May 08 Personal Branding Winner of the Month – Morty Schiller

Congrats to wordsmith Morty Schiller for using online technology to enhance his personal brand and position himself in a way he can become more “findable!”

Morty is a professional writer. In fact, he writes junk mail. Lest you think that is bad, or he is evil, I point you to his Confessions of a Junk Mail Junkie article. This is a guy who understands his business, and the perception thereof, and is not afraid to address the perception.

Morty Schiller’s brand comes across as someone who is competent. And passionate about what he does. And credible. And if I had something that could benefit from a direct mail strategy, I would be compelled to talk with Morty.

Again, not that there aren’t other experts in the space… but Morty’s websites (the main site and his blog) help me (a) find him and (b) trust him. Here’s what I like:

The personality… and sense of humor. As you read through his stuff, he is simply a likeable guy… non-threatening, approachable, etc. This is not a cold, clinical sales pitch… you can actually feel like you know Morty.

The competency. Check out his blog posts… these are smart. They are on-brand… related to wordsmith stuff. For example, Don’t use these words and The death of words are two posts that let me feel his passion for his trade, and help me know that he deeply thinks and cares about current issues in his area. It makes me think subject matter expert, and/or though leader.

The simplicity. There isn’t noise here… no google ads, no widgets, etc. Well, a little noise on the right side of the blog, but really, it’s quite clean and not distracting.

Personal branding winner of the monthSomehow, Morty puts his brand very assertively without being pushy… and that, he’s branding himself in a role that some might find unappealing! It’s very, very cool.

Of course, he’s doing a lot of other things right, too… you can see past winners and see a lot of consistency with each winner.

Morty Schiller, congratulations! You join a special group of professionals and have earned a coveted link from my monthly winner’s blogroll area (on the left), six months of premium JibberJobber (you can transfer/award this to someone else), and a cyber-high five! And, a new addition to the prize list is the two hour (!!) minute recording of Blog Marketing 201 – 501 (part of the CEO Training for Me, Inc. – listed at $49.95 (but much more valuable than that!).

Feel free to post the You Get It award on your site!

Here are the past winners:

6 thoughts on “May 08 Personal Branding Winner of the Month – Morty Schiller”

  1. Jason,

    Thanks for the thoughtful review of Morty Schiller’s methods. You should also point people to his work for the International Association of Online Communicators at https://www.IAOCblog.com. Morty has been a volunteer there for years, hosting and posting intelligently on a variety of topics important to online PR.

    Morty is part of a new breed of PR people that spend less time talking about ethics and 100% of the time practicing them. His posts are well worth reading.

    STEVE O’KEEFE
    Professor, Internet Public Relations, Tulane University
    Author, “Complete Guide to Internet Publicity” (Wiley)

  2. Morty is speechless. Its a good thing he makes his big bucks writing rather than speaking. Congratulations on a well deserved award!
    Meilech

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