Managing an online presence or brand can be a challenge, but it is something that all writers need to do, particularly comic book writers who can reach out to a significant proportion of their fanbase online.

A typical online profile will consist of your own blog, a Facebook account, a Twitter account, and possibly a LinkedIn and/or MySpace account as well. You’ll also have at least one email account to manage, more than one if you like to practice a little email partitioning.

If, like me, you were finding that managing your online presence across these multiple platforms was becoming a headache, then you should take time out to try digsby

Digsby provides a Microsoft Messenger style interface to all of the above scenarios, with system tray icons and configurable pop-up “balloons” to alert you to activity on Facebook and Twitter. It’s also a solid chat client for when you want to talk to any of your online contacts, providing a much better interface to the clunky Facebook chat if nothing else. It also provides a website widget that you can install on your blog.

By combining all of your online presences into a single user interface and providing you with pop up notification of changes and activity, Digsby radically streamlines the process of managing a complex online identity or brand. Utilising Digsby, brand management and social networking are now something that I do in real time, in parallel with whatever task I am working on, as opposed to being something that requires one or more dedicated time slots during my day.

Patently, there is a security concern with using Digsby in that you need to store your account details on their server, protecting yourself behind a single Digbsy account password. For the moment, security breaches are nill. It is fair to say that only a single breach is required to kill of a project such as Digsby … but for now they have a clean sheet.

In the interests of disclosure I will mention that Digsby now also have an Affiliate Program, paying up to $1 for every new user. In the interests of staying as neutral as I can in this blog post, I am not currently signed up to this scheme. If you do download Digsby on my recommendation, please send your $1 to me direct