Stay On Brand With Your Blog
Stay On Brand With Your Blog
To optimize your blog as a business tool, you need to not only establish a personal brand, but you need to stay “on brand”. I discovered the terms “on brand” and “off brand” at Jibber Jobber’s review of Trent Hamm’s The Simple Dollar. I’ve been wondering whether my posts at Grow Your Writing Business were straying too far off topic. Am I trying to cover too much? Is is relevant or of interest to freelance writers? After all, freelance writing is a huge area to cover.
On Topic vs On Brand
I had a “Eureka” moment when I read the Jibber Jobber post. I’d been struggling with thinking “on topic” rather than thinking “on brand.” There is a difference. Liz Strauss at Successful Blog and Wendy Piersall at eMoms At Home both cover quite an eclectic range of topics around their central themes of personal development and business. They have developed strong and very effective brands around their names, personalities, credibility and blogs. They do not always stay “on topic” but they always stay “on brand”.
The concept of staying “on brand” is a freeing one rather than a confining one. When you find your niche or brand, stay consistently true to it. Stay “on brand”. By reinforcing and strengthening your brand rather than diluting it, you can be more effective with your online promotion. Also, if you develop information products such as ebooks, readers will know what to expect.
The interesting thing here is that you and your blog have a brand, whether you think about it consciously or not. Your blog brand is what readers, colleagues and prospective clients associate with your blog and you. It’s why they visit and what they’ve come to expect. It’s about you too, as a writer and as a person.
Essential Keystrokes
At Essential Keystrokes, Char says her main blog income is not from ads, but from the value adding her blog brings to her core business - web design. Prospective clients come to know her through her writing and interactions. She posts consistently useful information about her area of expertise - web design, marketing, web tools and related issues. We know the old adage of preferring to do business with people we know.
Let’s Talk
So now if you’re tempted to stray “off topic”, you can ask yourself if you’re still “on brand?” Give it a try and see if that works for you and your blog brand. What have been your experiences with establishing or defining your brand? How do you stay “on brand?” How important do you think it is or doesn’t it matter?
Yvonne, thanks for this post. Sometimes I don’t realize what some of my blog posts are really about, but your post made me think deeper about on-brand and on-topic (which I hadn’t really thought about). I have a couple of thoughts:
1. I do have a category called “off-topic”… not many posts in there but I found I would have some posts that just seemed to not fit. But it is still part of my defining brand, right?
2. I have an interesting brand with JibberJobber, which is related to self-serve career management. But there’s more swimming around in my mind, and there are certain career things that I won’t write about because I think it’s off-brand for me. So I set up a personal blog (jasonalba.com), which I break all my blog rules on, so I can “vent.” It’s actually been quite fun to have, and an outlet to help me stay more on-brand on JibberJobber
Thanks for mentally nudging me to think about these things a little more!
Jason Alba
CEO - JibberJobber.com
:: self-serve career management ::
Jason - These are very interesting points about flagging if somehing is “off topic” or starting a separate blog to go as “off topic” as you like. Thanks for calling in. You’ve given me another mental nudge as well. Thanks for the inspiration for the post.
I think it’s easier to define your “brand” if you try to look at it from the reader’s point of view. Why are they (the readers) here? What do they (the readers) want to learn? What problems are they (the readers) trying to solve?
You said it best here: “Your blog brand is what readers, colleagues and prospective clients associate with your blog and you. It’s why they visit and what they’ve come to expect. It’s about you too, as a writer and as a person.”
Personally, I hate the term “branding” because most of the time it’s used as a term to imply something you DO to yourself or your business. Instead branding is something your customer/clients/readers do TO YOUR BUSINESS/BLOG!
So many businesses want desperately to believe that if you use the same logo/color scheme, phrases…. that you can “brand” your own business. However, in the end it’s the reader’s experience that performs the act of “branding”. While you play a role shaping your brand, in the end…your brand is defined by your customers/clients/readers.
I love blogs as “branding” tools because you can solicit feedback from readers and DISCOVER how your “brand” is developing through comments and other blogger’s posts.
This is a great post Yvonne! I have also found myself straying from my freelance writing topic. What I really struggle with is whether or not blogging, which is a huge subject in and of itself, belongs on my writing blog.
This helps me to see that I can sometimes cover things that don’t strictly fit into my topic as long as they fit into my brand.
In the career management categories, there is significant content around defining your “personal brand” in order to differentiate ourselves from others seeking specific positions. It’s an updated iteration of how to sell yourself, with, perhaps, a few more options.
Writers should be able to define their point of view in their work — their personal brand — and then stay on that point of view (or theme) for the entire book, article, etc. This is the same thing as staying on your “personal brand” in your blog, especially if you are using your blog to market your work.
We just forget that a blog is a writer’s business tool and needs to have the same discipline and focus as that of our other writing.
I have found that staying on topic, or on brand (not that I have created much of a brand yet, as such), is really hard. So much so I am increasingly thinking of creating an entirely new blog for the things I just can’t talk about on a web development blog. Much like you have done Jason! (I started writing this before reading the other comments!)
Hopefully that will enable me to create a personal brand, whilst staying on topic on the professional blog! What do you think?
Great post Yvonne. Staying ‘on brand’ is something I have often given a great deal of thought to in regards my blog. The conclusions I came to is that it has two distinct ‘brand’s’ - that of the business of travel writing and that of my journey as a freelance writer. But I also think that at the end of ‘my year of getting published’ I will have to reconsider what is ‘on brand’ for the blog. But a blog, like most other things on the internet, is a continuously evolving entitity - if not, it might simply wrinkle up and fade away…
Cheers, Liz
I come to visit you, Yvonne, because I know that by doing so I will learn about a good site, or an interesting post, or an educational/intellectual information that you have thoroughly researched on (or in the process of), for which this one is a very good example. And for that I am grateful.
As for me, I just post about my moments (chuckle). I still wish I could think, analyze and write like you.
Princess
Beyond Niche Marketing (Kathy) - You’ve provided some really interesting insights here. The brand evolves with reader input. I agree that a brand is definitely more than a logo and fancy name.
Scot - Interesting point about the discipline required for a blog. Because we have total control of our own blog it’s easy to go wildly off tangent just because we “can”.;) Thanks for your valuable insights.
Laura & Phil - What you sy is exactly what I was struggling with and what started me thinking about a separate blog. One blogger (will have to check who) recommends having one flagship blog which is your business blog, and you can use other blogs for other topics, rants etc.
Liz - Your blog and writer’s path is a good example of an evolving brand. Interesting to hear you say you have 2 distinct brands. Many fiction writers do this too, and sometimes even have different pen names.
Princess - Thanks for your kind words. Now you’re making me blush..
Great post, Yvonne, giving me much to think about with links to other helpful blogs.
Hi Mary Emma- Yes I’ve checked out the commenters’ blogs too. There are some great resources for branding that I’ll be visiting again.
Yet another great post!
Sometimes, we think too much. Let’s not get too caught up with our own branding, but rather, to enjoy the ebb and flow of the community we have gathered around us. Enjoy the ride and let others enjoy it too.
Hi Calvin - Thanks for stumbling my post and for writing your post on it. You’re right. Community is the all important factor.
Jul 3rd, 2007 at 8:22 am
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