Secrets of Blogging for Personal Branding
If you don’t blog for personal branding, you’re missing out on one of the most effective ways to build your brand, establish yourself as an expert in your industry, and make sales. But blogging for personal branding isn’t just about getting more readers. Blogging is also one of the most direct ways to build your reputation online.
By sharing valuable content on your blog, you can show customers that you’re an expert in your field and that you care about their needs.
Now let us dive into how you can go about creating a personal brand through blogging.
Build trust with your customers by being yourself
What makes a customer build a long-term relationship with you? The answer to it is trust. When customers know they can trust you, they’ll stick around. And that’s good for you in your journey and growth. Blogging is also one of the fastest and most effective ways to build your brand and earn credibility and trust.
When you’re blogging, you’re essentially creating your content hub, where your customers can learn more about you. And blogging can give you a head start on customer interaction.
Many customers expect you to blog, so they’ll take a closer look at your personal blog before contacting you. This enables them to get to know you better before engaging with you. And if you blog, you’re more likely to respond to customer comments. By commenting regularly on this blog, you’ll build up a community of users who know they can connect with you in the comments section.
But blogging isn’t easy. There are hundreds of blogs out there, every day new people and new brands are engaging more and more with customers. A useful tip for tackling the competition is to write about things that you are passionate about and build a connection with your reader.
Tips for personal branding through blogging
Creating a blog about your own unique experience or goals helps you define your own brand. You don’t have to write an autobiography, but try to give readers a sense of who you are, how you see the world, and how you develop as a person.
The more personal you are, the more people will connect with your blog.
Put your outside voice into your blogging
Here are six key tips for personal branding through blogging:
1. A great title:- If you’re starting, choose a simple, straightforward title. You can always change it later, but it’s better to start with something simple than to try to come up with a clever title that isn’t tied to what you write about.
2. A great image: Get to your blog’s homepage, and scan it for an interesting photo or graphic. It should be eye-catching enough to grab the reader’s attention, and it should align with your blog’s theme.
3. Great photos: If your blog is centered on photography, show great images. If you’re writing about food, use high-quality photos of your recipes. And if you’re writing about travel, use high-quality photos of your travels.
4. Great words: Many readers won’t stick around for long if you post nothing but images. So write clearly and succinctly, and proofread your posts for grammar and spelling errors.
5. Great social media: Share your blog posts on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. Those platforms are a great springboard for your blog readership, so use them.
6. Good content: Your blog shouldn’t just be about you. Give readers valuable information that helps them solve their problems or achieve their goals.
Myths about personal brand blogging
The biggest myth about blogging is that you have to be brilliant, insightful, witty, and supremely knowledgeable. Of course, this couldn’t be further from the truth. All you need to be is you because readers will relate to you.
Moreover, blogging is personal. Yet at the same time, it has the potential to be lucrative, too. To make the most of it, you need to market yourself, not just your blog. You need to brand yourself. That requires sharing yourself, sharing your passions, your skills, your values, and your perspective.
Ways to become successful in personal brand blogging:
Introduce yourself in a highly-visual way
A blog is a great way to get your name out into the blogosphere. Personal branding, it’s about using your blog to connect with your readers and giving them a reason to keep coming back. Personal branding is about building a reputation that precedes you. It’s about people making associations about who you are.
So make sure to write in a manner that gives the reader a very visual insight into you. Once the reader visualizes you, they will feel drawn towards you.
If you’re blogging solely for personal branding, you probably won’t be writing for anyone else. That’s fine. You’ll focus your blogging efforts on your target audience. If you’re just getting started, start thinking about what you want your blog to be about.
Write about things you are passionate about
The key to having a successful blog is to write about things that you truly believe in and are passionate about. It would give your target audience a glimpse inside your mind. And that’s your “secret weapon” as a blogger.
- You share yourself, and you become known.
- You share yourself, you attract readers.
- You share yourself, and people buy from you.
- You share yourself, and you become the go-to expert in your field.
- You share yourself, and you become the trusted advisor to your readers.
- You share yourself, and you become the authority.
Blogs are social, and part of being social is sharing yourself — and your blog — with others. Blogging is sharing yourself.
Takeaway: Blogging for personal branding is a great self-marketing tool.
Post relatable content about subjects that your audience really cares about
If you’re blogging for personal branding, you don’t need to write long posts. People tend to skim, and it’s really easy to lose a reader in a long post. Rather just focus on what your audience wants and do the following things:
- A great blog post is short, sweet, and to the point.
- Your posts should answer a question.
- Write posts that solve a problem.
- Write posts that provoke thought.
- Write posts that teach.
- Write posts that entertain.
- Write posts that challenge.
- Write posts that inspire.
- Write posts that motivate.
- Write posts that tell a story.
Showcase your best work/Share your best stories
If you’re a freelancer, blogger, or other independent professional, your personal brand is even more important. That’s because your potential clients and customers get to know you first. And if they don’t like what they see, they’re unlikely to hire you or buy your products.
You’ve heard it before: People buy from people. People don’t just buy products (and services). They buy you. And that means your personal brand matters. If you’re an entrepreneur over the internet, your personal brand is paramount.
This is where sharing your best stories comes into place. This will boost your personal brand and attract new readers.
Whatever you feel are your best aspects, write about them. But make sure to not write in a manner that comes off as preachy. Rather, make sure that your best work resonates with the reader on a personal level.
When appropriate, share stories of struggles and setbacks as well. Sometimes the struggle is the more beneficial story to share with an audience. The struggle stories help your readers relate with you better and feel a bond.
The key here is to share it in a simple and uncomplicated manner. Your average reader skims through the articles, so make sure you have their attention throughout.
Display your expertise on a niche topic
Personal branding is the idea that people want to know, like, and trust you. Personal branding online is much like creating a brand offline. You must show your audience why they should care about what you have to say. This can be done by understanding your audience and displaying your authority in your niche.
First, you need to understand your audience. You’re writing blogs for your brand, but how you accomplish that may differ.
For example, if your audience is 30-something women, you’ll probably appeal to them differently than if your audience is 30-something men.
So, let’s assume you’re writing a blog for 30-something women. These women have lives. They have jobs. They have kids. They have hobbies. They have activities. They have business responsibilities. So, let’s assume that when they read your blog, they want some advice about their careers.
How would I structure this advice?
I might talk about career advice in general, but if I were targeting 30-something women, I’d structure my content differently.
For example, I might talk about the benefits of working for yourself.
I might talk about general advice about how someone can find a career or build a business working for themselves. I might talk about specific advice on how to start a business or build a business.
I might talk about general blogging advice, like how to start a blog, but if I were targeting 30-something women, I’d structure my content differently.
For example, I might talk about blogging tips specifically for women.
I might talk about blogging tips specifically for moms.
Molding your content according to your audience and niche is what will make you come off as an expert on your niche.
Share success stories from clients/customers/connections you’ve made
A successful blog for your personal branding can help you build a loyal audience. But building a truly successful blog takes a lot of work. It’s easy for a personal blog to get weighed down by too much self-promotion, or for it to lack clear direction and meander here and there.
This is where sharing the success stories you’ve had with clients in the past comes in.
While struggle stories help with building a connection with your audience, success stories help with establishing authority. It lets your readers know that you know what you’re talking about and have achieved great results in the past. It helps the target audience build a connection with you through your previous clients and entrust you with their journey.
Takeaway: Developing a strong blog can be a great way to boost your personal brand through leadership.
Here are some tips to help you build a successful blog:
1. Decide on a focus.
How do you want to be known? What do you want people to think of when they think of what you’re offering? What do you want them to know about you?
If you don’t know, start by asking these questions. The more clarity you have, the easier it is to build a blog that answers those questions.
2. Choose the right platform.
Your blog should be on a platform that’s easy for you to update. Many blogs are hosted on free blog platforms such as WordPress, Blogger, Medium, Tumblr, etc. They’re fine for small blogs, but larger blogs with more posts can use a platform like WordPress or Squarespace.
When choosing a platform, consider how you’ll update it. Some platforms are more difficult to update in-house, so if you’re already set to hire a web designer, make sure it’s one you’re comfortable with.
3. Choose the right design.
Your blog design should set the tone for your brand and reflect what your blog is about. Blogs that are offering advice, for example, usually include a lot of white space, while blogs that focus on storytelling often emphasize images. There are plenty of blog design services, including Envato Elements, that can help you find the right design.
4. Use a blog theme.
A blog theme is a design template that you can download for free on WordPress, Blogger, SquareSpace, etc. A blog theme helps your blog look consistent, and makes it easy for a designer or web developer to build your blog template.
5. Update regularly
Always make sure to keep your blog up-to-date with all the new information that your target audience might need.
6. Promote your blog: Search engine optimization (SEO) is more important than it has ever been, and blogging helps you boost SEO. The more you promote your blog and optimize it for SEO, the better are your chances for success.
7. Track your performance: Lastly, it is very important to track how your blogs are performing. And tailor your future blogs based on that. Write more about what your audience is reading more and leave the topics that have less readership.
Importance of Personal Branding
Personal branding is the act of establishing yourself as a credible expert in your field by generating content consistently over time. Personal branding can be powerful, but it can also be difficult. It requires you to network, create content on a regular basis and ensure that you are connecting your material to your audience.
A personal branding strategy can quickly become overwhelming for those unfamiliar with it. However, if you are willing to invest in the time and effort, personal branding can be a powerful business tool.
Takeaway: Create an authentic, interest-gaining profile that converts based on you
Need more food for thought for why to build a Personal Brand? Go here
