#Print4Blogher Session 1 ~ Branding

I don't think I have formally announced it here but I am going to go to Blogher 11 in San Diego in August (insert happy dance here) !! I went to Blogher last year and while i loved it, it was pretty overwhelming. I had done some research on my own and tried to find forums to help me prepare. This year I am excited to be preparing with the #Print4Blogher Sessions with Debba from Girlfriendology.com, the UPS store and a few other awesome bloggers:

Amy Lowe - Dealusional - http://www.dealusional.com
Shelby Barone - Glitterful Felt Stories - http://www.feltstories.com
Melissa Lockcuff - MamaBzz - http://www.mamabzz.com
Wendy Limauge - Sweeties Sweeps - http://sweetiessweeps.com/

We are doing weekly conference calls and you can find our prep sessions here:
www.lovinlogistics.com
You can help prepare as well with us by visiting that site each week for our new prep sessions.

This past Friday, we did our first session: Branding ~ What is your brand?
http://lovinlogistics.com/2011/06/print4blogher-prep-session-1/

Your brand is the consistent message, impression, personality that companies, bloggers and readers think of when they consider your blog. Are you helpful, informative, resourceful, funny, friendly or in-your-face? What do your readers/fans/ followers expect to hear from you? Are you consistent with your tone, topics and timing?

Your brand is YOU, what do YOU represent? Content, style, niche, design, tone, formatting are all things to consider when defining your brand. If you were going to read your own blog as a “new reader” are you seeing your brand?

When working on defining my brand, I sat down and considered what it was I wanted to accomplish when I first started my blog, what I am wanting to accomplish now and what I want to accomplish in the future. I have actually changed my “brand” since I first began blogging. I am sure most everyone here is familiar with what blog niche they fit into. I am in the “deal blogging” niche, I am amongst a group of thousands of other bloggers who blog about deals. Since from the beginning of my blog to now, I have tried to break the “mold” on what is defined by my niche of bloggers. For me personally as an example, I started out doing coupon matchups and posting every deal I could find. I actually changed that and took out matching coupons with sales but would still post deals and gave referrals on where they could find the information if they were looking for it. I also started posting original content such as recipes, I wanted to create more original content to be viewed as a more authentic blogger. I felt this was a necessity to stay true to my brand which is sharing my frugalness with others and it also helps in obtain a higher readership because a lot of other bloggers already do blog about being frugal, I think it also looks good to brands that I will want to work with. When you share something “original” (which is your brand) it helps people come back to your blog! One thing that Debba had stated and I always try to do is to be authentic and if I do work with a brand, it has to be true to MY brand. So if I do partner up for advertising or a post, it has to be related.

I think an important thing to also consider when creating your “brand” is coming up with a “tagline” for your blog. What is your purpose clearly defined for your blog that your readers can see first thing when they stop by your blog. As far as working with brands, one of my ultimate goals would be to partner up with a larger brand, label etc and be featured on their website.


What do you consistently communicate?
I think this goes back to looking at other’s in your “niche” and defining what you want to blog about and what you don’t. How do you stand out? Also when defining your brand with consistency, make sure your design of your blog and anything attached to your “brand” matches you blog posts. This includes colors, font, logo’s, business cards etc.

For my blog, I know I want to share my ways of being frugal and that includes coupons, freebies, recipes, crafts and DIY projects but no overwhelming my readers with so many posts they can’t keep up.

What is your tone:

For me, I like to be casual and share my “brand” from the view of a mom but also do it with a professional flare. I want others to be able to read my posts and relate to what I have to say. I think this goes with always being true to my audience and writing authentically and personally. I do try to write consistently as far as the content I include in my blog posts. However The point about writing consistently was interesting because it’s not only about the content you provide, it’s about the formatting of your brand. It made me wonder if if I have been writing as consistently as I should as far as formats. Example; In my DIY posts I always try to include photos and details but my format isn’t always the same. I think that is something I will work on, especially in my tutorials for the craft projects and recipes.

Next week we are talking about Strategy and Goals, I can't wait to see how this lesson goes!

**I am being compensated for my time for this program by #CollectiveBias, all opinions are my own.