanted to showcase my site before I had it all the way done so I could get feedback from all of you on what to add/design. Please, your feedback is very much needed and appreciated. Again, I know this is a big change but in two weeks I can assure you that you will be used to it. Thanks for sticking with me!

After four years and 13,400 tweets on Twitter, I did something that I thought I would never do: I changed my Twitter handle. I have ditched the old one and now you can subscribe to my tweets/tweet at me by using @BrentReser. This change was much more overdue than my blog switch. For sentimental and paranoia reasons, I held onto my old Twitter handle for way too long. But with the debut of www.brentreser.com and with my desire to streamline everything a little bit more, I knew I had to let go. Also, many people would kill for the chance to be able to use their own name as their Twitter handle (many times it is taken) so I thought I should cash in on this opportunity that my somewhat unique name affords me to. Let me tell you, the process of changing your Twitter handle is the easiest thing in the world. You just type in your new name in the settings panel and click “save changes” and you are good to go. You don’t lose any followers, you don’t lose past mentions, and you don’t lose any formatting or background traits. After switching to @BrentReser I knew I should have done it sooner.

Finally, I am moving towards a new consistent image of myself. I am through with using cheesy pictures of me in a sombrero or of me Tebowing. Time to look a little more professional. I now have a common image for both my Facebook cover photo and for my website header. The image is clean, organized, and informative. But who am I kidding, I couldn’t have done much worse than some of my past ventures.

Thanks for your support during this process. The motivation I have to make these changes does come from my desire to increase my personal brand but more so it comes from the dedication and love I get from all of you. Whenever I get a comment, a text, a call, or a face-to-face compliment about my blog or another social media outlet of mine I take it to heart. These expressions make me want to present my content in the absolute best way possible. Please keep reading. Have a great weekend! Don’t Blink.