Social Media Branding

We are judged by what we say, how we say it and who we associate with. All choices we make, not things that happen to us by chance.

If you are constantly being seen with the snarky, attacking, abusive people on Twitter, then you will be seen as in their gang. When your pictures often appear in the saucier flickr groups then that is the impression people will have of you, regardless of your PHD in nuclear physics. We do not get the whole picture online, we see what is right in front of us, and that means we will jump to conclusions and you will be guilty until proven innocent.

Joining the Social Media Dots

The best way to approach social media is to choose your venues and connect them in some way to your blog. Keep your blog as the main representation of “you” online. That is where you best stuff is going to be, your archive, portfolio or resume. If someone Googles you, this is what you want to appear, not your virtual facebook sheep or your drunken accidental flickr pics.
With a good core blog, you can further reinforce this positive brand. Have conversations on Twitter, share your pictures, guest post and comment. Participate in forums that relate to what you do and your audience. Above all where you want connections to be made, use a consistent avatar, nickname and style. Connect all the profiles back to your blog, and where appropriate link out to the social media sites.

As you can see, I link to my Twitter account from here and occasionally will link to my Flickr through my pictures. While this helps grow my connections on those services it does mean that I have to use privacy settings on Flickr and on Twitter I need to be aware of what I am saying!

Are you conscious about the brand you are building in social media sites or do you just try to be yourself and let people take away what they will? Do you connect your online activities or are they in silos?

Social media marketing doesn’t require any financial investment, something that most bloggers are concerned about. Of course, there are plenty of consultants and marketers that are willing to do much of the work for you if you’re willing to pay, and if you have the money it may be worth considering. However, anyone can be effective with social media, it just takes some time and effort. When you consider the impact that social media can have for a blog, it’s incredible that you can create those kinds of results without spending any money.

Each of the major social media sites has an incredibly large audience on its own. Small sites may not have the same impact individually, but the social media audience as a whole makes up a large, and growing population of internet users. Niche sites are even contributing to creating a more diverse audience of social media users. Any blogger could find a way to benefit by reaching this audience.

Branding yourself through social media will not happen by getting one post to the front page of Digg, but it can happen relatively quickly, especially when compared to other more traditional marketing methods. Even new blogs can achieve a strong level of branding through social media in just a few short months.

With social media marketing there are plenty of other good things happening while you’re branding your blog, including lots of new visitors, building links, gaining subscribers, and developing content that will draw search engine traffic for years to come.