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What is “Blog Branding?”

Doesn’t the phrase “Blog Branding” inspire visions of branding irons, big billboards, or people running around in t-shirts with your blog name on them? Of course, it isn’t any of these things, and yet in a way it kinda is.

It took me a little while to understand what ‘branding your blog’ meant, so I’m not judging if you don’t get it either. Examples such as Coca-Cola and Hershey only served to confuse me because what they’re selling is pretty clear cut and they have graphic logos to represent them. My blog is ME. How do I “brand” ME?

Take a look at the Pros.

Do you know who these people are:

  • Nancy Leigh DeMoss or John Piper?
  • Dean Koontz or Stephen King?
  • Adam Sandler or Jim Carrey?
  • Jeff Foxworthy or Bill Engvall?

What do you think of when you see each of those names? If you were to purchase one of their items would you have a pretty good idea what to expect as far as tone, feel, quality and purpose?

THAT is branding.

I have a pretty good idea that I’m going to love anything written by Nancy Leigh DeMoss. I know I WILL NOT be disappointed in nailbiting and goosebumps if I buy Koontz’ latest book. And they’re not selling some neatly wrapped piece of chocolate or wonderfully bubbly soda pop. They’re selling themselves, their writing, their personality. They’re successful because they:

  1. Stay true to themselves.
  2. Have a clear purpose.
  3. Use their unique voice.
  4. Are consistent.

So why should you brand your blog and how do you do it?

Branding your blog doesn’t mean that you need to come up with a killer slogan, a pricey logo and start selling products. You can, I suppose if you want to, but that’s most likely not where you’re going to start.

Branding your blog DOES mean that you’ll work on creating a consistent and realiable YOU for the purpose of:

  1. Creating a loyal readership
  2. Building your subscriptions
  3. Encouraging people to keep coming back for more and more of whatever it is you’re dishing out.

How do you brand your blog?

Believe it or not, it’s a lot easier than you think. Actually, if you’ve been following this series from the beginning, we’ve already talked about most of what you need to do to create a consistent “brand of You.” Now we’re just taking what we’ve learned so far, adding a few more things, and wrapping it all up in a pretty package.

  1. Choose your blog name carefully.
  2. If you’ve already got one and don’t want to start over, brainstorm ways to use it to your advantage to re-define and refocus your brand.
  3. Use your blog name in conjunction with your pen name or real name, everywhere you ‘go’ online.
  4. Choose a blog design that flows and meshes with your name and personality.
  5. Streamline your online appearance, using the same colors, avatars and graphics as much as possible.
  6. Develop your voice and personality in your writing, and work towards consistency in what you regularly offer your readers.
  7. Write with a purpose – including both a specific purpose for each blog article and an over-arching purpose for your blog.
  8. Make use of social media and the technology available at your fingertips: twitter, feedburner, stumbleupon, etc.
  9. Consider advertising. Advertising? Yes, depending on your goals & purpose, you may want to consider investing in advertising for your blog (or site.)
  10. Talk about it and spread the word. Self-promotion is a part of the gig and received acceptably up to a certain point. (That point usually being the point at which you only self-promote and stop linking to and promoting others or cease to talk about other things as well.)

See how much of that we’ve already talked about? Now you’ve just got to work it all together for the purpose of intentionally branding your blog. Easy peasy!

Additional Reading:

Here’s a few links to related articles that helped me through this whole branding process.

If you’re just joining us in this series, catch up by reading Part 1: Creating a Blog, Part 2: Growing Your Traffic, and Part 3:  All About Writing. Next week’s topic: Making money with your blog – is that even possible? Don’t miss it!

{Photo Credit: Hershey.com– I enjoyed browsing their site and learning about the history of Hershey!}
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Amber

Hey, y’all! I’m Amber and I wear many hats. I drink a ton of coffee and I’m constantly sweeping crumbs off the floor. After 18 years of homeschooling, I’m getting close to graduating my third child and now we are starting over at preschool with our fourth, Lil Miss Mouse. She keeps us young and she’s the main reason for my excessive coffee consumption. Drink up!