BLOG BASIC TIPS: IMPROVE BRAND IMAGE AND BUILD BRAND EQUITY.

Definition of brand.

The American Marketing Association defines a brand as “a name, term, sign, symbol, or design, or a combination of them, intended to identify the goods or services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of competitors.”

Thus we can infer that brand gives a dimension to a tangible or intangible thing.

Importance of brand(general sense)

We don’t live in a nameless society. I, you & everyone else needs an identity to live a normal life. Same goes for all other nonliving things like daily used consumerable durable goods (TV, cell phone, etc).TV, cell phones, etc. are just generic names having no specification; It’s the brand name that defines its origin and other attributes. If the thing doesn’t have a brand name then people will think it of a low quality . Branding servers as a differentiating factor for a product, service or anything that needs differentiation. Identity ,received through branding, helps the consumers to decide on what to buy or consume. It also reflects quality or standard that adds to the overall image perceived by the consumers. Besides the differentiating factor, it also ensures future survivability. Today’s fierce competition among various product or service categories has increased the importance of brand. It also gives legal protection to the holder from unauthorized reproduction through trademark, copy right, etc.

Importance of brand for bloggers.

Here I am going to talk about building brand to succeed in the fierce world of blogging, where competition is dam intense. There are millions of websites out in the cyber space vying for attention; when ever we search something on the net we get tons of info to choose from. If we consider a definite niche here, let say, like ‘make money online’ ,a very popular niche in terms of search enquiry; there are millions of websites associated with this niche. Most of these associated websites are having more or less similar info from my point of view, you may differ. This similarity is like a clutter that needs to be broken. Staying in the jungle of similarities would not help; you need to get out to overtake competing websites. Thus differentiation is must and it starts with branding. It’s a valuable asset used by successful bloggers to create a pool of loyal followers, & to ensure steady flow of traffic. It takes considerable amount of time & effort to build a strong brand from scratch, because the quality of blog lays the foundation for a successful brand.

Brand equity

It is generally associated with successful brands. Brand equity is the added value perceived by the consumers regarding a brand. Why people pay more for premium brands like prada , niki, addidas, etc., because of brand equity. Similarly bloggers can enjoy brand equity also. ‘Lots of traffic & lots of money’, is the motto for successful bloggers when they rip the benefit from their brand equity. Assurance of steady long term return is another crucial element here & will decide the net value of your blog. Now, I am going to present a real life example to simplify your understanding of brand equity and to keep myself from writing too much. If we search info regarding monetization tips or basic blog tips, we will often find problogger topping the search engine page. Darren Rowse, author of problogger, is a heavy weight in field of blogging, especially for niche related to blogging tips and monetization. The things that made him a success with blogging are not just tricks with SEO, nor driving huge traffic. His success formula can be best described through ‘AIDA’ model, which is an acronym used in marketing that describes a common set of emotions generated in the minds of the consumers, when someone tries to sell something to them. ‘AIDA’ can be applied in a scenario where someone is offering something presumed to have utility from consumer’s point of view. ’AIDA’ stands for attention, interest, desire & action.

‘AIDA’ MODEL FOR BLOGGERS.

ATTENTION: SEO for better ranking with search engines and use of advertisement like adword. Main idea is to make it easy for people to find your blog/website. Here SEO optimization is the key, rather which paid traffic.

INTEREST: quality of the blog/website is determined by its content & the overall appearance of the site. It’s the quality that induces interest in the minds of the audience. Spice up your blog with pictorial descriptions or any audio-visual means; bottom-line is make it look professional.

DESIRE: interest leads to desire, which is wanting to have or know more.

ACTION: it’s the physical action, resulting from psychological process like subscribing, bookmarking, joining facebook fan page, etc.

Most importantly, we need to keep in mind that band equity is an intangible thing that resides in the minds of the audience and needs time, effort & basics to be right.

Follow my hub as my next topic will be on crash course on brand building.