Branding Brand identity, part I And you are special because...?

Which of these kids is doing his own thing?

Topics on popular blogs are cyclical and right now, one of the hottest topics is branding.

Seems easy enough, right?  Well, I have an undergraduate business degree with a Marketing emphasis, an MBA, and worked with some of the top ad agencies in the US and I still can’t define branding with one broad stroke.

What branding means to a blogger

Typically, when people write “branding”, what they mean is brand identity. In a nutshell, brand identity is what you want people to think of when they see your name. In this case, that would be your blog. It’s an extension of you, your personality, your knowledge, your ability to deliver a quality product or service — essentially, all the things that make you different from others in your space.

Find your edge

If you don’t know why you’re different from other bloggers in your category then neither will your readers. Find your edge and promote it.

Maybe you’re more knowledgeable than your peers. So tell us you are, provide supporting evidence, and remind us by sprinkling your expertise throughout your posts. Perhaps you have a great sense of humor; make sure that shines through in everything you write. Or maybe you have inside info, special advice, incredible analogies, or amazing visualizations. In other words, you have to provide value that people can’t get elsewhere.

Regardless of what the edge is, you better have one or figure it out soon. Otherwise, you really are just like everyone else.

We’ll continue this multi-part article tomorrow with first steps to creating a blogger brand identity.


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