Amanda explains that branding is all about the reputation and personality of your blog. For the challenge, she poses a series of questions to help you reflect on your brand. If you'd like to join in and answer the questions, please post your link to Amanda's post and comment here if you would like me to visit your blog too. Once you've completed the challenge you can enter Amanda's giveaway to win a copy of her ebook Blog Events.
Right, here goes..
How well does your blog name reflect what your blog is about?
Well, when I chose 'Creative Therapy' I was looking for a name that explained that the blog is about anything and everything creative-from writing to arts and crafts. These days I blog mostly about books, which isn't really reflected in my title. However, I don't want to narrow myself to a name that only mentions books, as I post all sorts of things from recipes to musings about life. Plus I've been Creative Therapy for a long time now, and I'm not sure I want to change my name just yet (unless I can think of an amazingly good one). What are your thoughts? Do you have any ideas for names that would reflect my blog better?Create a tagline.
At the moment my tagline is 'Books, writing and art to nourish the mind and soothe the soul'. Yes, it's a bit clunky but I think it expands upon the title and helps to explain what the blog is all about.Look at the name you use to leave comments. Change it to reflect your brand. For example, “Amanda @ On a Book Bender” is more recognizable than just “Amanda.”
I comment using Google+ and my name was down as 'Anstice Potts' (my real name). I've now changed it to Tizzy Potts, which is the name I'm known as to my friends and on all other social networks. For now I'm not going to add my blog name because I use Google+ to promote my writing, editing and design services as well as my blog. Also, Google+ unfortunately limits how many times you can change your name, which might leave me stuck if I ever stop blogging or change my blog name.People change their names infrequently in the real world, so Google+ limits how often you can change your profile name.
I hope it will still let me change my name when I get married in May!
It's a recent picture of me.
Right, I'm not very good at this, but here is my attempt:
That challenge helped me think carefully about how my blog is presented across all social media and highlighted a few areas that I needed to improve on.
Are you up for taking The B Word: Branding challenge? Head on over to On a Book Bender to join in!
Do you have the same profile picture on all social networks (including your blog)? If no, consider updating your profile pictures so they match.
Most matched but Twitter and Google+ needed updating so I've just fixed that.Is the picture of you or an avatar? If no to both, consider getting one.
It's a recent picture of me.
What do people expect from YOUR blog? (If you don’t know, write what you WANT to be known for.)
Well, I would like to be known for offering a range of original creative posts including recipes, art and craft tutorials, articles about writing and book reviews. At the moment I realise I'm not quite hitting the mark-I've been posting a lot of memes and book promotion events rather than original content. This is something I'm going to be working hard on this year. I'm going to be putting more effort in to writing original articles and sharing poetry and extracts from my WiP.Look at your Twitter timeline. What’s the ratio between interacting with people and self-promoting tweets? (Eyeball it.)
I don't even have to look to know that I don't interact much on Twitter at all. In all honestly, it's not really for me. I engage with people a lot more on Facebook where I can read and post longer messages and share pictures more easily. I just can't get to grips with the limited characters on Twitter-maybe because I waffle on too much! Most of my Twitter posts are automatic tweets linking to blog posts or new Polyvore designs. If I remember to go on Twitter over the weekend I'll try to chat to people a little.Write a social media update about your latest post (or your latest FAVOURITE post) that teases and gives people a reason to click through.
Right, I'm not very good at this, but here is my attempt:
That challenge helped me think carefully about how my blog is presented across all social media and highlighted a few areas that I needed to improve on.
Are you up for taking The B Word: Branding challenge? Head on over to On a Book Bender to join in!
I don't think you necessarily need to change your name. That's really where the tagline comes in. It'd be easier to keep changing your tagline to tie in your blog name with the focus than to continually change the name. People remember your name more than your tagline anyway.
ReplyDeleteThat's reassuring, Amanda. Thanks for the feedback.
DeleteGreat job completing the mini challenge! I'll have to try this review of my brand another time.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Laurie. Yes I found it extremely helpful.
DeleteGreat job with this. I like your blog name and, with the tagline, it seems to fit well with your brand as a whole. I'm a librarian, so books as therapy is a concept that I can support. The calm, friendly colors and images on your blog fit as well.
ReplyDeleteJoy's Book Blog
Thanks for your feedback, Joy, I really appreciate it! I'd love to be a librarian. Perhaps I would take too many books home with me, though.
DeleteI like what you said about Twitter...that's pretty much how I roll there, too. I'm for longer interactions...and link to my blog posts there. I didn't participate in the Twitter chat, because I missed the time...and because I don't really enjoy that kind of interaction...lol.
ReplyDeleteYou did a great job describing your brand and I like your blog name.
Yeah, I just can't get into it. I couldn't have made the Twitter chat because of my time zone. But nevermind, there are lots of other social networks anyway. Glad you like my blog name. Thanks for stopping by!
Delete