Comments on: Building Your Personal Brand – One ‘Straw’ at a Time

By: Jun Loayza

Jun Loayza — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 22:38:37 +0000

I feel some people expect to explode immediately by using social media. They look at social media outlets like Twitter or Vimeo as places to get famous quick. What people need to understand is that it takes A LOT of hard work to get your name out there. I am working my ass off to try and build my personal brand. I have developed Future Delivery TV to brand my company as a thought leader in productive and fun topics; I have developed Living the Startup Life to show a more human side of my company. I use my blog as effectively as I can, and am working hard on developing a Vlog. I feel video will be the NEXT medium where people can truly shine. - Jun Loayza

By: Kat Johnston

Kat Johnston — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 16:41:21 +0000

I’m looking at issues of personal branding and online identity for visual artists as a part of my major project for uni. Thanks for the great little article and indeed, for the site. You have some wonderful content which I have no doubt that I’ll be referring to again a few more times before this project is ‘complete’.

By: Julie Francis

Julie Francis — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 07:01:30 +0000

As you say – straws – today I received some advice that I should concentrate as much on my name as branding as I am trying to do on my site as branding, and now I read this.

I was also invited to join work friends on facebook and found so many people there that I know its quite amazing. Personal branding is then I guess the next step. I read about the linking you can do to join the bits together, my head spins, but I guess it will sort itself out – straw by straw!

By: Lee

Lee — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 00:34:08 +0000

I have to say, I’ve been blogging for nearly 2 months now and the first page I came to when searching for blogging advise was yourself, and then the second third and fourth pages I still found some presence/trace of you that was distinctive.

Excellent post, great advise, written from a good prospective.

By: David Mackey

David Mackey — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 00:38:37 +0000

Good thoughts. I spend a lot of time building these straws.

By: JoLynn Braley

JoLynn Braley — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 03:25:55 +0000

After reading your post, a “brand” sounds more to me like your personal reputation rather than a “logo”, which is what I’d been thinking a blog’s brand to be.

I haven’t felt that I’ve done much with “branding” my site, however when I consider it now, I actually have been working on it with all of the breadcrumbs (comments) I’ve been leaving around. ;)

By: Shaine

Shaine — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 03:13:19 +0000

I have come to the same conclusion and have started participating in various social networks in order to increase my public exposure. But what I have come to realize with respect to personal branding is that I also have to jump on new sites to cybersquat my own name and link that back to my blog.

It is interesting to me how you can be considered by your readers as an authority in all the various topics on which you write.

By: vargas

vargas — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 03:11:15 +0000

I’ve been blogging for two years now and I have to say Darren that your post is truer than true. I’m beginning to think about my own brand and how to market my blogs smartly and I’ve been paying very close attention to how I come off, my attitude when posting to other blogs and forums and what sort of online activities will reflect well or poorly on me. As always I find your posts very helpful!

By: Mommy Zabs

Mommy Zabs — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 17:46:16 +0000

This is so true! I was thinking about it just today as I browsed through my reader and probably for the 15th time saw ‘5minutesformom’ mentioned. As a full-time mother and part-time blogger I have no time to look at every link I see, I hadn’t gone to this one before because I thought it would be one more thing that I don’t have time for. THIS TIME, I clicked. And now I like it.

Also, congrats no having so much press. Your blog deserves it!

By: JMR

JMR — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 14:20:28 +0000

Wow this is exactly what I have been telling my blogging friends. A brand is of vital importance. I use my initials as my brand and I have started to notice keywords from google searches where people are using my initials in their searches to try and filter through to my page.
I started branding my site with the URL and initials very early on and one of the little branding things I do is always sign my posts and comments with…

I am JMR from JMRPub.com

By: kelvin newman

kelvin newman — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 13:14:53 +0000

The best thing is lot of this brand building will create itself, by just being your usual self online you’ll leave helpful breadcrumbs to help people find your site/blog

By: Paquito

Paquito — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 10:05:07 +0000

In fact, a blog is like a business… You need a great idea, work on it and use your talent to try to promote it (and creating customer loyalty: enough to make a spanish dude has introduced you into his blog’s favorites tab :-)).

At the end it’s a Marketing plan… You need a good product, a reasonable price to pay (let’s say time in this case), placement (Google, Blogger, Technorati, other links…) and promotion (ear-to-mouth is the best :-))

Nice story anyway :-)

Regards from Spain,

Paquito.

By: Anuj Seth

Anuj Seth — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 09:56:16 +0000

Darren,

You know you’re doing a great job in marketing your online presence when you get some wonderful feedback from your readers.

On a personal note, its not all that surprising. You’re actually present everywhere in the blogosphere :-)

~Anuj
The Online Presence Blog

By: had

had — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 09:53:19 +0000

good blogger is a brand.. brand that can sell and earn money.. but it’s hard to be everywhere, if you have to do something else for living..

By: CatherineL

CatherineL — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 08:10:18 +0000

Brilliant post Darren, and I couldn’t agree more. The building of all of these straws does seem time consuming and fruitless at first, but if you’re patient – it will work. This happened for me in a business I sold last year. I built a heap of straws, and kept wondering whether my efforts where really working.

Well, I’m a firm believer in making sure I know how all my customers have heard of us. So I was over the moon when I did this one day, and the customer told me our business was well known and told me six different places he’d first heard of us.

It may feel as though you’re getting nowhere at first, and it does take time, but all the straw building is definitely worth it.

By: Jason Moneyspace

Jason Moneyspace — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 04:12:53 +0000

I just have to say that I was initially motivated to create my first blog because of your impact on the blogging community. I definitely agree that you have BRANDED yourself very well.

I have been following you for about six months now and seem to see you everywhere on the internet. I agree that BRANDING is the most important thing you can do for yourself outside of creating a great blog such as this one.

Thank you for your inspiration!!!

By: Shine

Shine — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 03:46:01 +0000

I can’t with you more, Darren. Every appearance, every word, every encourter counts and every one of them builds your image/brand/impression left – therefore, be true, be nice, be original (and try to do something on a bad hair day…).

By: mercutiom

mercutiom — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 02:11:59 +0000

I’m the most “online” guy at my job, (an irony as I work for a web-based company) writing in 3 blogs, owning multiple sites, and being on every social media site I’ve found, usually all under the same moniker. I have to say, that branding yourself and plugging that brand is extremely helpful.

Internally I am placed in charge of looking up potential employees to see what face they present to the world, and (as mentioned by Jeremy Killian above) I have found some stuff that would make an applicant unacceptable. I’m glad that there are those that are going the other way.

By: Aaronontheweb (AjaxNinja)

Aaronontheweb (AjaxNinja) — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 02:11:27 +0000

Great post Darren! I’m working on trying to establish a brand for myself and for my blog and I’ve been reading your site religiously searching for tips just like this.

I’ve just got to work a bit more work to do trying to find the right places to seek out my audience.

By: cmanlong

cmanlong — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 01:48:41 +0000

Great post. I never really looked at it from that perspective before. I really need to focus on what I want me as a brand to be. Thanks again for quality information.