Blog Branding 101: A Guide on Building a Brand for Your Blog and How to Do It
The importance of branding has never been greater. We live in a world where customers are hit with more choices than ever. The quick and clear identifiable principles of a trusted brand can be the key determining factor in who they choose to spend their money with.
However, brands don’t exist for those companies that are looking to sell you something. The underlying principles of branding can be found all over non-profit organizations too. From their style, their logo, or their message, charities and other organizations that help good causes globally have sought to capitalize on the power of the “brand”.
If it’s true for businesses, then why can’t it also be true elsewhere? When it comes to blogs, there isn’t an area of digital life that is more saturated. Everyone can, and it seems like most people do, have one. In this environment, getting yourself heard is becoming difficult. So why not lean into some branding as a way to get ahead?
What Is Branding Your Blog?
It’s important that the basic idea is understood first.
Branding, in the context of your blog, describes the process of overhauling decision-making around every aspect to form a cohesive, recognizable digital footprint.
Every aspect of your blog, from its name to its look, from its content to its tone, should feel as though they form a greater, overarching narrative.
Failure to do this often ends up with the blog, as a whole, feeling disconnected and fragmented. When this happens, people who would otherwise be avid readers see your work as uneven, and less reliable.
When this happens, they’ll be on the lookout for something else, and you risk losing their readership to a more well-thought-out blog.
Why Should You Brand Your Blog?
Aside from building or retaining a consistent audience, branding your blog brings a number of other benefits. As you continue to get larger, companies may see you as an avenue through which they can market their products or even help convince new clients during discovery calls by showcasing your available services.
Having an inconsistent online presence not only makes you less likely to get recognized in this way, but it also makes it harder for any content that comes from these partnerships to be effective. Influencer content relies on the seamlessness with which it is incorporated into the wider postings of an account.
If you don’t have an understanding of what that wider narrative or “brand” is, then doing this is made more difficult, and the results of any partnership are likely to be underwhelming. As seen in the infographic above, brands know the importance you can have for their strategy.
For the rest of this article, we’re going to take a look at some key tips that can help you overhaul your blog, and capitalize on the value of branding your digital presence.
Know Your Niche
A great way to combat the often-fallen-into trap of getting lost among competing blogs is to zero in on an area of specialism. People look for and engage more with content that feels personal to them. So creating a blog that feels as personal as possible to a decent section of a particular audience can prove effective.
Companies do this most effectively when it comes to their content curation strategy. Ensuring that the content you publish, created in-house or exterior sources speaks to as specific an area as possible is vital.
For example, if you’re one of the millions of people around the world to have been taken in by the recent renaissance of vinyl records, this could be a passion of yours. However, lots of people have blogs or pages online where they post about this.
Think about how you could narrow down your area of specialism even further, through genre, types of release, or particular artists, as a way to stand out.
Know Your Voice
You may have an interesting area nailed down. You may even know what your niche in that area is going to be. You have the thing you’re going to focus on, but you’ve also likely been (at least subconsciously) influenced by other writers in that space.
Think about being on a call with someone – regardless of their internet phone provider – who has a distinctive accent. The longer the conversation goes on, the more likely you are to pick up on, and in some cases replicate, the accent itself.
In content creation terms, this can often end with you adopting similar styles of writing to more established members of that online community. When this happens, your voice doesn’t stand out enough to gain any real traction.
Catchphrases or intros (especially if you use video content) can be a great way to differentiate yourself here. If the spoken word is more your game, think about how you structure your posts and try to find the uniqueness that way.
For example, music journalist Antony Fantano begins all of his videos proclaiming that he’s “the internet’s busiest music nerd”. Whether or not that is true, after some ten years making content online, if you hear that phrase, you associate it with him and his content now.
Know Your Theme
When we talk about “theme” here, we’re less focused on blog content and more on blog presentation. Everything, from your logo to your color scheme, to your tagline, can, with some luck involved, become a point of difference for you.
This can give people something to remember if they want to follow your content more regularly. It feeds back into the idea of personalization, and how much stronger a connection this builds. Whether it be emails or blog content, creating something that speaks to someone on this level is important.
Knowing how to bring all of these stylistic elements together in a cohesive yet eye-catching manner should come easy to you if you have some experience with marketing. If not, chances are you’ll know someone who has an idea about it. Don’t be afraid to ask for help in getting this part right.
Know Your Content
It seems that, as readers become more ingrained in an area of interest, the easier it is for them to differentiate between those voices who know what they’re talking about and those who don’t. Blagging your way through a blogging journey isn’t an option anymore. This would only work if you actually want your churn rate to increase. So make sure that you know enough about your subject matter before diving into it.
Over the course of the last few years, a growing number of online accounts have gone viral because people enjoy seeing others be passionate about something. For example, trainspotter Francis Bourgeois became an overnight sensation on TikTok, and now is fronting up campaigns for Gucci. It could be anything from trains to makeup tutorials, to paleontology.
The reader or viewer may not even have a deep interest in the subject. However, communicating it with an obvious knowledge of the topic can be enough for them to stick around, and even learn something new.
Know Your Social Media
If you think that getting a foothold in the blogging space is difficult, then the method with which this content is most often distributed – social media – can be even more of a hurdle. Ensuring your brand identity between that which you publish on the blog and that which you publish on social media remains inline is incredibly important.
Consider campaigns run by major brands like Innocent smoothies. These do a great job of personalizing an otherwise-faceless brand. Taking a leaf out of a big business’s book here is not something you should be above.
However, don’t be scared to lean into the inherent rule of social media, which is that people only engage with something that causes an emotional response. Hyperbole can often be your friend here, with shocking social media postings driving content to sites far more effectively than those which focus solely on the context of the content itself.
Conclusion
Throughout this article, we’ve taken a look at what branding for blogging means. We’ve also explored why it can be important and shared some tips on how you or anyone out there can get started.
Another point worth mentioning, ensuring your blog and website data security is also an essential part of branding. It should be free from spam and malware. This shows professionalism and commitment to the highest quality.
It’s definitely not the easiest thing to master. If it were, even more people would be doing it. Yet, getting it right can prove satisfying, and can open up opportunities you couldn’t even dream of, such as ambassador social media status for some key retailers.
