I’ve written about brand a few times in the past and have linked to most of those posts through this one. I thought I’d revisit the ideas of what a brand is, how to build one, and why the best brands are honest representations of the businesses behind them.

What is Brand?

The best definition of brand I’ve come across is the one below from Steve McNamara of AdCracker.Com.

A brand is the sum of all feelings, thoughts and recognitions – positive and negative – that people in the target audience have about a company, a product or service.
—Steve McNamara

As good as that definition is I think we could remove the phrase about the target audience. It’s more appropriate to talk about people who know of your existence.

I’m hardly part of the target market for Rolls Royce as the price of one of their cars is greater than multiple years of my annual income, but I do have thoughts and feelings about them. While those thoughts and feelings won’t influence my purchase of a new Rolls Royce in 2010 they might influence me in 2017. They might also influence others who are currently in the target market.

You’re probably going to be more concerned with how your target market views your brand than how those outside it view your brand, but those outside your target market can still hold a view of your brand.

I’d also add that an individual can have a brand. It’s not limited to company, product, or service. In fact anything can and does have a brand. With individuals we tend to say identity instead of brand, but it amounts to the same thing.

Your brand will be different things to different people. It’s unlikely that any two people will have the exact same sum of thoughts and feelings about anything and so it’s unlikely that your brand will be exactly the same to different people. However many people will share a lot of the same thoughts and feelings about your brand and your brand will be mostly the same to individuals within different groups of people.

I own and enjoy using an iPhone. If you own and enjoy one too, we likely hold a similar view of the iPhone and Apple and the brand of each. If on the other hand you own and enjoy one of the many Android phones on the market you likely hold a different view of both the iPhone and Apple and the brand of each, though you might share similar views as other Android phone owners.

One product, one company, different brands depending on who you talk to.

Brand Reach

Brand reach is the number of people who have formed thoughts, feelings, etc about your brand. Apple’s brand reaches far and wide. Most people on the planet probably have some thoughts about them, both good and bad. You and I don’t have that same kind of reach. We still have a brand. It’s just that less people know our brand.

The reach of your brand is not your brand. They are two different, albeit related things. Fortunately most of us don’t need to have the reach of Apple to be successful. If I can get 1000 or so people to think positively about my brand as a web designer I stand a good chance of having enough freelance work to last me for years.

What I think and feel about you and your business is mostly irrelevant to what another person thinks and feels about your business. It only becomes relevant if I can exert some measure of influence over that other person. However the more people that know about you the greater the chance they begin to influence each other.

For most, your brand itself is more important than the reach of your brand. Naturally as your brand reach grows you have the potential to do business with a greater number of people and the more likely that greater number of people can exert influence over individuals about what to think of your brand.

How to Build a Brand

You start building a brand the moment another person knows of your existence. Building a brand is actually quite easy. Do business and you have a brand. What’s hard is building a brand that positively impacts your business.

You build a brand by thinking about how you want others to see your business and then being as consistent as possible in all your actions with that image you want people to hold. Anything and everything you do that someone might know about can impact your brand either positively or negatively. The more consistent those things are the stronger your brand. The more inconsistent, the weaker.

By definition human beings are imperfect and inconsistent. It’s impossible to be 100% consistent. Your goal is to be as consistent as humanly possible. Everything you do goes to brand.

• The name you choose for your business brands you
• The color palette you use on your website and other marketing materials brands you
• The copy you write brands you
• The information you tweet or share on Facebook brands you

If it has the potential to reach another human being it potentially becomes part of your brand. “It” doesn’t have to originate on your site or come from you. Information your customers share with each other about you influences your brand. Information shared anywhere about you influences your brand.

The more details people know about you the less any one detail impacts your brand, however some things will always carry more weight in relation to your brand than others.

The greater the consequences (positive or negative) of any action the greater the impact the action has on your brand. The more people know of any detail about you, the greater the impact that detail has on your brand. Some ideas (true or false) become so ingrained about you that it can be hard to change people’s minds.

Your brand should guide every decision you make about and for your business. If you want people to think of your business as friendly and welcoming you can’t snap at people on public forums and social sites. Otherwise it sends an inconsistent message about your brand. What you do will inevitably have a much greater impact on your brand than what you say about your brand.

The Best Brands are Honest Brands

By honest I mean your brand will work best when it’s a reflection of who you and your business actually are. To illustrate I’ll share a branding mistake I made early on in my business.

When I first opened for business I thought I needed to appear larger than I am. I thought I would be more successful if I could convince others my business was more than just me. My copy referred to my business by company name or we, never I or me. My brand carried a more corporate image. It’s a mistake I think many new businesses make.

I did generate leads from companies looking to work with a multi-employee corporate businesses. The brand I put forth attracted a certain type of client rather well. The problem was it was difficult to turn those leads into clients. Talk to me for a few minutes or send a few emails back and forth and you’ll quickly find I’m about as far from corporate as one could possibly be.

People did contact me based on a brand image I created, but they were looking for that brand image and not for my business.

When I later redesigned the site it was in large part to rebrand myself as who I actually am. I still generate leads, but now those leads are looking to hire someone who’s a lot more like the real me. I’m able to close sales much better now. There’s no disconnect between the image of my brand and the reality of my brand.

You can create any brand image you want for awhile. Just do things consistent with what that image would do. Sooner or later though, people will have to interact with you and your business and the reality of who you are and what your business is. If the image misrepresents reality it will damage your brand. If the image represents reality well it will strengthen your brand.

That’s not to say your brand needs to be a 100% perfect representation of you, but the closer your brand is to the truth the better.

Your actions will always carry more weight than your words.

Your Brand Influences Everything

Your brand creates a context in which everything else is seen. Your brand frames what people subsequently take in and think about your business.

Imagine the first time a customer contacts you they’re treated well. Their questions are answered quickly. You solve whatever problem they had that initiated the contact. That person will walk away with a positive experience and a positive association with your brand, particularly in regards to your customer service.

Now imagine that same customer contacts you again with a different problem. This second contact doesn’t go as smoothly. You don’t answer their questions or solve their problem. They leave with a less positive experience or more likely a negative experience.

What do you think their sum total of impressions about your brand will be? How do you think they’ll expect the next contact to go?

In the scenario above the person will more likely be left with a net positive view of your brand and customer service. The first contact established the brand and second was probably seen as the exception rather than the rule. The initial brand image formed by the first call influenced the second.

If you reverse the order in the scenario above the person more likely walks away from the second contact with a net negative view or a net positive less than in the first scenario.

Again the first impression influences the second. The first in this case built a negative brand image. The second contact is now likely seen as the exception. In fact the second contact probably wouldn’t go as smoothly as it might as the person would probably initiate it reluctantly based on the first contact. You would have to do more to win that person over than had they never called the first time.

Everything someone knows about you influences what they subsequently learn. Your brand will set the context for everything.

Take the American automobile industry. For a long time the best cars were American. American cars sold very well. Then they stopped making the best cars. For awhile they still sold better than cars made elsewhere, because part of their brand was making the best cars. In time people realized the inconsistency and changed their brand image of American automobiles.

Better cars were seen coming from Japan and the sale of American cars began to suffer. Fast forward to today and Americans make really good cars again. Many people don’t realize it though. The brand is no longer the best cars in the world. In many people’s minds a car made in Japan is still better than one made in America.

To be honest I have no idea who actually makes the better car today, but it’s really not the point. The point is that for a time a positive brand helped American automobile makers sell a lot more cars than they probably deserved to sell. More recently a negative brand has led to far less sales than American automobile makers probably deserved to sell.

In both cases sales were influenced by a brand image.

Brand influences everything. It can make you walk away from a poor customer service call with a positive feeling and it can sell or not sell cars despite the reality of how well or poorly those cars are made.

Brand and Logo

Your logo is not your brand. It’s a symbol that represents your brand. It can certainly affect your brand much like everything affects your brand, but it isn’t your brand.

Logos are meant to make you instantly think of the brand. Because of their association with your brand they communicate a lot. It’s more important to make sure your logo is consistent with your brand than most other things, but it’s still not your brand.

It can take a lot of work to get others to instantly associate your logo with your brand, especially when your logo doesn’t spell out your company name. If you manage to make this association you have a very powerful symbol that can communicate a lot and quickly.

Most of us won’t ever get there. For proof think of some of the blogs you read regularly. Now picture their logo.

How many could you honestly recall? Some I imagine, but I’d bet not a lot. I know I can’t picture many, and where I can it’s more a vague or incomplete picture. You likely remember the names of the blogs you read more than the logos.

Now picture the logos of Apple, Nike, and IBM. My guess is you could quickly picture all three.

In either case above whether or not you could picture the logo, you likely had some thoughts and feelings about the company or blogger. They all have a brand to you regardless of whether or not you remember the logo. The companies who’d logos you remember can slap it on a new product and you’ll instantly have thoughts and feelings about that product. The companies who’s logos you don’t remember can’t do this.

Your logo is not your brand, but when the two are strongly associated with each other your logo can communicate your brand instantly and effectively.

Summary

Your most valuable asset is your brand. If you’re about to start a business you should think a lot about what you want your brand to be. Your brand should be based on what your business is in reality. You should make sure all of your actions are as consistent with your brand as possible.

If you have a business think about your brand and whether or not it’s helping or hurting your business. Think about how consistent you (and your employees) are representing your brand and how well your brand is representing you. It’s possible that tweaking or completely redoing your brand will help your business grow.

Listen to what your clients and customers say about your brand. Is it the same thing you would say about it?

If your brand is strong and is seen positively by your clients and customers think very hard before you do anything to change your brand significantly. If what your clients and customers are saying about your brand is different than what you say about it ask yourself where the disconnect is and look to remove that disconnect.

Do you know what your brand is? Do you have a strong idea of the message and image you want it to convey? Do you know how your clients and customers and those outside your target market view your brand? Do they see it the same way you do?

• If you take a close look at a website, can you describe its personality?
• Is it cold or warm and welcoming?
• Is it written for a male audience or a female audience or a general audience?
• Does it speak to a younger crowd, or an older group?
• Does it ask for something of value without providing anything in return?
• Is it more like a peer talking to you directly, or like a parent lecturing you?

There are more questions in the post, which I’ll let you read for yourself.

Some might say a website is a thing and doesn’t really have a personality. I’d disagree if they did. I was very conscious when I rewrote the copy as part of the redesign of this site, to have it convey my personality. I doubt I did that perfectly, but I did try to inject more of myself into the site, since several of my clients commented to me that my personality is one of the reasons they hired me and stick with me.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that I’ve gained more leads and closed on more projects since I did.

By giving your site a personality you can communicate a lot more than just what the words say. You can also communicate those things more effectively. If you tell me you’re funny it will carry less weight than if you make me laugh. If you say you’re friendly it won’t mean as much as if you were to welcome me warmly.

Giving your site personality calls forth the advice “show, don’t tell” and if you can show your visitors your personality and the personality of your business you’ll be able to communicate thoughts, ideas, and emotions, that words along can’t.

Personality and Brand

photo credit: juhansonin

‘Show, don’t tell” comes into play with your business’ brand as well. A company that tells you it’s environmentally conscious while it dumps waste in the river behind its factory damages their brand and the message they want to convey.

The company that silently uses recycled materials in all it’s products and reduces waste along its entire supply line promotes their brand as environmentally friendly.

Each of the above companies has a personality that shows in its actions, not in its words. Show, don’t tell.

Your website is the same. The words you use are important, no question, but it’s the actions on your site that get across your personality and further a consistent brand.

• Does your site work the way it’s supposed to? Has it been developed well? If not, is there any reason your visitors should think your products and services will deliver what you claim?
• Is your site trustworthy? Is your copy an accurate representation of you and your business? If not, is there any reason to think your customers should trust you?
• Is your site easy to navigate? Is it obvious where to go next and simple to find things? If not, is there any reason for your clients to think you’ll be easy to reach when they have a question?

Don’t just tell people about your company, your services, and your products. Show them, by giving your site a personality that reflects who you are and represents your brand. Let that personalty show through in the actions you take in designing and developing your site. Choose appropriate colors and create copy that conveys emotions that further your message.

Does your website have a personality? What is it? Does it reinforce your brand? What personality do you think this site puts forth? Does the site seem consistent with my brand?

You never get a second chance at a first impression

I’ve never cared for the above quote. The implication is that you get one and only one chance at success and that’s hardly true. Your first impression is the most important impression only until you make your second impression, which is the most important until you make your third. As Seth Godin pointed out a few weeks ago, it’s your last impression that matters most. I agree your last impression counts more, but I think there’s more to how the impressions you leave affect you and your brand.

Remember your brand is the sum of all associations, both positive and negative about you, your company, your products and services, etc. The first impression you leave is part of that sum, as is the last impression. Either can be a positive or negative association, but the sum isn’t necessarily a one to one addition.

Every impression is weighted through:

• The intensity of the impression
• The recency of the impression
• How ingrained the impression has become
• Our perceptions based on previous impressions
• What others have told us about their impressions

Intensity, Impression, and Brand

Imagine a simple scenario. You buy a product and are generally very happy with it. Later you discover it doesn’t do one small thing you hoped it might. Your general happiness creates a positive association and your discovery about what the product can’t do creates a negative association, but probably not of the same intensity as your general happiness.

If we could assign an arbitrary number to your associations you might have a positive 10 and a negative 3 leaving you with an overall positive 7 for a sum. In this scenario you’d still be left with a positive brand association even though your last impression was a negative one.

Tweak the scenario a bit and maybe the feature the product didn’t have turned out to be the one feature you for which you specifically bought the product. In that case your negative association would certainly outweigh your positive association leaving you with a negative sum in regards to the product brand. There’s more to the story than when in the sequence an impression was made on you.

Different impressions clearly come with different intensities and each thus needs to be weighted in the overall sum.

I started this post with a familiar quote and then said I didn’t care for the quote. The absence of any mention about intensity causes me not to care for it. I’ve always thought if your first impression was so unmemorable that it didn’t really leave an impression then you do indeed get a second chance at a first impression. The intensity of the impression is important

Time, Impression, and Brand

When an impression occurs should also get weighted. Something that happened yesterday is probably more important to you than something that happened several years ago. It’s this timed weighting that lends credence to the idea that the last impression is more important than the first. But again if the intensity of the first impression was so great it could easily outweigh the last impression.

Your brand again is the sum of all these impressions. Time does enter into the equation. More recent impressions are weighted more heavily than older ones. What have you done for me lately often rules the day? However impressions from long ago are harder to change and a series of either positive impressions or negative impressions become that much more difficult to change at a later time.

If you have a bad encounter with technical support during a phone call and your next call a few days later is a positive encounter it’s probably enough to change the original impression. If the first call took place far enough in the past and has ingrained upon you the opinion that the company has terrible tech support one good call will probably not be enough to change your overall opinion.

The intensity of an impression can either increase or decrease with the passage of time and the change could have very little to do with the actual events.

Ideally you’d always leave a positive impression on everyone during every encounter they have with you or your company. Of course, that’s not realistic. You can’t please all the people all the time.

None of us is perfect. If you tell me you are perfect then I’ll know you’re lying which brings you back to imperfectdom along with the rest of us. We all make mistakes and we all will continue to make mistakes. It’s part of being human. When you do leave a negative impression it’s in your best interest to do what you can to lessen it’s intensity right away. The longer you wait the less chance you have to change the impression.

Perception, Impressions, and Brand

First impressions are important. They set the tone for how the next impression will be viewed. Our perceptions always go into the equation. If I view your brand in a negative light your next positive impression won’t weigh on me as much as it will on someone who already views your brand positively.

Each impression you leave affects how future impressions will be be received. We can easily dismiss what we perceive as an aberration. If your view of a brand is generally positive one bad impression isn’t going to change your view. If your view of a brand is generally negative one good impression isn’t going to change your view either.

In either case you might dismiss the most recent impression due to your long held perceptions about the brand.

What all of the above should leave you with is the idea that each and every impression is important. Some will carry more weight than others and some will grow or fade over time. No one impression though, becomes the sum of associations about your brand. Each, however, can impact your brand and how it’s perceived.

Regardless of age, regardless of position, regardless of the business we happen to be in, all of us need to understand the importance of branding.
–Tom Peters

There is no better marketing strategy than branding. If you can build a strong brand people will search specifically for you when they are looking to buy what you offer. Your new products will launch with the trust and credibility your brand has acquired over time. A lack of trust is one of the biggest barriers to selling online. Brand establishes that trust instantly.

Do you understand the importance of brand?

• Do you buy Kleenex or tissues?
• Do you Google or search?
• Do you Xerox of make a copy?
• Do you use a Band-Aid or an adhesive bandage?
• Do you use Scotch Tape or cellophane tape?
• Do you FedEx or do you send a package?
• Do you eat Jell-O or gelatin?
• Do you play Ping-Pong or table tennis?
• Do you use Chapstick or lip balm?
• Do you use a Frisbee or a sports disc?
• Do you use Windex or glass and window cleaner?
• Do you use Vaseline or petroleum jelly?
• Do you ask for a Coke or a cola?
• Do you relax in the Jacuzzi or the hot tub?
• Do you use a Jet-Ski or a personal watercraft?
• Do you write on a Post-It-Note or a piece of paper with adhesive on the back?
• Do you clean your ears with a Q-tip or a cotton swap?
• Do you cook in a Crock-Pot or an electric slow cooker?
• Do you TiVo or use your digital video recorder?
• Do you use Saran Wrap or plastic wrap?

Do you understand the importance of brand yet?

Will you be as well known as some of the brands above? Maybe not, but every action you take makes a statement about you and you don’t need as much money as you think to build a brand. Money will help you extend your reach, but if you understand who you’re trying to reach you can save money by limiting your marketing to those people.

Look over the list above or at some of the brands listed here. Do you think they profit by being associated as the product instead of just one of the many who make the product? Do you understand the importance of brand?

If you are at all familiar with The Van Blog, you will know that Steven has many insights into branding. The opening paragraph of his recent blog 4 Simple Ways to Grow Your Brand echoes one of the first things he said to me about branding:

“You are your brand. Your brand is you. Wherever your go, there is your brand. Every action you take, every word you speak, every impression you leave, affects how others view your brand.”

I look for real world examples to help me better understand new concepts – even those as straight forward as Steven’s .

For whatever reason, the first thing that came to mind was the negative feeling I had when I heard that Nike knowingly used sweatshop labor (I sometimes feel alone in that reaction when I see the plethora of swoosh-clad athletes and celebrities.) Some of you may be more familiar with the recent images of young children being led from a factory that produces clothing for The Gap. Steven talks more about personal brands than these global icons, but I think the concept still applies. Even the big fish need to be concerned about how every action they take reflects upon their brand.

In looking at personal brands, I should engage you, the reader, but critiquing other brands might cost me readers. So let’s look at my brand, such that it is. While Steven’s blog touches on developing your online profile and forging links, I think the concept easily applies to smaller, seemingly mundane actions. Among other things, I write weekly blog entries for the Invesp Blog. When asked for a photo to go with the blog, I didn’t think too much about it and sent the first decent shot I found – one of me wearing a tie. I wish I had the branding conversation with Steven before I submitted the photo. The image does not fit with my brand. Even when it was shot a couple years ago, I didn’t wear ties and only did so in the photo to make readers think our company was larger and more corporate than it was – so the tie suited the company’s brand, but not mine. In the blogosphere, that photo might as well be my logo and it should better reflect my brand. (I might keep the tie shot, if only to stand out in the sea of tee-shirts and turtlenecks I see in other blogger’s photos!)

Steven’s blog talks about building strong profiles on social media. He refers mainly to sites like Digg, StumbleUpon and Technorati. While most of us probably do not consider YouTube in the same vein as Digg, I’m a bit of a YT addict and, since I began thinking about Steven’s concepts, I’ve become fascinated by some of the personal brands there. In light of the idea that “you are your brand”, I’m even more fascinated by the major personal brands that can’t seem to get traction on YouTube. Oprah recently launched a YT channel to the general disdain of the tuberati. P. Diddy has 68 subscribers (my son’s Lego animation channel has 125) and, while Paris Hilton has over 16,000, hundreds of others, who are entirely ordinary citizens outside of YouTube, eclipse that number. Conversely, an Avril Lavigne video is the second most watched ever on YT. What is it about the Paris, Puffy and Oprah brands that cause friction on YT, while Avril flourishes?

I’m right into this personal branding thing now!!

Thanks, Steven, for a valuable lesson learned and the privilege of writing a guest post for The Van Blog.

“Even the knowledge of my own fallibility cannot keep me from making mistakes. Only when I fall do I get up again. ”
–Vincent Van Gogh

With all the talk I’ve been doing lately about branding you’d think my own branding strategy was perfect. Not so. I thought I’d poke fun at myself and tell you about a branding error I make, especially since it’s a common one you might make as well.

In a comment on my last post, 4 Simple Ways to Grow Your Brand, Dr. Pete said

Steven: I’m a bit slow on the uptake and just put 2 and 2 together (well, 3 and 7, actually); you’re “vangogh99″ from SEOmoz aren’t you?

Dr. Pete really isn’t slow. The truth is I’ve made a fairly common error in branding. I’m Steven Bradley here and vangogh99 at SEOmoz and vangogh at Webmaster-Talk. I may be any one of the three depending on where you encounter me.

I know all three are me, but is there any reason to expect that someone who sees vangogh also realizes he’s the same person as Steven Bradley? (did I just talk about myself int he third person? Remind me never to do that again.). Add in a company name that uses none of my alter egos and it’s enough to even lose me sometimes. A better much approach from the perspective of branding and mindshare would have been to use the same name in all places where I maintain a public persona.

Something tells me I’m not alone given all the unusual names I come across in social circles online.

We’re all dividing our branding efforts. vangogh has mindshare in forums. vangogh99 has mindshare on social media sites. Steven Bradley has mindshare here and in comments around the blogoshpere. How much would I have if I used the same name everywhere? (I did it again. I talked about myself in the third person. You were supposed to remind me not to.)

Unifying Divergent Brands

All is not lost. It’s extra work, but all those different names can be brought together. If you ever notice the author credit I use here you’ll notice the (aka vangogh) after my name. It was an early attempt to bring two of my personas together. The unification could certainly be more effective.

Notice too the Van Gogh self portrait at the top of this post. That image has traveled with me as an avatar wherever the usernames vangogh or vangogh99 happen to be. Adding the image next to my name as post author would be a more effective way to bring the names together here.

A little over a month ago I mentioned using MyBlogLog as a branding tool. Because the vangogh avatar is the one I use on MyBlogLog and because there are blogs that will display your MyBlogLog avatar next to your comments, it can also help unite the different names I use online.

I could go further by leaving blog comments as Steven Bradley (vangogh) instead of Steven Bradley.

When someone sees one of the names the task is to make them think of the others and to do that I need to either present them together or as often as possible to present them in combination with something that remains consistent such as the avatar. If I do it all well enough one day you might visit a museum, see a Vincent Van Gogh painting and think of me. Now that would be mindshare, though I don’t expect to ever compete with one of the most famous artists who ever lived.

The Power of a Logo in Branding

Most people see a logo as the brand. A logo is a symbol representing a brand, but it is not the brand. You brand is the sum of associations, both good and bad, that someone has about you. A good logo can quickly recall those associations without mention of your name. That’s the power of a logo in branding. Create a unique and distinctive logo and display it next to your name enough times and it will become a visual cue to your brand.

The example I commonly use is Nike and the swoosh. A couple of years ago I noticed Nike hardly if ever used their name in a commercial. A typical Nike commercial simply displays the swoosh at the end. We’ve all seen it so many times that it’s enough to tell us who’s behind the commercial. The Nike swoosh is a very powerful abstract brush stroke. Think of how much is communicated anytime you see it.

The ideal way to tie together your different usernames is through your logo since it also ties you into your site and business, but to a lesser degree any consistent icon can work. For me the Van Gogh avatar is probably fine. It might even help to ride the back of Van Gogh the artist since the man and the image are already familiar to many. It’s possible that associations you have about Van Gogh the artist get transferred to me through the self portrait image.

How many different ways can you be identified online? Do you have a way to bring those names together? Does a consistent cue to your brand travel with you online?

“If you have made mistakes, there is always another chance for you. You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing we call ‘failure’ is not the falling down, but the staying down.”
Mary Pickford

“No matter where you go, there you are.”
– unknown

You are your brand. Your brand is you. Wherever your go, there is your brand. Every action you take, every word you speak, every impression you leave, affects how others view your brand.

Last week I wrote a post about brand building through social media. The post in many ways was a follow up to a post written a few weeks earlier that asked can you be found where people are looking. The running theme of both posts was to expand your sphere of influence. Instead of seeing the goal as bringing the web to you see it as giving yourself to the web and being able to influence people beyond your small corner.

Guest Blogging

Yesterday I asked if anyone would like to guest blog here while I’m on vacation. I offered as an incentive the idea that you could reach a new audience. Two of the blogs I now read daily might never have come to my attention had their authors not blogged elsewhere.

I first encountered Chris Garrett through a post he wrote for Coppyblogger. A few days later and another post. A week after that it was a post on ProBlogger. Or maybe it was a post on BloggingTips? Codswallop? I don’t remember the sequence, but I do know Chris’ own blog was the last place I read his work. By then I was already sold.

Skellie is quickly becoming one of my favorite bloggers. I think in Skellie’s case the first post I read was at ProBlogger. Shortly after I noticed her writing for DailyBlogTips. As with Chris the last place I read Skellie’s posts were on her own blog. And again like Chris I was already sold by the time I arrived.

In both cases a blog post gained my attention and a mental note of the author’s name was made. Neither time did I click immediately back to their sites. But I did become more familiar with names that I then started to notice on other blogs. Second and third posts also caught my attention and in time I did click on a link. Now Chris and Skellie both have a loyal reader.

They each could have used the original post I read on their own site. The content likely would have drawn many links and improved search visibility. But myself and others still might not have found that content or the authors. By pushing their content to another site two authors gained subscribers.

Blog Commenting

Caroline Middlebrook wrote a couple of posts in the last week about blog commenting. In the first she looked at her stats for the month of October. One observation of the month’s stats were 673 visitors through other blogs. The traffic is a mix of links and comments.

In the second post Caroline sets out a blog commenting strategy and among other things has this to say about developing her brand.

My brand is my name, and I suppose my picture. The way to reinforce my brand is simply to be everywhere! That way, people start to recognise the name and human curiosity may eventually result in a click through.

and

But, and this is a big but – I will not post trash…

When you comment on blogs you have an opportunity to place your brand in front of an audience that might not be familiar with you. See each comment as an opportunity to further build your brand. By leaving comments that are well thought out you create positive associations and human curiosity does eventually lead to a click and a visit.

Forums and Other Social Communities

Social communities have long been a way to market yourself and network with like minded people. Forums have always had the ability to drive traffic to a website, but they have much more impact as a brand builder.

Before I ever joined a forum I read a lot of them to learn from the wisdom of others. I remembered the names of the people who I learned from the most. One name I used to see a lot was Randfish. The name itself is memorable, but more so was the advice the name left behind. I had no clue who this Randfish was, but time and time again I would learn something from him on one forum or another.

Eventually I found my way to SEOmoz and have been reading ever since. I’ve read every post on the site during the last two years, but I might not have read any had I not seen the name Rand Fishkin as the author of that first post and made the connection with Randfish the forum member.

Through active participation on webmaster and seo forums Rand convinced me to read one blog post he wrote months later. Randfish created a positive association with the brand SEOmoz long before I’d ever heard the name.

Most of my clients found me by first coming across something I’s written on a public forum. It wasn’t anything here that convinced them to contact me. It was content I left on another site that got them to email or pick up the phone. They called because instead of trying to bring them to me, I positioned my brand where they were looking.

Social Media

The common view of social media marketing is to see it as a way to build a lot of links quickly. It’s a valid way to see sites like Digg and Reddit as a marketing vehicle. Maki recently discussed the importance of social media marketing in this context.

If you read through Maki’s posts on DoshDosh you’ll notice his approach to gaining those links is by building a strong profiles and creating a brand on the sites. You’d be hard pressed to spend time with social media and not come across content Maki submitted. The content is good and adds value to the community. I find myself adding Maki as a friend often so I can see what he’s submitting. Maki has pointed me to posts and blogs I’ve enjoyed and I trust he will continue to do so.

I admit to being aware of DoshDosh prior to finding any of Maki’s social media profiles, but those profiles further the trust I have in Maki and help reinforce the brand. if Maki released an ebook tomorrow there’s a good chance I’d be lining up to buy it because past encounters have left me with a positive association.

Compare that to the idea of exchanging diggs or stumbles to attract attention to ordinary or less than ordinary content. Compare it to the person who’s submissions consist of their own content 95% of the time. The submissions become suspect. I won’t visit them. I won’t add the person as a friend and they hold no influence over me.

The submission might bring in some quick traffic, but the traffic is fleeting since it’s unlikely to be voted up by anyone else. The self-submitting exchanger, might still gain my recognition, but if I commit the name to memory it’s as a reminder to stay away in the future. The associations with your brand go both ways.

Building Your Brand

Branding has two components

• Associations – both good and bad
• Reach of the above associations

You can build both components of your brand by allowing it to travel beyond the confines of your site. Represent your brand in a way that creates positive associations in as many places as possible and you will find more people visiting your site. Give your content to others, add value to blogs with intelligent comments, become an active participant in social communities like forums, and build strong social media profiles and people will gain familiarity with your brand and they will begin to seek you out instead of you having to pull them in.

“One’s destination is never a place but rather a new way of looking at things.”
– Henry Miller

The idea for TrustPlus was born out of the frustration of buyers and sellers who have created reputation on one site and want to take that reputation to all the places they buy and sell online.

You’ll be able to view reputations through the TrustPlus plugin or alternatively look someone up at the site. When rating someone you’ll have the option of who you want to share the rating with among your inner circle, family and friends, acquaintances, or the general public. You’ll also be able to share the type of interaction you had, leave a comment, or tag the rating.

The TrustPlus Reputation Engine connects people with their friends, their friends’ friends, and so on, creating direct and indirect connections between every person on the Web. Users create a TrustCircle of those they trust the most, forming personalized foundations for the TrustPlus Reputation Engine.

Sites that have already signed on include:

• eBay
• Craigslist
• Backpage.com
• LinkedIn
• Facebook
• MySpace

Mashable correctly points out that these reputations could end up being quite biased. Like most social voting systems TrustPlus is going to be open to spam as users try to up their reputation through any means if they think it will lead to more money in their pockets.

Mashable also points out that the service provides the most value to monetary transactions and dating sites, though I think the value can be easily extended should TrustPlus gain traction.

One thing web 2.0 has shown is that many of us like to vote. We vote on stories and images and we vote on people. TrustPlus aims to extend the people and reputation voting horizontally, across sites and communities, instead of only vertically within them.

Trust is important in all relationships, more so online when some usual measures of trust that come with face to face interactions aren’t present. TrustPlus may be one way to take the reputation you’ve earned in one community to another and it may help you build a larger reputation and brand by compiling the trust you earn on many sites in one central location.

Will you be building your TrustPlus scores in a year as part of your reputation management strategy? Will you have the plugin or make TrustPlus your first stop when debating if you should engage in some transaction? Hard to say, but the idea seems like a good one. It comes across as a logical next step in social interaction online, but it remains to be seen how well the implementation will work and how many people will adopt it.

In the words of chief executive Shawn Broderick in the AP story

“I won’t claim we have everything sorted out, because we don’t,” Broderick said. “We’re learning as we go.”

Social Media Extension

Along somewhat related lines 97th Floor has released a Firefox extension that will allow you to build stronger profiles across social media sites. The social media extension lets you see where a story has been submitted and where it hasn’t so you can be the first to submit it.

If a story is going popular on Digg there’s a good chance it will go popular on del.icio.us. By submitting a story that makes the front page of a social site you build your profile and help future content you submit go popular as well.

Alternately you can use the extension to keep track of the success of lack of success of your own content across socially driven sites.

A brand for a company is like a reputation for a person. You earn reputation by trying to do hard things well.
–Jeff Bezos

Whether you realize it or not everything you do goes toward building a brand. It might be your personal brand, your brand as a blogger, or your corporate brand, but every action you take and every word you say impacts your brand to someone. For a few weeks I’ve been participating in a discussion about branding for small business. Too many individuals and small business owners think brand is something that’s out of their reach, that it costs too much, and that it’s only for big business. Wrong. Everything you do goes toward building your brand and you need to be conscious of how the things you do will reflect on your brand.

What Is Brand?

What do you think about when you hear the name Pepsi? How do you feel about the New York Yankees? What associations does Microsoft bring to mind?

The thoughts, images, and feelings you had to each of the above are about brand.

“A brand is the sum of all feelings, thoughts and recognitions – positive and negative – that people in the target audience have about a company, a product or service.”
Steve McNamara, AdCracker.Com

The swoosh is not Nike’s brand. It’s their logo. Nike has done such a good job getting that swoosh in front of us that it immediately calls to mind their brand, but that swoosh is not their brand. Nike could have chosen a circle as it’s logo and they would still have essentially the same brand. I say essentially since your logo does affect your branding the same as everything else you do, but a different logo for Nike would not change the sum of associations you have about the company.

The Wikipedia definition of brand begins with

A brand includes a name, logo, slogan, and/or design scheme associated with a product or service.

The most important word in the above quote is includes. Logo, slogan, and design all affect how your brand is perceived, but none of them are your brand. As an aside did I really just link to the Wikipedia? To me their brand is about shallow information and an undeserved authority. But sometimes shallow is enough to make your point.

Ze Frank put out a great video awhile ago talking about brand and why Grandma Moses has a stronger brand than your grandma who has a stronger brand than old person.

Reach is a component of branding, but reach itself is not brand. Reach is how many people are aware of your brand. It’s how far your brand has spread. It’s an important part of brand building. A greater reach usually means a stronger brand, but reach is not brand. Brand is a sum of associations about your company.

Why Is Brand Important?

One of my favorite actors is John Cusack. Most every time I’ve seen him in a movie I thought his performance was good. I’ve generally liked the movies he’s chosen to do. When I think of the sum of associations I have about John Cusack that sum includes an enjoyable movie going experience. Because of the way I perceive his brand I’m likely to see a movie if John Cusack has a role, particularly if he has a lead role. My past associations lead me to believe my future experience watching a John Cusack movie will be positive.

Brand builds trust. When someone has a positive experience with your company they are likely to come back again. As more of those positive experiences happen your brand gains trust in the mind of your customers. It becomes much easier to sell them on your next product or service when they trust your brand. They’ve learned from their interactions with you that something good will come of that interaction. The barrier to trust has been removed.

Why do some people ask for Coke and others ask for Pepsi? They’ve come to trust those brands. Given the choice they will inevitable choose the same one time and again.

You still need to deliver on your brand to keep those associations in the mind of your customers. The American auto industry at one time produced some of the best cars in the world (at leas in the opinion of Americans). They knew most people in America would buy American when it came to purchasing a car. The big three relied too much on their reputation at the same time that Japanese automakers began building better and better cars. The American auto industry let their brand slip by relying on the past, while the Japanese auto industry built their brand by consistently delivering a better product.

The result is a lot of Japanese cars on American roads today and many Americans who now think that Japan builds better automobiles than the United States. American cars have improved again over the years, but their brand has yet to catch up.

How Can A Small Business Or Blogger Build Their Brand?

I mentioned reach as one component of brand. Unfortunately I think many people see reach as brand to the extent that the only way to brand yourself is to get your name in front of everyone. Clearly that’s not easy to do and the more reach you want the more it’s going to cost. But again reach isn’t brand. It’s part of building a strong brand, but it isn’t brand.

You and I probably don’t have the money to grow a brand that reaches as far and wide as Nike or Microsoft. I know I don’t. But that doesn’t mean we can’t build our brand. We build them by focusing on the associations people will form about us.

The first step is taking a look inward and deciding what your brand is and what you want it to be. I’m not a corporate person. If you see me in a suit or tie I must be at a wedding or a funeral. While I could attempt to brand myself as the champion of fortune 500 companies that wouldn’t really fit with who I am. The best brands are honest. If you like the corporate environment then by all means brand yourself that way. For me it makes more sense to brand myself differently.

Once you’ve honestly identified what your brand will be you want to do everything you can to consistently give that message to people. The consistency is key. If you want to be seen as easily approachable then using corporate blue in all your marketing doesn’t make sense. If you want people to associate your company with quality then you shouldn’t be competing on price. You start to build a stronger brand by being in harmony with yourself.

From your choice of a company or domain name to how you talk about other people every decision you make affects how people view your brand.

“Consumers build an image [of a brand] as birds build nests. From the scraps and straws they chance upon.”
–Jeremy Bullmore

Anytime, no matter how seemingly small, you do something in public, people will form opinions of you and make associations with your brand. Everything you do affects your brand. That’s why consistency is important. Consistency reinforces your brand. Conflicting messages tear it down.

As a blogger every post you write is a branding opportunity. Your blogging voice becomes a large component of your brand. Do you give good advice? Do you have something interesting to say? Do you point your readers to quality information? Do you only link to any information on your site? All affect how your readers will see you and how they see your brand.

Attacking another blogger or an entire industry is one hook you might try when creating linkbait. Your attack might bring links, but it also says a lot about you. Your attack linkbait will likely reflect negatively on you. Your resource linkbait will create positive associations. Both can generate links, but one also builds your brand.

Ultimately what you are looking to do when building your brand is consistently build a positive experience that results in a positive response.

How Far Does Your Brand Have To Reach?

Reach is absolutely a component of brand building. Again your reach is not your brand, but it is a part of brand building. How much reach do you really need? I don’t ever expect to have a reach as big as Google. I’m pretty sure in 10 years many more people will be familiar with Google’s brand than they will be with mine. Fortunately I don’t need as many people to know my brand as Google does to be successful. Neither do you.

A brand is a set of differentiating promises that link a product to its customers.”
–Stuart Agres

Think of brand the way you would think of niche marketing. Not everyone is going to buy your products and services. Not everyone is a potential customer How important is it to get your brand in front of the people who will never make a purchase? Google as a general search engine wants to reach as many people as possible. Kayak as a travel search engine wants to reach people who travel. Still a lot of people, but less than everyone.

Another way to think about it is the way you would consider going after long tail keyword phrases until you’ve built up the authority to rank for more competitive keywords. Reach as far as reasonably can. You’ll pick up business within your reach and as you do you’ll be able to reinvest your profit into expanding your reach.

Until your brand is able to impart positive associations on people does it really make much sense trying to get your brand in front of everyone?

Those of us with less money aren’t going to be known as well as big companies that can afford to spend millions to get their name in front of everyone. That’s obvious. But what we can do is build our brands with the people most likely to ask about our services, buy our products, or subscribe to our blogs. If you build a strong brand for a smaller group at first you will make sales and develop loyal customers and repeat visitors and you’ll be able to reinvest what you earn into increasing the reach of your brand.

Improve your conversion rate (brand trust) before worrying about building more more traffic (reach).

You don’t need money to build a brand out of the gate. You need a consistent message that leaves a positive impression. Do that successfully and in time you will be able to grow the reach and strength of your brand.

“An image is not simply a trademark, a design, a slogan or an easily remembered picture. It is a studiously crafted personality profile of an individual, institution, corporation, product or service.”
–Daniel J. Boorstin

“A brand is the sum of all feelings, thoughts and recognitions – positive and negative – that people in the target audience have about a company, a product or service.”
Steve McNamara, AdCracker.Com

I think there’s a misconception that it takes a lot of money to build a brand. Chris Garret has a series of posts about branding your blog, which he continues to add to and I encourage you to read. (Chris how about a dedicated page where we can find links to all the posts in the series?) Today’s post, Your Successful Brand reminded me of some conversations I’ve had with people who assumed that only rich companies could build a brand. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Whether you realize it or not you’re building your brand with every action you take. You build it with the quality of your products and services, you build it with the way you treat your customers and clients, and you build it with every communication you have. Read the quote at the top of this post again and also read the one at the bottom. People are forming thoughts and feelings about you every time they interact with you. The way you handle those interactions leads to a collection of perceptions about you, your business, and your products and services.

As Chris mentions in his post

A successful brand comes in two parts:

1. Recognition
2. Feelings

Most people associate brand building mainly with the first. You gain recognition through repetition. As you consistently get your name in front of more and more people you increase recognition. Include a memorable logo with your name and in time you don’t even need to mention your name. Show your logo and people know who you are. Watch a few Nike commercials and see how many times they actually use their name. I’ll give you a hint it’s zero times. They don’t need to anymore. We’ve seen the swoosh next to their name enough over the years. You’re more likely to see the “Just Do It” slogan than the name Nike at this point.

Keeping with the Nike example people begin to see branding as investing a lot of money in developing a logo and then more money in advertising in as many places as you can. Neither of which is something most small businesses can afford to do. Fortunately you don’t have to.

Branding Is Building A Consistent Experience

While recognition is a part of branding, the more important part is the feelings, thoughts, and perceptions associated with your business. This more important part of your brand doesn’t cost anything. At least it doesn’t cost anything more than the everyday costs of doing business.

You build this aspect of your brand by making all parts of your business work together to reinforce your message and who you are. From the products you offer to the way you treat customers to the look of your website and the words you use in your marketing messages.

Are you all about providing quality? Then you’d better not be the cheapest in your market. Cheap and quality don’t go together. Do you want people to think of you as approachable and friendly? Then I hope you have a real person answering the phones and you return email promptly.

In building your brand ask yourself what you want people to think about when they think about you. What kind of experience do you want them to associate with you? What’s the feeling you want them to have when they hear your name?

Your first step in building a brand is deciding who you are. What’s your message? What image do you want to convey to the world? Once you know you want to work to make every aspect or your business consistent with your image, your message, and you. Be consistent. Make sure all your business is in harmony with itself. It might take time to achieve, but whenever and wherever you are giving an impression that doesn’t align with what you want your brand to be change things so it does align.

Apple makes the iMac, iBook, and iPod. Did you need to be told who was the company behind the iPhone? The first time you saw an image of the iPhone did you even need to see it’s name to know that Apple had designed it?

The recognition will come in time. Sure money can help you get that recognition faster the same way it can help you get a lot of things faster. But the key to brand building is in consistently presenting yourself the way you want people to think and feel about you. That doesn’t cost a dime.

“A brand is a collection of perceptions in the mind of the consumer.”
Colin Bates, BuildingBrands.com