Blog Persona and Brand: Building Your Character Out

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4 Considerations When Deciding on Your Blog Persona

By Jan Ashby

What do you want to be known as? This is what you should consider, before carving out your blog persona. What are some of your best traits? It could be your sense of humor, your story-telling ability, your “geekiness”, or your good nature. Are you self-effacing, sarcastic, loyal to a fault? You get the idea.

Ponder at length what characteristics are your STRONG points. Then you will be able to create an outline of your blog persona blog-persona (a.k.a. Superhero)


Draw from Comic Books: Get Those Thoughts Moving!

Once you have made a list of your finest features (reliable, smart, inspiring, funny) you can look through comic books for inspiration and ideas. Keep in mind you can hire someone at Fiver to do some graphics (drawings) for you – you’ll NEED to be able to give the artist an idea of WHAT you want though. That’s why I’m mentioning this guide to help you (as well as the comic bks). 😎

I do want to make one thing clear – if you are planning to have your own business, then you would not necessarily want to use a facade or “character”. You would simply be yourself .. but you can still develop a brand for yourself, and create a caricature drawing of you.

So.. for this you can explore the best facets of your personality and put these on a list. This way, you can decide what kind of expression your persona, or blog superhero, will have. Then you might look at either making an avatar, and/or a caricature drawing that you scan into your computer (this is if you like to draw). There are also artists at fiverr.com who will draw a caricature for your

blog persona What is a Blog Superhero?

If you want to pick up a book and do the drawing to create a blog superhero, you might look at Lenn Redman’s book – it’s cheap if you buy it used.


Ways to Brand Yourself: Several Novel Ideas

Now here is a great post on how to brand yourself when you’re a new blogger. It is by Katie Konrath . The idea is basically simple – you devote some time to exploring your niche (via forums, blogs devoted to your niche, webinars, Google groups, Google discussions etc. ). After you’ve attended a webinar, be sure to jot down what you’ve learned – because you’ll turn around and make it into a blog post – that’s right, share what you’ve learned. That is part of how you can become a trusted authority, over time! 😎

You may want to develop the habit of making an outline each time you’ve learned and wish to craft an article or blog post from it. Next you’ll find a way to share something personal – this is how you become known, and injecting humor and personal stories will work to BUILD your following, and your character. Are you starting to get the picture?

You will put your own “personal spin” on what it is you learned at the Webinar or meeting (or by participating in a Google group or at a Forum). You will comment on what you liked the BEST; you might also offer some constructive criticism on how something can be improved (be unafraid).

 

Also, use what you find as a way of connecting. Katie explains it so well at her blog. Here’s an excerpt –

“When you’re spending tons of time learning about what is going on in your field, you’re probably finding some interesting stuff! So use that to advance your personal brand. Keep a database of interesting resources AND a database of people whom you want to impress with your personal brand. Make sure you keep track of what they’re interested in – and what their concerns and needs are. Then, when you see something in your research that you know they’ll find interesting, email them a link to it with a short note. This works especially well after you just met someone at a networking event, especially if you can find something relevant to the conversation you had with them.

For example, if you were talking to someone about leadership, you might send them a link to a recent TEDx talk by behavioral economist Dan Ariely about what motivates people to take action.

Katie also says that when you’re first starting out, other people aren’t expecting that you’ll be a perfect expert .. But they do LIKE to see enthusiasm, plus they appreciate when you share articles you’ve found or some Noteworthy News item. You can develop a resource list of Experts in your niche, & go find the latest news items (or share what you just learned at a recent webinar) – then email some of the news articles or posts to the experts on your List.

 

Alright, now it is time to put some thought into creating your blog superhero persona! Yea – this is the FUN part.

 

Further Reading: Draw Your Own Superheroes, Gadget Geeks Drawing Cutting Edge Anatomy Drawing Marvel Comic Characters

Content Creation Tips: Ways of Branding Yourself GRAVATARS: Personal Branding (a video) Writing in Logical Steps

 

RELATED: Blog Tactics – 6 Tips

References: http://smallbiztrends.com/2011/11/blogworld-lisa-barone-blog-persona.html (Creating a Blog Superhero)
http://www.slideshare.net/spacejockeys/blog-persona-2011-0616

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