The Top Three Tips to Become a Blog Originator and Build Your Brand Identity Online
Is blogging dead? This is the question that seems to resurface every time a micro-blogging platform gains more visibility, new features, and higher traction. To me it is like a comparison between a quick bite to eat and a great home cooked meal or an elegant dinner with fireside dining.
Sometimes I need information and conversation that is quick and fast, other times I might want to opine and banter back and forth soaking up the prose along the way and digesting an idea to let it permeate my thought patterns and hopefully create something great as a result.
....Or just be satisfied with a belly full of good conversation among people I respect.
What might just be dead, though, is the regurgitation of tired topics. As bloggers we need to create content that matters to our readers. As business bloggers we have the tools at our disposal to see what is relevant to our readers and write about new topics and old topics with a brand new bent.
Blogging for business is about establishing your brand, your presence, and your authority on a topic and owning it in your own unique way.
Blogging for business is one of the greatest tools available for real estate professionals to brand their business online.
Here are the Top Three Ways to Become a Blog Originator and Build Your Brand Identity Online
Create a theme focused blog
Create a theme for your blog and stick to it. Start tracking categories on your blog so you can be mindful of the topics you are blogging about and if those topics are staying consistent with your blog's theme or if they are starting to run off track. It's easy to meander on your blog and if you do this consistently you are shooting your brand in your foot and run the risk of losing readership and business in the process.
Need help finding a theme? Use this blogging workbook designed to help real estate professionals decide on a focus for their real estate blogs and create a strategy for blogging and micro-blogging.
Develop your Blogging Voice
The stronger the dialog, the stronger the brand; the weaker the dialog, the weaker the brand.
~ Larry Webber
Content is big business online. How do you create and maintain originality while still remaining a water fountain of information that your readers thirst for and pass on to their friends and family? The answer is to develop your blogging voice. You can do this by working on traditional writing exercises that will help tone and strengthen your blogging muscles and allow you to feel more at ease letting your personality seep through your blog prose. Here are 36 resources to create blog content that blossoms online.
Developing your writing skills will allow your blogging voice to seep through your blog posts and up the emotional value in your real estate blog posts.
Use and Protect Your Blog's Property Wisely
Once you have developed a readership and gained traction in the blogosphere for your nich
e market make sure to use and protect your blog property wisely. There are many widgets and applications designed to make blogging easier and at the same time pull your readership to those companies internet property and away from yours.
You will also find that if you make a big impact online by working your blog with dedication there will be other professionals eager to have you open up your blog to their services and products. Choose your affiliations wisely and keep your reader's needs in mind FIRST before you recommend other professionals products or services whether it be in a blog post or by an ad on your blog.
Your association by link, blog prose, widget, or ad will be attached to your brand and your name for all to see.
Consider your blog as a primary Internet storefrontto showcase your products, services, and unique selling proposition BEFORE considering outside resources for your readership.
Consider all these components of your blog as branding opportunities,
- Blog Header
- Call to Action in the Footers
- Blog Post Headlines
- Blog prose in each post
- Outbound links
- Interlinking
- Tags
- Photos
- Images
- Blog Margin/Side Bar
- Groups you join to Promote Blog Posts in a Community
- Name of Your Blog
- Blog Post Topics
- Blog Archives
- Blog Categories
- Alt Tags
Don't miss another opportunity to build your brand identity online through your blog. Use the top three tips and become a blog originator.
Subscribe to Blogging in the Rain, A Real Estate Marketing Blog
*************************************************************************
Rebecca D. Levinson is a real estate marketing consultant with 17 years of experience serving real estate industry professionals.
If you need assistance with online marketing, offline marketing, social networking, or blogging contact Rebecca D. Levinson at #262-203-5231 or email rebecca@bloggingintherain.com.
Rebecca- thanks for a timely post. as one who has becomed mired in putting words to blogs this has given me a huge jolt to the ol noggin.
Thanks so much for this very educational blog. We can all benefit from the knowledge others have and are willing to share. Thanks again.
Rebecca- thanks for this post. As a fairly new blogger, trying to wrap my arms around all that is out there is frequently overwhelming. This is incredibly helpful.
Rebecca, you're so right about content. It will separate the true bloggers from the wishers. Consistancy is the key. thanks for the post.
Keep on blogging ! It's just the right thing to do. But not before a good, steaming hot bowl of oatmeal sprinled with a little sugar and some strawberrys while the snow is beating down on the car and your car is stuck in the driveway. It just gets my fingers pounding away in blog-glory like Fred Astaire dancing !
Rebecca,
Content is King...I mean...Queen...ummm...You always say it best!
Steve
Another great post, full of information we can use. thanks, Rebecca. It's bookmarked so I can go back and review it periodically to see if I'm on target.
Thank you. Since I am new to this whole blogging world my biggest concern was unique content. I have been playing with some different ideas to help my content seem fresh. I never considered the complete package, and how the presentation is also key.
Good post and good link. I have fun blogging and collecting points but I am developing blogging themes for my client a prospects. As much as I like the AR interaction I'm not going to be listing any of AR properties.
Martha- You are welcome and I am glad to have been able to jolt any sort of blog thinking.
Margo- There is a lot of education online if you know the places to go and can get to the credible stuff.
Marcie- I am glad and know that blogging is a process....an ongoing one. Everyone gets better in time and better in time. It never ends.
Chris and Karen- You're very welcome and yes content is the key.
David- Lol, we are getting pounded with snow here today:-)
Steve- Flattery will get you everywhere, lol. Thanks.
Lottie-Thank you I am glad you found it useful.
Troy- Readers online are different from offline. Presentation is so important. Your work has to be in a format digestable to keep readers attention and to attract new readership.
Bob- Well it sounds like you have your own social media marketing plan in place. Good for you.
This is a really good post , makes you think about what yur doing ad if there is a better way. For me obviously there is. . . Thanks
Bill
A great post again.... I love your check list for content, etc. Have it bookmarked to make sure I'm on track....
This is awesome. Sticking to your niche is really the name of the game.
Rebecca,
I have not yet blogged and for that precise reason.
I can write about anything from snow to the sky, but i am trying to wrap myself around 1 or 2 concepts that not only could i write about but enjoy.
Thanks for the justification for time (not the excuse)
Don
Good Post and Very informative. I just started blogging and I am trying to get up to speed as fast as I can.
Janet
As we move through this next decade, blogging will be recast many times... It'll still be blogging, but there will be so many alternatives competing for our attention. Content will always be King/Queen ;0)
As more and more get involved online and the more big business moves into social media, we can't forget that as an author, not everyone in cyberspace will love, read, and interact with us. Yet, as any entrepreneur knows, fortune lies in the niche's... Having your own is having it your way. My guess, for whatever it's worth... blogging is publishing and it does matter. We're the modern day pamphleteers like Thomas Paine... The only difference is our citizens are bludgeoned with more information than they can comprehend, where in Tom's day, everyone walked 10 miles up hill both ways in the snow to listen to someone speak.
Thanks, good post, got me going...
Bill-I am glad that this post helped you to think about a better way. Thank you for letting me know.
Dagny- Things to be mindful of----I would always write first and edit second when it comes to content....so the list at the end is for after the post is written.
Don and Janet- The best part of blogging is that the more that you blog the more comfortable you can become and the more your voice will come through. To expect the first blog posts to be perfect pieces is expecting way too much.
Rene- Great thoughts there thank you or sharing. Yes we overload our citizens with information, but that I believe is where credibitlity, reputation, and referrals from peers(social networks) play such an important role.
Great post, and a help in keeping on track. Thank you for the resources too. You always have pertinant info and content.
Mary Jo- That's the goal. Thanks for letting me know I am on track.
Cheryl- You say the greatest things thank you. I love seeing you on my blog.
Rebecca- Thank you for sharing such great information! I am in the process of focusing on my online branding and trying to wade through building a website and blog. I have bookmarked this post so I can refer back to it and all of the great links that you have included within. Thank you again:)
Jen- I am glad you found this post useful and am happy to provide the information.
Hello Rebecca,
Wow! What an informative post! I loved all the great links and resources that you have provided. I have bookmarked this post and your other post - 36 resources to create blog content to blossom on line. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. It will be a tremendous help.
Rita
Rebecca, this is wonderful! Thank you so much for taking the time to write such an outstanding post about creating a better blog. Great tips!
Thanks Rebecca, this was alot of useful information will now go take a look at the workbook...
Rebecca,...Thank you! I will thoroughly review this post over & over again. You are truly an expert in this art and I can surely use the help. TX. =)
Rita- I'm glad you found it informative. I really cannot stress investing time on improving content. A good content based strategy wins.
Judi- Thank you for your kind words and that is what I'm supposed to be doing:)
Al and Peggy- Thank you. Any feedback you have on the workbook is appreciated.
Angela- I ALWAYS have room to grow. Thank you.