Friday
Nov072008
15 Days of Marketing Day Seven: Building Your Brand through Self-Promotion
Friday, November 7, 2008 at 12:34AM
Today's and tomorrow's posts will be all about building your brand. Now that you've got the attention of some PR people and your readership is increasing you want to give them a reason to keep coming back for more. This reason might be your cunning wit, your quirky sense of humor, your expert-level knowledge on a niche subject, or simply articulating meaningful lessons learned from simple every day life. Heck, it might be all of the above!
Today I'm going to show you how to toot your own horn. I'm a big fan of tooting other peoples' horns before tooting your own, but for all intents and purposes of this series, I'm going to stray from that this time. But trust me, I promise there is a method to this madness.
First of all, you need to create a great biography page on your blog. Call it "Bio", call it "About", but let your readers and visitors know who you are. You want to keep the tone less formal, then say a resume, but you also want it to jump out at anyone who may want to work with you. And when I say work with you, I mean PAY you. Think about who you are and what makes you different. It doesn't have to be long, in fact, two paragraphs are plenty. And it doesn't have to be all about your educational and professional background. Here are some questions to help craft your bio:
The idea is to make it fun and memorable. But make sure you write it for yourself too. If you're not true to who you are, no one else is going to believe you either.
The next step is to create a Press & Blog Coverage page. Wha-wha-what you say? Yes. Some of you might know this already but this blog, JessicaKnows, started out as a Press & Blog Coverage page. I used it as a virtual business card. When I say "press and blog coverage" I don't necessarily mean The Today Show or Oprah (although, by all means, if you've appeared on either, add them...NOW!) If another blogger interviews or profiles you, this is an example of blog coverage. If you get interviewed for a podcast or webcast, those types of media belong on this page too. You might start with just a few and it's likely it will build up slowly. The old school way was to add fellow bloggers that mentioned you to a blog roll. This is even better. Sound like a lot of work? It can be, but I've figured out to make it easy peasy and I'm sharing. Just follow the steps below.
So, if you didn't already know this, you can now engage in shameless self-promotion on your blog or website. But just remember, it's not all about you. Your loyal readers and your raving fans are the keys to your success so come back tomorrow to find out how to keep them happy and coming back for more.
YOUR HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT
Complete both of the tasks above: create a bio page and a press page on your blog. Then post it here in the comments section. Today's comment section will serve as a brag board for all the #15days participants, so today is not the day to be modest, people!
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Today I'm going to show you how to toot your own horn. I'm a big fan of tooting other peoples' horns before tooting your own, but for all intents and purposes of this series, I'm going to stray from that this time. But trust me, I promise there is a method to this madness.
First of all, you need to create a great biography page on your blog. Call it "Bio", call it "About", but let your readers and visitors know who you are. You want to keep the tone less formal, then say a resume, but you also want it to jump out at anyone who may want to work with you. And when I say work with you, I mean PAY you. Think about who you are and what makes you different. It doesn't have to be long, in fact, two paragraphs are plenty. And it doesn't have to be all about your educational and professional background. Here are some questions to help craft your bio:
- Did you have an interesting childhood that some might not know about?
- Where did you go to college? If you didn't go to college, what did you do instead?
- Talk about an unusual job you held that you might not put on your resume but humbled you all the same. (For example, many don't know that I applied to be a Santa's Elf at the mall in college but was hired to be a manager. Trust me, you learn a lot about management in that role on Christmas Eve).
- Have you traveled abroad?
- How long have you been blogging/building your business/online.
- If you've made some tough lifestyle choices, talk about it. Bare your soul (if you're comfortable).
- What's your dream job? Even if it's being a tour guide at Universal Studios, tell us. Expose what you daydream about a little.
The idea is to make it fun and memorable. But make sure you write it for yourself too. If you're not true to who you are, no one else is going to believe you either.
The next step is to create a Press & Blog Coverage page. Wha-wha-what you say? Yes. Some of you might know this already but this blog, JessicaKnows, started out as a Press & Blog Coverage page. I used it as a virtual business card. When I say "press and blog coverage" I don't necessarily mean The Today Show or Oprah (although, by all means, if you've appeared on either, add them...NOW!) If another blogger interviews or profiles you, this is an example of blog coverage. If you get interviewed for a podcast or webcast, those types of media belong on this page too. You might start with just a few and it's likely it will build up slowly. The old school way was to add fellow bloggers that mentioned you to a blog roll. This is even better. Sound like a lot of work? It can be, but I've figured out to make it easy peasy and I'm sharing. Just follow the steps below.
- Set-up a free Tumblr account. Call it [yourblogname]press.tumblr.com.
- Choose your theme, I used the Silo theme and changed the background image. However, you can keep it really simple.
- Go to the Goodies tab in your dashboard and drag the "Share on Tumblr" bookmarklet button to your toolbar.
- Staying on the Goodies page, you'll also want to scroll down and grab the code to "embed your tumblelog". You'll insert that code on your press & blog coverage page. Check out my page as an example.
- Set-up Google Alerts to send you any mentions of your blog name and your name across the web. When you get an alert, click the link for the specific url to the mention and then just simply click that little bookmarklet button to add it to your Tumblr press page. I also highly recommended doing a Google search of your blog name and name too so you can add any mentions from the past and have it all in one place. It's definitely worth the time.
- Once my coverage reached the feed limit, I still wanted to give my readers access to older press and blog coverage, so I linked to the Tumblr page after the embed code for easy access.
So, if you didn't already know this, you can now engage in shameless self-promotion on your blog or website. But just remember, it's not all about you. Your loyal readers and your raving fans are the keys to your success so come back tomorrow to find out how to keep them happy and coming back for more.
YOUR HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT
Complete both of the tasks above: create a bio page and a press page on your blog. Then post it here in the comments section. Today's comment section will serve as a brag board for all the #15days participants, so today is not the day to be modest, people!
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Reader Comments (10)
Great tips!
I already had an about page, "Meet Debbie." I included a list here, too, "10 Things About Me."
http://mypersonalorganizer.typepad.com/virtually_organized/meet-debbie.html
And today I created my Press page:
http://mypersonalorganizer.typepad.com/virtually_organized/press.html
Thanks!
Debbie Jordan Kravitz (Virtually Organized)s last blog post..http://mypersonalorganizer.typepad.com/virtually_organized/2008/11/farewell-halloween.html" rel="nofollow">Farewell, Halloween!
This gave me an opportunity to update my BIO. Now, I’ll just need to figure out how to get it over to the “View My Complete Profile” section in the sidebar.
Check out my blog post about my Day 7 assignment and see my updated BIO at http://microblogginmom.blogspot.com
I also set up a Tumblr account and will work on creating & building my Press Page.
Thanks!
Gail
If there's one thing you can say about me it's that I'm determined. I'm 4 days late on this homework but I'm plugging along and will, at some point, catch up. The important thing is that I did the About Me and I set up a tumblr page...haven't linked it to my blog because, well, it's empty. But it's there for future use and soon I can focus more on my expert side and getting the word out.
Would love insight on my About Me - too quirky?
Janine (aka: ScaryMom)s last blog post..http://twoferthepriceofone.blogspot.com/2008/11/pull-tug-suck-dont-breathe.html" rel="nofollow">Pull, tug, suck, don't breathe....
I am taking notes all of these assignments and re doing my about me page is number one. Thankyou for the questions listed, that will really help. Will do this as soon as I am done catching up on these posts!
Vanessas last blog post..http://inevergrewup.net/sharing-is-caring-project/" rel="nofollow">Sharing is Caring Project
I am so bad at 'tooting my own horn' and even struggled putting together my about page. Finally, I ended up just asking my readers what they wanted to know about me. I was flooded with questions, I picked my favorites and answered them in the about section.
I also link on my blog's front page to other places where you can find my writing, or where I've been featured.
I'm getting ready to launch a new blog and I think my bio there will be a bit more professional than the very personal about page I have now.
thanks for this. off to look at tumblr.
mollys last blog post..http://www.mollycoddleblog.com/mommycoddle/2008/11/a-hill-of-beans.html" rel="nofollow">a hill of beans
I stumbled across your site while researching Facebook Flair as a marketing tool. I have only read this page so far and already added you to my RSS feed. Great stuff! Thanks.
Gretchen Cawthons last blog post..http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/GirlsCantWhat/~3/453674548/" rel="nofollow">Ann Dunwoody is First Female Four-Star General
I updated my Bio page http://myhomesweethomeonline.net/about/" rel="nofollow">here, and added a press page http://myhomesweethomeonline.net/press/" rel="nofollow">here.
You are pushing me beyond my comfort level, but I understand that that's what has to happen, huh? :-)
Dawn @ My Home Sweet Homes last blog post..http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/MyHomeSweetHome/~3/455564385/" rel="nofollow">Better Blogging with FeedBurner
I just updated the "About" section on the right sidebar of my page.
The more I get into this series you've written, the more excited I get for the launch of my new site!!
I tweaked my http://www.becausebabiesgrowup.com/2008/12/about-me.html" rel="nofollow">About page to hopefully be more pertinent and interesting.
I also set up a http://becausebabiesgrowuppress.tumblr.com/" rel="nofollow">Tumblr account. Now I just need to get some press and blog coverage! I have an interviewed and guest post lined up so at least I'm off to a good start!
Thanks, Jessica, for the great information and guidance!
Amber @ BecauseBabiesGrowUps last blog post..http://www.becausebabiesgrowup.com/2009/01/physical-friday-piggy-banks.html" rel="nofollow">Physical Friday: Piggy Banks
Working on both! My bio page needs tweaking before I post it. I need more press/blog coverage for my press page, but am collectin info now. Set up Tumblr, too. Would like to put both bio and press page links in nav bar. Will ask SIL for help with this.
Deborahs last blog post..http://comfortjoydesigns.blogspot.com/2009/01/beauty-beast.html" rel="nofollow">Beauty & The Beast