From Whoa to Go

PluginID’s The Blogging Blueprint- A Practical Application Guide. Part 6: Spreading Your Brand

2nd February, 2010 at 22:20 | Posted in Blog Development, Blogging, Publishing, Technology | Comments Off
Tags: Ebook Benefits, Feedburner, Google Reader, Personal Branding, PluginID, RSS, Twitter

Even though Glen is no longer the owner of PluginID the relevancy of what he teaches in the Blogging Blueprint doesn’t change. He’s got great timeless advice that applying here is teaching me (& you) what I need to do to become an active and successful blogger.

A great part of being active is how you get your name out there. I wrote a great deal about this in my personal branding series and like that Glen’s advice runs along the same lines:

You found this eBook somehow. Somewhere out there in the World Wide Web you came across this guide. Whether it was from StumbleUpon, Twitter, a friend or you just already knew about my site (which you also found, ‘somehow’).

That means somewhere along the lines you were following a social network, someone shared this information with you and that made this site grow by one more reader! That’s fantastic! And that’s the point!

Readership + Relationships = Community = Growth for your Goal

There’s a few things you can do though to make this process super simple and it’s all about sharing the love!

Show Us What You Look Like!

I love avatars, they’re a little icon that pops up everywhere you do on the web. No matter where you set yourself up online use the same picture, this could be your companies logo, an image of meaning to your brand, or my preference, an image of you. I like to see what people look like, it’s personable and makes me feel like I can relate to you.

If you sign-up on social sites and don’t fill in your details or upload an image then you are going to look like every other lazy member of that community.

By far the easiest way to do this is to use Gravatar, which links your email/s to your avatar and means that every time you use that email your image will be displayed.

Where Do You Socialise?

There are simply so many social networks to choose from and keeping up with them all can be really overwhelming. Here’s just a few I use that you ought to wrap your head around too:

• Twitter (and the affliate yellow pages style twitter directory Twellow)
• Facebook (either with your own personal page or for greater privacy your own page)
• StumbleUpon, Delicious, ReddIt, Mixx, Digg (all do the same thing but it’s worth joining a few of them because they have different communities and that means a different audience for you)
• LinkedIn (a place for your online resume)
• Google Reader (where you can read the multiple sites you’ve RSS subscribed to, there are others)

For all of the sites you join, upload your avatar from earlier and fill out your profile details. Whether or not you use a site name as your username is up to you. Some people prefer to remain anonymous so that they can become ‘power users’ and drive more traffic to their sites. For me, I make it clear who I am on StumbleUpon and Mixx but use a more anonymous profile on Digg where it is frowned upon to vote or submit your own content.

With all the work it takes to keep on top of them is it any wonder actually getting work done seems impossible? There’s a couple of tricks to make it easier.

If you use Firefox (which you really ought to!) add the Shareaholic Add On, what this does is put all your social networks in one easy to click & share button on your browser. I also use Hootsuite for super simple tweeting, facebook page & linkedin updates. The reason I love Hootsuite is that you can schedule these updates in advance, which means that if you’re in an opposite to the US time zone like me you can schedule updates to post when your followers are most likely to be active. This is great for keeping yourself in the forethought of peoples limited attention spans.

Why is it important to do this?

I’ve alluded to link love before and being active with other peoples websites and their posts only promotes you. With any type of marketing/ personal branding it’s important to get your name out there, and to keep it active. This means that when you’re reading other peoples work you need to send their links out into networks that will enjoy them too. The more you promote the more those people will want to promote you.

Alongside this, and something I’ll talk about in greater detail later, is the relationship you form by commenting on these sites.

It’s about networking with people who share your way of thinking, and trust me, when you hit those rock bottom moments, it’s your community who’ll understand you and bring you back up.

More about Twitter!

Following is not something that you can just do by itself and expect to get traffic from the site. Instead, the aim is to get more people to follow you. Some quick tips to get more followers include:

• Link to your twitter profile from your website
• Establish relationships with friends who are already connections on the likes of StumbleUpon & Mixx
• Ask interesting questions that people will reply to, then their followers will find your profile
• Offer great tips and advice in your industry so that people would be missing out if they didn’t follow you

Make Sharing Easy Peasy!

I’m amazed at how difficult some blogs make it just in order to Digg one of their stories or give it a save on Delicious. If you want to grow and want people to share your content then you have to make it easy for them. If you look at the bottom of every post on my site then you will see there are quick links to:

• Email posts
• Stumble Posts
• Save to Delicious
• Digg
• Twitter

If you are using Feedburner then you can set this up very easily, I also have the links showing in my RSS feed for people who prefer to read content that way. People aren’t going to share your content if you make it difficult for them, why would they go through the hassle?

In a future post I’m going to look into this again because although Feedburner is useful it has it’s limitations and I know there has  to be a better way to share your posts.

Now you’re registered and rolling come find me! Collaboration is cool!

Missed the Beginning?

• Part 1: Getting the Blog Ball Rolling
• Part 2: Setting up a Hosting Service
• Part 3: WordPress & All that Jazz
• Part 4: Theme’s Are Mean
• Part 5: Website Traffic & Search Engine Optimisation