Do you participate in #blogchat? Every week, this weekly discussion on Twitter focuses on a specific topic and bloggers everywhere are invited to join in. Because I often have more to say than what will fit in 140 characters, every Sunday night (or Monday morning), I post about some of the most interesting #blogchat tweets. Join the conversation by commenting below.
(Still confused? Read more about #blogchat here.)
This week’s theme: Branding and Choosing Post Topics
Working for BlogWorld Expo has been eye-opening for me in many ways, but one thing that really surprised me was the experience of meeting people in real life after getting to know them online. Some people were extremely similar. Others were…well…different in real life. During #blogchat, @V1ktor made a really great point about how this relates to branding.
V1ktor: Everything you are and do, is your brand. Way u talk, way u write, way u reply to tweets. Offline & Online.
Branding is more than a logo, more than your tone of voice, more than your font choice or color scheme. As @V1ktor notes, branding is everything you do. Unfortunately, some people seem to forget this when they attending real-life events, or even when they leave comments at places other than their own blogs.
If you are branded as this clean-cut, approachable mommy blogger, but you get schloshed at happy hour and jump in the pool at a BlogWorld party, how does that look to your readers? I personally think it makes you look like a liar – like you aren’t who you say you are. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t drink or otherwise have fun. I’m just saying that make sure it makes sense with your brand.
Likewise, just because you aren’t on your blog or even a blog within your niche, don’t assume that your readers aren’t keeping an eye on you. I like to think of my readers as Santa Claus. They know when I’ve been bad or good so be good for goodness sake. If you’re branded as this rational, polite religious advice columnist, but moonlight as someone who rants, often cursing or belittling others, on pop culture blogs, you’re destroying your clean reputation with every comment. Be mindful of how you’ll be perceived, whether you are on your own blog or not.
No one said this would be easy. We might not be celebrities, but we are in the public eye, just as celebrities are. If you don’t like that? Don’t be a blogger.
I’m glad someone overheard me say it. Thought it got lost among the billion of tweets =) #blogchat is just so fast.
People seem to think blogging means “writing” posts on a website. That’s about 10% of what blogging is. In a nutshell, blogging is talking. There two ways you blog – when you open your mouth and when you write. Both use the same source – your brain. So thinking that writing is any different than talking is one humongous mistake.
If you create fake persona for your blog… you better be that fake persona in real-life meeting people at blogging events. Anyways, unless your life depends on it don’t create fake identities for blogging.
Fake was great in 95, but it’s 2011. Authenticity counts more than anything else in the online and offline world.
You really want to make money blogging? BE AUTHENTIC.
Thanks for writing a great post Alli. I’m glad you found it useful.