Blogger: Branding yourself

In my previous post, Branding the blogger, I demonstrated that the personality of the blogger is very important to the success of the blog.

This article describes how to build your personality, your brand, into your blog.

I’ve just seen the excellent film, ‘The King’s Speech‘.  It shows the story of how George VI, (that’s 6th to you), overcame a serious stammer.  The poor guy who was destined to play only a minor role in royal circles suddenly gets thrust into the limelight as the major player, the King.

In the film the king develops techniques to overcome his stutter.  The most important techniques being to pause before difficult words.  This made him appear thoughtful and concerned, (which he probably was),  as he made an important radio broadcast, (there was no TV then), in the build up to the Second World War.

In those days royalty could control what appeared in the newspapers and by remained a little aloof and minimising public appearance he was a well respected leader.  The current ruler, Queen Elizabeth, has managed to remain aloof and is well respected though her husband, Prince Philip, is a potential media disaster.

Not today.  The press are not so obedient and with twenty four hour news and dozens of tabloids the royals have a lot less control over what appears in the press.  Prince Charles, (who will be crowned king when his mother dies), does not keep a low profile and as a result has lost a lot of respect, (see comments below the article.

Everything the royals that gets into the press affects the royal brand.  Charles interferes in a proposed housing development causes more people to call for the UK to be come a republic. His son and heir, William, carrying out a helicopter rescue or getting married help the brand forward.

However, I feel sorry for the royals.  They are born into a situation where they have to perform all the time: in front of servants, advisors, on official visits, having to attend ceremonies and really having a limited number of choices in life.  Their every action monitored, discussed by their supporters, such as my aunt Gladys and their opponents, republicans and those that think they cost too much.

What their lives are is effectively a branding exercise from the time they get up until the time they go to bed.  They do something good, like Charles’ work with his Prince of Wales Trust, supporting young people and helping young people start a business, he’ll receive some praise.  They do something wrong the Redtops, the UK’s tabloid press, will sensationalise for days and weeks.

I have blogged , written content, made comments on blogs, on newspaper sites and forums since around 2002.  Worryingly an amazing amount of that stuff is still around in various archives, (I need to review this stuff at some time).

My writing style has evolved since 2002, (I hope), and I’m not a bit more confident in my style and my grammar and spelling, (though not perfect), has improved.

But what you should bear in mind is that anything that can be linked back to you and your blog is positive in the sense that he can lead traffic back to you.  The downside is that link can affect the blog’s standing or interpretation by search engines and although you may be attracting traffic they may not be traffic you want.

You should be aware of your blog’s aims and niche.  Put yourself in the place of the typical reader of the blog.  What would they expect of the writer of the blog?

Detailed knowledge, experience, in on the latest gossip, has an interesting lifestyle, has a sense of humour, writes short,  concise blog posts, (like Seth Godin), long, personal posts, (like Steve Pavlina), or a regularly updated posts, (such as Daniel Scocco’s Daily Blog Tips).

When I write posts for this blog I think of myself as sitting down with a mug of tea, (I’m English and this beverage is useful to me), discussing a problem on a one to one with a student, (I’ve escaped teaching computing and business at the UK equivalent of community college).

I see my audience as new to blogging, or bloggers who want to move up the ladder.  More important I see my audience who need their confidence boosting during that awkward stage of moving from a start-up blogger to building up traffic or possibly making money from their blog.

However, I have just bought the neglected website, Blogbasics.com, which I will start developing next month.  The site will cover exactly the same territory as this one, but with many short, brief tutorials.

This requires me to develop another part of my character the writer of basic, training materials. So my persona  will be the lecturer when teaching a group of 16-19 year old robust, (noisy and difficult to control), students.  I will be writing very straightforward, one topic a page tutorials.  These will then be offered to readers of this site as downloadable pdf files, probably in April.

Most good bloggers allow some of their personality to come through.  On Darren Rowse’s well written Problogger he gives carefully considered aspects of business viewpoint and great examples of his techniques.

On Mars Dorian’s remarkable blog you get a lot of this Berliner’s energy as he cheerfully takes on the online world.  Every post gives you an insight into Mars’ remarkable personality.

Steve Palvina gives his thoughts on everything.  His two thousand, three thousand or five thousand word posts show his mostly well thought out ideas on many aspects of blogging and of business.  However, he also writes on everything in his life and some of his experiments, such as Polyphasic Sleep, seem a bit weird, as well as opening talking about his break up of his marriage, has angered some of his supporters.  (I do warn people to think carefully before committing to one product he recommends Site Build It).

These three examples show different levels of blog writer’s personality coming through.  So you should give part of your personality, but, make decisions on how much of your personal life you are going to allow the public to see. With a personal the point is, of course, to be personal.

As I’m older, and therefore do not do much that will embarrass me, or my family, I can be fairly open on what I reveal.  I’ll also be using the fact that for example this year I’ll be spending a lot of time on the road in my campervan – it’s a quirk that’ll help people remember me by.

I’ve decided that as I have a couple of wider goals, such as writing, than just this blog I am going to use my forum persona as my blogging name, Paul Odtaa.  It’s distinctive and is different from my real name, Paul Mason, which is famous for a number of other writers plus being the name of the fattest man in the UK.

Quite a number of bloggers use their real name, particularly those using a blog to develop a business or to enhance their freelancing career.  Quite a few take the name, or a derivative of the name, as their online persona.  Both strategies are worth considering.

Commenting or forums

Quite a few bloggers use the name of the blog as the name when commenting on other blogs and in forum posts.  This is quite a good strategy for building awareness and if the name contains a key word then it will give a slight boost to the SEO rating.

I don’t as I believe in the long term boosting the name Paul Odtaa will be useful as I develop my writing career and other online products. Similarly those boosting their busiess name or freelance name should always use that in making comments.

Always keep the image of yourself, as the writer, and the image of your blog in mind when online.  A foul mouthed rant at someone on a forum is not going to do you much good if you are developing a business blog.  That link will remain a long time and is difficult to erase.

It is better to post quality posts twice a week than rubbish every day.  It is usually better to be polite to visitors and to reply when you can to people that comment on your blog.

The real secret is to write as a persona, the ideal writer, of the blog.  You’ll find that as you sit down, power up, sip your coffee, (or in my case sip my cup of tea), the persona takes over and in half an hour, or an hour, that persona has written a great blog post.

Beginning to Blog:  Branding the blogger

Daily Blog Tips: 10 ways to brand your blog

Life Hack: Branding you blog

Well what do you think?