The ‘Strategy’ Behind My New Twitter Handle

Just goes to show how the values of a culture interrupt genuine expression and contort them toward whatever the dominant value system is.

In America, we’re very much about money and so the capitalist ethic began to interfere with social media just about as soon as it got popular.

Our natural greed easily blinds us to the necessity of respecting the various communities and territories of social media (much like one would respect Nature) and so it’s easy to do a kind of “channel agnostic” approach. We have one thing to say and we say it everywhere.

However as a phenomenally talented group of employees at the National Archives’ Office of Innovation taught me, each community is really its own ecosystem and ought to be respected for what it is.

So I was using the Twitter handle @thinkbrandfirst for a really long time, in an attempt to promote my identity as a brand specialist.

You can definitely do “focus” on Twitter – that’s not the issue. In fact you should be focused. That way your audience can decide whether you’re the type of person they want to follow.

But after awhile it wasn’t right for me. I realized that my personal brand, more and more, is about exploring my own evolving thoughts and feelings about not just branding but life itself.

And so I went back to my own name, my personal name, my nickname, “Dossy,” which is short for Hadassah, my Hebrew name (“@dossyb”). Because Judaism in particular has become very important to me recently.

Also from a religious perspective, for me, the handle “@thinkbrandfirst” was bothering me. It’s offensive, in a way, for someone who claims to have faith.

The first thing I think about, when I wake up in the morning or anytime, ought to be G-d.

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All opinions my own. Photo credit: Jonathan Leung / Flickr