Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Are you Branded?

What is this "Branding" that we hear so much about these days? Being a country girl, my first thoughts go to the marking of livestock with a familiar symbol to show ownership. Then I thought about brand names of the products we use on a daily basis.

I suppose that internet branding is a bit of both. A product or service provided by a familiar source is more likely to get my attention than one shown to me by a source I know nothing about.

For the longest I had been reluctant to put up a real picture of myself on the internet, even knowing that it was important to "Branding" me. Then after a while I began to see the same faces in the different traffic exchanges that I surf, and I felt like I knew them, like maybe they were "friends", if you will.

Tim Linden, owner of StartXchange (Traffic Exchange) wants to know what my favorite post on his blog is. Besides the one where he shows all of us a picture of his new baby daughter, my favorite is the first one that he did with a video of himself talking about a conference he had just attended in DC. The reason it is my favorite is quite simply, because it allowed me to get to know Tim a little better. It made him more of a real person than just seeing photos did. So when Tim Linden, the owner of one of the longest running traffic exchanges online today, did that first video, it gave me an even better sense of what kind of person he is.

That's what branding is all about. Making yourself and/or your business known and more familiar to your audience. Building trust. Establishing yourself as a competent, reliable source for providing a service and/or product of value.

Yes, I think it is important to be "Branded".

3 comments:

HermitJim said...

Hey Cat...you make a strong point for branding. I also feel it's important to build up a trust in our Internet relationships. That's why we follow so many of the same blogs and alert list.

Keep up the good work...

Edward Wade said...

Hey Cat,
You have made a good fact about branding. This was well worth reading for a refresher as well as for newbies.

Nicely done on converting for Tim's Contest. Looks like I don't have much of a chance with this.

Thanks for the info.

Edward

Cat Melton said...

Hello Jim,
Always good to have a friend drop by to read ya, huh?
Thanks for the comment, and don't forget to smile...lol


And Edward,
What a pleasant surprise to see you here...I appreciate the kind words. And I think the competition for the camera is going to be very close; your and everyone else's blog posts were very good.
Thanks again for the comment, Edward.


Cat