Category Archives: Best Of Blogging

The Triple Threat: Personality, Branding and Blogging

November 19, 2008

Find a way to humanize your brand, use your personality, and take your brand
from good to great. -Guy Kawasaki

Do you envision your blog as a brand? If you do, try embracing the concept of brand personality. To understand what brand personality is, envision your brand as if it were a person. It would have values, beliefs and interests. These attributes are what would make it unique.

Groundbreaking package designer Walter Landor felt that everything you project into the world goes toward creating your brand. Each little piece is of equal importance, equal weight, and has to be appropriate to the audience it is reaching or the message that it is trying to promote.

The energy that you put out on your blog will be directly related to what you receive in return. Since your blog is a brand and you are the central driving force behind developing its personality, it is further defined by every action you take and every post that you create.

1. Determine what your goals are. These goals will pull you through the tough times, give you a focus and ultimately, a way to measure your success. I prefer defined goals that I can actually measure such as reaching a specific rank on Technorati every six months, gaining a certain level of traffic every year, posting a set number of articles to my blog each week, and so on. Without any gray area, it’s much easier to see if you’re hitting the mark.

2. Find out what your readers want and need. How does your brand fit into their life? The best way to determine your reader’s needs is to ask them. Develop a direct connection between your blog and its readers. Do some old fashioned research, whether it’s through polling, emails or a survey post. As an incentive, run a contest.

3. Clearly communicate your blog’s personality. This can be facilitated through being trustworthy, relaible, developing a unique slogan and having a memorable blogging voice.

Marketing has become a mass-produced commodity that lacks authenticity. Our saturation point has been reached and the old rules no longer work. Though used mostly for products and services, branding can also be applied to people. The key to developing an authentic brand is to be true to who you are and to follow your own, unique path. This individuality is the one thing that you can claim as yours. Though others may try to impersonate it along the way, it’s usually fairly easy to spot the original voice among them. Give some thought to the one thing that makes your brand unique, the one attribute that no one can take away from you. This is where you should focus your energy.

The characteristic that many of the most successful blogs share is that people are following the BLOGGER, not the BLOG. A blog’s theme can be replicated, but the personality behind it cannot. There may been hundreds, if not thousands of blogs in a saturated niche. So ask yourself, why do you repeatedly go back to the same blogs when you can probably get the same information from another site?


Gala Darling, a pink-haired force of positivity

Gala Darling’s consistent voice and unwavering positivity, Heather Armstrong’s sarcastic tone and over-the-top stories and Jane’s jaw-droppingly original styling are all examples of unique, immediately recognizable characteristics. Notice that I didn’t refer to their respective project names of iCiNG, dooce, or Sea of Shoes. What these bloggers do can stand on its own, period.

As Tom Dorresteijn notes, “The concept of brand personality combines inside-out and outside-in; identity and image. A personality has its roots in the identity but is strongly externally focused. It is not ‘be who your are’. Personality is: Become who you should be.”

If your blog was a living, breathing person, what adjectives would you use to describe it?

The world belongs to those who stand out, stand up and stand for or against a cause which they can strongly defend, those who can talk crowd and keep their virtues or walk with kings and not lose the common touch – their identity. An independent mind is a frontier of change in the world. -Tayo Korede

Make your brand come alive. Give it a personality that jumps off the page. Strive to make your readers’ experiences memorable. Once you establish a level of quality on your blog, never look back.

Readers:
What is your blog about?
What characteristics make it unique?
How do you plan on taking it to the next level?




Ask Nubby #11: How To Choose Niche Blog Topics

August 28, 2008

I’m trying to start a blog for women my age and demographic (I’m twenty, live in Boston, am an English major, and care both about the plight of women in the Middle East and what color to paint my nails. Get what I’m saying?)

I want to provide something for smart, feminist-type girls who care about the world they live in but still like to dress hot and keep up with what’s going on in fashion, design, music, etc. I want it to be cohesive without being too limited to one topic because I know that I am interested in a huge range of things.

My idea is to develop something that keeps all posts pertaining personally to women my age in some way, basically only zeroing in on issues that they can relate to or that affect them personally.

Is this focused enough?

…

The short answer to your question is yes, absolutely.

The much longer answer is that you should give your blog niche some serious contemplation before getting started. This is important because your blog will further resonate with readers if it has an overarching theme that unites the smaller topics you’d like to cover.

Since women’s blogs covering both fashion and feminism (along with the related topics you mentioned) are already rampant, ask yourself what you can do differently. Is there a fresh and unique angle that you can take to stand out from the competition?

When you start blogging, it’s a good idea to consider whether you’re focusing on a niche topic or a niche demographic. As Darren Rowse explains in his case study of Gala Darling, she started out writing mostly fashion-related articles (a niche topic). Later, her blog expanded from covering a set topic (fashion) to reaching a much broader audience of ‘youthful alternative (unconventional, individual, eccentric) women.’

Gala’s knack is offering up helpful articles that cover an awe-inspiring range of topics (past pieces have included details on how to tie a scarf, the benefits of a raw food diet, choosing flattering hairstyles and gift buying guides).

Yet, Gala seamlessly unites these widely varied subjects through a few key principles. First and foremost, she always offers an inspiring, positive perspective that uplifts her readers. Secondly, she composes most of her articles in an information packed editorial-style format. Thirdly, her topics usually relate in some way to self knowledge and personal aesthetics (this includes a heavy dose of how-to articles). And most importantly, her articles always offer value to readers.

Consider most of the mainstream women’s fashion magazines that grace the newsstands. They jam a multitude of subjects (style, beauty, advice, cultural and political matters are commonplace) into every issue and have been hugely successful with this approach.

Like you, readers of these magazines tend to multifaceted with regards to their interests. And, having a handful of smaller topics under your umbrella makes it more likely that readers will find something that suits their tastes while offering a perceived value.

Even if you start blogging about a singular topic, over time your focus often expands to include a broader range of offerings. This may be done consciously to provide readers with more value. Or, perhaps it’s a natural growth that’s happening because you’re changing as a person (and in effect, your content is reflecting this).

When expanding upon your niche, don’t spread yourself too thin or there may be too little common ground for your readers to grasp. Instead, do what comes naturally while keeping your main topic in mind. Building out from that core in tiny, measured steps will keep growing pains to a minimum.

When you’re writing an article, always ask yourself how you can relate it back to the central theme of your blog.

Let’s say that you decide to focus on the topic of feminism from a modern woman’s perspective. If you choose to write an article about what color to paint your nails, this could be molded to fit your niche by first giving a brief history of why women wear nail polish and what the cultural relevance is. As a lighthearted finishing touch, you could list your favorite colors and brands (and in effect, cover the smaller angle of fashion).

If you’re covering the plight of women in the Middle East, perhaps you can zero in on a particular country and discuss the hardships that these women are fighting to overcome. In closing, offering up a list of charities and organizations that your readers can participate in will provide value and relevance to their lives.

Since you have so many interrelated interests that can be shaped to fall under a larger umbrella, it’s less likely that you’ll run out of topics to blog about. And, this is something to take into account because it definitely gets trickier after you’ve written a few hundred articles! There’s nothing wrong with having a handful interests that you’re passionate about as long as you can find a way to unify them within a niche.

And, if your idea still feels a bit fuzzy, this list claims to be the world’s most comprehensive blog niche and topic idea list!




Ask Nubby #2: 13 Steps to a Successful Blog-Based Business

April 22, 2008

Question:

I’m hoping to take my community and move it to an actual domain in the next few months and expand it into an online magazine, blog and general artist resource on the web. Any tips on transforming a site into something like this? The business side of it is the part that I am the most worried about, I don’t want to forget to do something and having it hurt me a few years down the line.

You’re smart to consider these things ahead of time! The better defined your niche is, the faster you’ll rise. Blogging isn’t all about fun and games, especially when you’re doing it for a larger audience. Blogs are a great format for your online artist resource and magazine. In some ways, I agree that they’ve killed conventional websites.

Some major benefits of blogs are:

a. The ease of updating and modifying content
b. The lack of printing costs / more environmentally friendly than magazines
c. Being in charge of who can advertise
d. Networking and linking for self-promotion
e. 24/7 access for fellow readers
f. Ease of contributions from fans (commenting, surveys, contests)
g. If you love something, it can be bookmarked!


Steps to launching a successful blog:



1. Bookmark Inspiration

What do you like and dislike? What pages will you need? Take screenshots and save a folder of inspiration on your desktop. When the time comes to build your blog, things will be so much easier when you can dive into a pile of things that make your heart beat a little faster! Visual inspiration is overflowing at FFFFOUND! and we heart it.

2. Define Why You Want to Put Effort Into a Blog

Do some soul searching and brainstorming. Ask yourself:

Will it double as your portfolio?
Is your sole goal to provide content to help artists succeed?
Are you also wanting to gain notoriety for yourself?
Is your goal to turn the domain into a primary source of income?
Do you want to make a living off of selling products and advertising?

3. Define a Topic / Niche

If you’re still figuring this out, Darren Rowse suggests that you ask yourself the following questions:

What do I know about?
What topics do I read about and seek out information on already?
What topics do others come to me for advice on?
What topics keep coming up in conversation for me?
What topics would you write about for free?

4. Make a Decision: To Profit or Not?

If your answer is yes, how will you do so? You can sell advertising space, products, and consulting services. The sky’s the limit! Give Blogging for Money the once-over to get an idea of what can be expected if you go this route.

5. Develop a Business Plan

A business plan will help you define and outline your wants, needs, and overall purpose.

Spot-on advice from Freelance Switch:

When someone asks you, “what do you do?” or “what type of business is it?” can you answer in 30 seconds or less? It’s called an elevator pitch.

I did my first business plan for Nubbytwiglet.com as a senior project before I graduated with my marketing degree; this was years before it became a blog, but I still was able to iron out my expectations. I explained exactly how I planned to reach my goals and what I needed to do so; it was the solid foundation that I needed. The Small Business Administration can get you started.

6. Develop Differentiation

Find a minimum of five of your closest competitors and jot down what you admire about them and how you could improve upon what they’re doing. How can you do it in a different way? Give some serious thought about what sets your idea apart from what’s already out there. This is important so you can create differentiation to demonstrate the unique aspects of your product and create a sense of value.

7. Define Your Market

Once you’ve figured out what you want to do and how you’re going to do it better, clearly define your market. If you’re running a business, you’re going to need customers, even if they’re all based online. Who are they? What do they like? What websites do they visit? How old are they?

Remember, marketing is not unethical. We all have the power to make our own choices. There’s the possibility that thousands of people can do the same thing as you and maybe do it better, faster, and cheaper. BUT! Do they have brand recognition? It doesn’t matter how amazing you are if no one knows that you exist, what you do or how to contact you.

8. Pick a domain name

It seems like all the good .coms are taken, but if you can avoid a name that is super long and full of dashes, all the better (use whois.net to see if yours is still available). If all else fails, you can make up something nonsensical like Nubbytwiglet.com! I’ve registered all of my domain names through GoDaddy.com. Besides being reputable, their 24 hour customer service is super knowledgeable.

9. Get Server Space

Buy some server space to store your site files and images on. It’s always a bonus if the domain name and the server space are through the same company so that the changes you make can be as seamless as possible.

10. Templates, templates, templates

Personally, I’m a huge fan of WordPress because there are thousands of free blog templates that are easily modifiable and WordPress.org gives you instructions on how to install its software directly onto your domain.

Resources:
a. 6 Cutting-Edge, Minimalist WordPress Themes
b. Thousands of free WordPress themes; sort by color, number of columns, etc.
c. 30 Must-See Comment Designs

11. Develop a Unique Logo / Brand / Image

There are 110 million blogs and over 175,000 new ones join the ranks every day. That’s a lot of competition! How do you plan on standing out from the crowd? Give a logo, tagline and header some serious thought. You’ll have the ability to potentially reach thousands of people a day who have never met you in person. Your blog will immediately convey an image of who you are (online, at least). First impressions count!

Are you going to use your own name to blog under, an alias, or do it anonymously? These options all have perceived advantages and disadvantages. Since my domain is the same name as my business, I sign and take credit for all of my posts. The goal of my blog is to make a personal connection with readers and showcase my portfolio, so this was an easy decision for me. If your blog is a general resource and online community, this may take more thought.

12. Think about a ‘Signature’

I use my handwritten signature at the bottom of each blog post while other people use quotes or unique sign offs (Gala Darling’s air of excitement and positivity is conveyed in ‘Super-love & cupcakes’ at the close of each article). This is important so that your posts are easily picked out when someone is quickly scrolling through an RSS feed.

13. Keep a Running List of Future Topics

What are some topics you’ve always wanted to write about? Who have you always dreamed of collaborating with? As soon as you’re up and running and gaining notoriety, administrative tasks begin to eat away at your time; having a list of what to cover will keep you on track.

Related Work That Will Add to Your Success



a. Answer Your Emails (or, as many as you can)

A close friend (who’s got a massive following) once told me that he tries to answer every email because if it wasn’t for his fans, he’d be working at McDonalds. If people are taking the time to write you and are genuine about it (not spamming or being rude), it’s polite to respond in whatever capacity you can, even if it’s not right away.

b. Have A Cohesive Image Across the Board

My blog mimics the colors and feel of my press kit. I try to keep most of my typography choices consistent in online and offline materials. But, there’s no reason to be uptight about branding; the old rules have softened. It would be so boring if everything you did looked the same. I constantly design new business cards, rotate between three logos and occasionally change my blog header. If you do this, give it some thought. Make the dots easy to connect. It’s good to be remembered!

c. Get Business Cards

Order a stack and get your freshly minted domain on there somewhere. You never know who you’ll run into. Who knows who you’ll meet at the bar; it may be your future business partner and nobody wants to jot down important details on a martini stained napkin! This should be all the convincing you need.

In Closing



Since you’re wanting to start an online artist resource, the 27 Thoughts On Blogging For the Artist is a must read. It’s pretty amazing. If you’re passionate and willing to put in the hard work (and do your homework!), you will be successful. Good luck!