You ready for another Hangout on Air review? This hangout was all about branding and your blog and how you can marry the two in 2014. This hangout was the third in our series called Blogging Warfare and you can press play to watch it below. The hangout featured Wade Harman, Carolyn Capern, myself and our special guest Greg Trujillo. I’ve also got it timestamped for you if you want to jump to any particular section.
Branding and Your Blog HOA Review – Time Stamping
3.50: How Can People Go About Finding Their Brand?
– Wade: has a lot to do with what you like so make sure you enjoy the topic. You’ll have to blog about it at least once a week so make sure whatever niche you pick ticks those boxes.
– Greg: has a bit to do with your core values, morals and how you present your info. Important to look inward when building your brand. What do you want people to think about when they see your logo/brand.
– Carolyn: know thy self. Your motivation for starting a blog is irrelevant – the core passions and values are important to help you find your authentic voice.
– Rob: Important to be honest with yourself but don’t forget the questions your potential customers might be asking. What way might they be asking their questions and then think about a brand tone that would answer those questions in a similar tone to the way the question was asked.
– Carolyn: Your brand is partly what you think it is but it’s at least 50% based on other peoples perception.
8.40: Once You’ve Found Your Brand How Do you Then Express it?
– Carolyn: You can express your brand using the following:
Visual means – the colours, the font types, the logo and your web design and layout.
The tone you choose, be it playful or business like or witty, also help you express.
The content you provide and how you provide it – be it text based or video based form your brand.
– Wade: consistency is key. It’ll help you gain authority which also helps strengthen your brand. Being consistent and authoritative helps you create brand ambassadors which in turn solidify and help expand your brand. Visualisation is key.
12.50: What sort of branding strategy should one deploy long term for their blog?
Greg: Visual is key.
The experience you provide to your audience is a key component in them forming their opinion of your brand. The perception the user has will be influenced by the experience they receive. Vital to keep your experience consistent. Do what you say you’re going to do. Don’t argue with people online – it messes up peoples perception of you.
Wade: Important to commit to your brand, great etiquette and the rules of engagement. Once you commit to your brand you realise that you’re committing to your followers and promising to help them out as they are what will help your brand succeed.
Rob: Tell a story, your story, and tell it in a way that is genuine and honest. Your brand doesn’t have to 100% fixed from the start, it can evolve and if you bring your followers on the journey with you they’ll appreciate it. Referenced
Branding and Your Blog – The Must Have Marriage 2014 – HOA Review
20.00: Banana Sidebar in response to Carolyn asking about my branding and the banana.
22.00: – Good Examples of Branded Blogs:
1) Chef Dennis
2) Chris Brogan
3) The Social Media Hat
Common Between sites: good avatars, graphics used consistently to build familiarity, good taglines.
26.30: Audience question from David F Leopold – “How Important is branding with the HOAs we produce?”
Rob: Very, check out Wade’s background in the video
Wade: Brand the HoA themselves and use them to brand you. Wade has become the relationship marketing guy on Google Plus due to his Hangouts.
Carolyn: Visuals will help you stand out from the rest.
Greg: Having a blog associated with your hangouts, so that you have a central place where people can follow you, is important as things are always evolving and changing with social media.
Rob: Completely agree, Facebook pages aren’t what they used to be so important to have a homebase that is branded. Then when you need to migrate followers to a new platform your consistent branding should streamline it.
33.00 The Importance of Being Remarkable
Rob: The purple cow analogy from Seth Godin.
Carolyn: Interesting challenge to be remarkable or edgy or eccentric, especially if everyone in the market is equally edgy and unique. The key is authenticity and relationships. People listen to people they like and people they care about it.
Greg: The stunts and the gimmicks absolutely do work. Jason Headsets/Surfer App of IWearYourShirt.com – great example of being remarkable.
Rob – Chris Reimer worth checking out for long term branding, of RizzoTees fame.
37.50 – Outro mode initiated
And the outro of the show yielded what I believe to be the quote of the HoA from Wade “Be a Hero to one person at a time and stop marketing to the masses”
If you enjoyed this Hangout then please check out our other hangouts in the Blogging Warfare series:
And, if you’ve down as far as here then I strongly suggest my mailing list below so that you don’t miss future Hangout on Air reviews. Also, if you’ve any questions about blogging and branding please comment below and we’ll answer them on a future show.