Sunday, April 25, 2010

Final Reflection on My Personal Brand


Looking back at everything that I did this semester for my personal brand I can say that I fell a little short. I had some great expectations for this assignment at the beginning of the semester but when I started getting into it I found a few challenges.


My first challenge was to find all the people that like snowmobiles and use social media. I reached out to a lot of snowmobile fans but unfortunately they are not up to date with their online presence making it hard to connect with those individuals. They are not online everyday and it is hard to get in touch with them.

The next problem was finding content for my blog. During the winter there was a lot of snowmobile content on the web from magazines, snowmobile manufacturers, and clubs and organizations. Now that we are entering into the summer months it is getting hard to find new content for my blog.

The biggest problem for me is that it is time consuming. Keeping your online presence fresh and current requires a lot of time and dedication. It was hard for me to find the time to sit down and update my blog, tweet away on twitter, and connect it all together with Facebook.



I realize that I didn’t put much effort into my online presence. My time management skills were poor and kept me from producing more content. Since I didn’t keep up to date with my online presence I didn’t get much out of it. As I look through my analytics I see that I have an 88.89% bounce rate. This means that 88.89% of the people that came to my blog left on the same page that they entered on. Also, 88.89% of the people are new visitors which means that every new visitor leaves on the same page they entered on; they are not looking at my other pages. Since I only have 9 visitors and only one of them is a recurring visitor it is safe to say that is me. Everyone else that comes to the site leaves almost instantly. For what I put into my blog I would expect these types of results.





Things that I have to do to improve this is:



1) Make a schedule every week for personal branding time.

2) Open my brand up to summer and winter. Maybe a Snowmobile and Dirtbike blog so I have content all year around.

3) Be more aggressive with my media channels. Leverage the tools that I have (FB, Twitter…) to put my brand out there.

4) Make it fun. I was treating it as a chore before and I need to make it more enjoyable. It is a topic that I am passionate about so I will find a way to make it fun.



All in all I learned that if you want to have an online presence you need to stay up to date. It was Chris Brogan that said in Social Media 101 “there is nothing worse than outdated content” and this is true. In order to keep a good presence you must stay up to date for your viewers. Also you must use the tools available to you. Use the free media channels online (FB, Twitter, YouTube, Blogger, ect) to get your content out. Millions of people use these channels everyday so it is a good place to find people. The last thing is that you have to make it fun. It takes up a lot of time to keep your online presence fresh so you have to enjoy doing it. If you see it as a chore then there is something wrong. After all, you are branding yourself so that shouldn’t be a chore it is only going to benefit you. As long as I stay on track with the 4 steps above I will surly improve my personal brand.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

4000 Miles for Diabetes


Here are some SledHead’s that rode from Michigan to Alaska in benefit for the Support of Diabetes Research. They went 4000 miles, two countries, 19,740 gallons of fuel, and 93 carbides. They got some sponsorship from Klim snowmobile clothing to outfit all the riders for the epic journey. Let me think: 4000 mile ride through two countries, ride for Diabetes Research, and awesome gear from Klim, sign me up for that club!! Way to go guys, you are true SledHeads.


For more info check out their Facebook note.

Sno Bowl Video!!


As I was hoping I found a video of the Sno Bowl courtesy of my buddy Tyler Apanell.


Watch for the back flip gone wrong!!




Monday, February 22, 2010

ANARCHY 802 Throw’n Down at The Sno Bowl

This past weekend the ANARCHY 802 crew hit some ramps at the New Hampshire Motor Speedway’s Sno Bowl. I pooled together a few of my favorites to showcase them here for you. Did anyone else get any good pictures from the Sno Bowl in general? Email them to me and I’ll put them on the blog.







For more pictures visit Facebook and The New Hampshire Motor Speedway webpage.


Sunday, February 21, 2010

High Country Snowmobile Tours

Ever wanted to snowmobile but didn't know how, High Country Snowmobile Tours at Mount Snow VT

Mount Snow: High Country Snowmobiles - Click here for the funniest movie of the week

SledWraps Are All That!!

I found this company from a wall post from one of my friends on Facebook. I have always wanted a graphics kit for my snowmobile and now it is possible. They have kits for all of the major snowmobile companies and the best thing is that they are based out of VT!!! So if you are looking for a face lift for your sled SledWraps is your solution. Here are some customer photos. Does anyone have a SledWraps graphics kit? If so I want to see your pictures!! send them to daniel.plante96@gmail.com


Tuesday, February 16, 2010

ANARCHY 802 Rip'n it up at the Sno Bowl

This past weekend I saw Eric Abare and Jesse Moran from ANARCHY 802 while I was back home in Barre VT. They told me that they were going to be making an appearance at the Sno Bowl at the New Hampshire Motor Speedway from the 20th to the 21st of February. They will be bringing down two ramps and their two sleds to put on a show for the people of NH. I am unsure of what time they will be jumping put I assume that they are apart of the Rave X demonstration which will be 1pm to 2pm daily.

Here is a little video of ANARCHY 802. Hopefully I'll have one after the Sno Bowl.

 
Here is  Rock Maple Racing race I am not sure which class it is but it was the most recent video I could find for RMR. I just wanted to show you what a race is like. This one looks a little powdery.
 

 
Here is a video of the last show that Rave X Freestyle put on.
 

 
And this is the World Record Snowmobile Jump!