Over the course of writing this blog for the past few months, I feel I’ve learned a thing or two along the way about what it takes to make your blog, site or brand stand out from others. I thought I’d share those ideas.
Here’s 12 ways to make sure your blog, site or brand gets noticed (especially when you’re a small fish in a big pond).
1. Imagine where you want to be. Without a plan, you’ll be lost before you know it. But before creating a plan, you need to think about why you’re doing what you’re doing — and imagine where you want to be a month from now, two months from now, and a year from now.
2. Identify your target audience. Know who you want to speak to. If you don’t have a clear understanding of your audience, you won’t know what messages will resonate with that audience. Clearly spell out who will be listening to you — think of every piece you write as if you were standing up before that audience to read it — and make sure they’ll care about what you have to say.
3. Impress your audience. It’s great to understand your audience, but how do you make an impression on that audience? Be original and be honest. Don’t try to too hard to impress your audience — because nothing impresses people like simple writing with a clear message.
4. Impart a message. Have a common message behind everything you write. Whether that message is “we’re the best dry cleaner in the city” or “we know how to save you money on your company’s paper consumption”, make sure your message is always the same. The more consistent your message, the more trust you will develop among your readership.
5. Inject your brand wherever you can. Mention your blog, brand or site wherever possible — but don’t be obnoxious. While mentioning and marketing your brand is a good thing, don’t barrage people with unwanted messages or information. While it may temporarily increase the visibility of your brand, it will also tarnish it.
6. Increase your network contacts. Word of mouth is very important to creating a strong blog, site or even brand. People talk about things they like — and the more people they are talking about something, the more other people are likely going to start talking about it too. Talk to people you know about what you’re doing — if they like it, they’ll tell others.
7. Inform your audience. While creating content that entertains your audience is great, people also like to take something away from their reading. Use verifiable facts, figures and statistics to prove what you are saying, don’t just make the assumption that people will go to check these facts themselves. Convince people with the facts, not with the argument.
8. Interact with your audience. Now that you’ve informed your audience, you’ll need to respond to their questions and concerns. Don’t just make statements in your writing — ask questions as well. Asking questions will ultimately allow you to engage your readership in new ways.
9. Improve on someone else’s good idea. Always be looking around for good ideas — you’ve only got a limited amount of time and a limited amount of ideas, so sometimes you need to take others’ ideas and improve on them. Don’t steal people’s ideas or plagiarize from their sites — but do take properly attributed quotes and expand on the thoughts of others. This thought-expanding exercise also creates a sense of community and allows you to link out to other people who are writing about what you do.
10. Instigate. This is a tough one — you want to instigate enough to get people talking, but not enough that you are actually going to offend people or drive them away. But being somewhat controversial (usually by presenting a fresh, original perspective on a topic) can convince your readership that you have something unique to offer.
11. Infuse yourself into your writing. You are what makes people want to read what you write. By adding a personal touch to your writing, you are humanizing what you have to say. If you are sharing your opinion, don’t feel you have to try to write in the third person — use whatever voice and style comes naturally to you, and allows you to say what you want to say clearly and concisely.
12. Iterate. Jason Alba points out that having a scheduled frequency of communication to your readership sets expectations — and maintaining that frequency develops the trust that you have with your readers. Have a schedule of how often you communicate (whether that’s blog posts, regular emails, news items, press releases), and stick to it.
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March 6th, 2007 at 9:50 am
This is EXCELLENT – I will be referring people to this post.
It took me 3 weeks to “strategize” with myself about who I was (as a blogger), what I would write about, how often (”Keep frequency” would be a good addition to your list), etc. And then I began to write…. and I can’t stop. I’m a blog junkie :p
March 6th, 2007 at 10:36 am
Thanks Jason! Frequency of communication is an excellent point — I’ve added it in as #12 to this list.
March 6th, 2007 at 2:40 pm
I agree, this is a fantastic post Lucas! Really worthwhile!
March 6th, 2007 at 4:37 pm
Thanks Collis. I’m glad people are finding these tips useful.
March 7th, 2007 at 11:55 am
Thanks Lucas, this is awesome!
March 8th, 2007 at 4:59 pm
[...] stopped to realize how much I have learned while creating and promoting this site. I talked about defining and differentiating your site the other day, but I wanted to take a moment to both stop and reflect on the past of this site, as well as its [...]
March 12th, 2007 at 12:55 am
Interesting, Lucas! While reading and trying to summarize this, I just realized how many “I”s you’ve infused into the writing of this article!
To summarize, you’re making 4 points:
1. GOAL: Imagine
2. AUDIENCE: Identify, Inform, Impress, Interact
3. MESSAGE: Impart, Improve, Instigate, Infuse, Iterate
4. AWARENESS: Inject, Increase
And these 4 points can be remembered via the acronym GAMA!
March 12th, 2007 at 8:45 am
What an excellent way to summarize my points! And I definitely like the addition of an acronym as an easy way to remember these.
March 12th, 2007 at 11:11 am
[...] 4. Look for examples. Check out what sites, companies or brands are already out there doing something similar. They’ve probably got some great ideas that you can use (don’t steal other people’s ideas, but rather use others’ ideas to reimagine how you would do things). [...]
April 22nd, 2007 at 3:09 pm
April 23rd, 2007 at 11:37 am
You raise some great points Chris. Whether we call this ‘definition’, ‘brand building’ or whatever else, I think we’re ultimately talking about same thing. I would also argue that a good portion of this is developing trust with your readership, being consistent and knowledgeable in your opinions about various topics and having that coming across to them.
Thanks for your comment.
April 23rd, 2007 at 12:38 pm
You’re welcome, Lucas. Funny you mention trust… I wrote this article on my blog, Whether Journalist or Blogger, Honor the Trust You Have Been Given which says, “… the writer, be he a proper journalist or an improper blogger, is judged of course what he writes but also by what he does.”
June 25th, 2007 at 3:45 am
Good tips. Following of the tips will make my blog more popular.
August 1st, 2007 at 8:17 pm
Nice one.
I am going to add this in my blog now.
November 5th, 2007 at 7:59 am
Good tips and very helpfull …;)
November 9th, 2007 at 7:16 am
i think this explains and solve my problems on blogging
December 14th, 2007 at 1:32 am
wow, i’ve bookmarked this page too..very informational and helpfull post there..
March 27th, 2008 at 5:34 pm
[...] Lucas further explains a few ways that define your blog. If you are struggling with this, please check out his site. You will find some great ideas. If you have time to read only one other post about this issue, you should check out Slade’s post on defining your blog in one sentence. Good stuff! Really good stuff. [...]
July 5th, 2008 at 11:11 am
This is good quality post that I should have for a reference as I’m a small fish and still learn about SEO and blogging.
July 7th, 2008 at 8:40 pm
Thanks Halim!
July 9th, 2008 at 9:00 am
You also have to formulate a good concept for your website. What underscores a website is its theme and everything else will revolve around that.
July 10th, 2008 at 4:53 pm
You’re right Clark. Having a well-designed site with great content can’t be overlooked — and these tips merely complement those essential elements. Thanks for you comment.
October 7th, 2008 at 7:08 pm
Something else that’s extremely important is to remember that it’s ok to create some controversy, to disagree with someone, to go against the flow of traffic, so to speak, AND this will almost always generate more interest (and therefore more traffic) than following the status quo.
November 4th, 2008 at 5:52 pm
All 12 points are priceless to follow if you want people to know about you and your bussiness, ideas, thoughts…If you learn all theese by yourself it will take a while. Otherwise …there you have them… all together on the same page for you. I learned some of them on the go …the not so time efficient way .
Important is to understand them …and follow…
Cheers Lucas !
December 1st, 2008 at 2:39 pm
Really this post help me to make my site more strong with an image more fine for my audience. Look like that the most important thing is the audience. Like you write in # 7: Convince people with the facts, not with the argument. Thanks.
June 8th, 2009 at 6:48 am
One of the best ways to make your brand work is to harness what are called key differentiators from your competitors. If you are successful at this, customers will choose your products or services because your company provides something the others do not.