How Much Should Your Personal Brand be a Part of Your Blog?
Oprah recently tweeted that she lost 26 pounds. Big deal, right?
Turns out it’s a huge friggin’ deal.
You see, that one tweet resulted in the Weight Watchers stock jumping about 20%.
That bump in the stock price earned Oprah, who owns roughly 10% of the company, a cool $12.5 million.
Yes, $12.5 million from one tweet!
Why This Shouldn’t Surprise You
Most people sort of shrug when they hear this story and that’s for one simple reason.
It’s Oprah!
She’s one of the richest celebrities in our history and continues to collect ridiculous bank rolls.
She’s built a monumental media empire and in turn, won the hearts of millions of fans.
She has damn near 31 million followers on Twitter for goodness sakes!
She is the epitome of social influence. When she speaks, people listen and people act.
But is it that simple?
The Secret Element to the Equation
What might we be missing here?
As inquisitive bloggers and those trying to build successful online businesses, what is the secret element we can draw from this story and what does it mean to our little corner of the internet?
The key rests in one single word.
Oprah.
You instantly recognize Oprah simply by hearing that single word.
It immediately elicits thoughts and opinions about the person and provides you with a sense of the value they are offering.
That key element…is a strong (like “King Kong ain’t got nuthin’ on me” in this case) personal brand.
The Power of the Personal Brand
Whenever someone gets so well known that you simply know them by hearing a single name means they are ultra-famous, ultra-rich, and probably ultra-badass.
Oprah.
Cher.
Madonna.
Beyonce.
Sting.
Bono.
Prince.
Rihanna.
Adele.
Coolio (ok, I’m joking with this one)
You get the idea though. Each of those individuals has built enormous fortunes and prolonged careers by building a brand around their name.
People know them, and everything they represent, as soon as you hear it.
What This Means for Your Blog
Whether to use a personal brand or not is one of the first decisions you’ll make as a blogger, and a decision you may wrestle with as time goes by.
The decision ultimately comes down to one of three strategies.
- Name your blog after yourself and own it like a boss.
- Name your blog whatever the hell you want and associate your name with it.
- Stay anonymous and live and die by your blog’s name.
Let’s dig into each one of these options to see what might mesh best for you.
1. Name Your Blog After Yourself and Own It Like a Boss
Many bloggers go all in and use their name as their website URL.
In fact, some of the biggest names online follow this particular technique.
You get the idea. Plenty of big names are just that…names. If you want to jump in and have everyone know you by your name, this is the strategy for you.
Benefits
Sure, there is some level of narcissism to it, but hey, it’s the Internet and you can do whatever the hell you want.
But seriously, it’s an extremely beneficial way for folks to really get to know you as a person and a super easy way to make sure people can find you when searching.
Your whole online presence becomes an extension of yourself and makes it really easy to be the brand.
Considerations
Now, if your name is Jim Smith and you want to use JimSmith.com you might be out of luck. And even if the domain strangely appears available, you still might be out of luck.
Why?
Some names are just so common that you may not stand out from the crowd. If you were born with such a name, I’m sorry.
In fact, I feel this way about my name. Jeff Stephens is a rather meh type of name. Nothing exotic or overly sexy.
By the way, the guy that has jeffstephens.com is an amazing photographer with a bomb ass website, so he’s ok in my book.
If you have a unique name that may stand out from the crowd, and you’d like to build a brand around your name, go for it.
My man Kimanzi Constable has a perfect name for this strategy. NOBODY else has the name Kimanzi Constable.
So now he can build an amazing personal brand (which he is doing) simply around his name.
And, his name is so unique he could push the envelope and go for the one-namer and simply be known as “Kimanzi”.
Like he should be holding a sword when he belts that out.
As an aside, here’s a cool website to check out: HowManyofMe.com. It lets you know how many people have the same name as you.
Another consideration is to understand that you are putting yourself out there by using your name.
Yes, the Internet has plenty of trolls and nefarious characters. You are exposing yourself to the potential underbelly of the Internet.
As with everything, exercise caution in how you proceed.
2. Name Your Blog Whatever the Hell You Want and Associate Your Name With It
This is another option and one that is very popular. Many of these brands you can say and immediately identify a person with it.
SmartPassiveIncome.com (Pat Flynn)
SocialMediaExaminer.com (Michael Stelzner)
Problogger.com (Darren Rowse)
SocialTriggers.com (Derek Halpern)
QuickSprout.com (Neil Patel)
As you can see, none of these folks have their names in their domain. But, there is a strong brand relationship between the website and their name.
They don’t hide behind the blog name, they embrace it as a separate entity.
However, many of their supporting social channels are represented as individuals.
People follow them on Twitter and Facebook as their individual names, not their company names.
Benefits
Keeping your blog named something other than yourself provides many benefits.
First, it allows you to quickly and easily walk away or sell it. Having a domain named after yourself isn’t something anyone else will want to purchase.
If your website is a brand name, you could easily sell it at a later date since it would be easily transferable.
Another key benefit is you can continue to expand your empire and diversify your online offerings. Each website you stand up can be a wholly different entity that can be operated independently.
You can also pivot and completely change your focus if you’d like.
I followed this strategy with Top Shelf Blogging.
I wanted a brand name for the business, and at the same time wanted to associate my name with it. So, in the future, people will recognize both the brand and me individually as the founder, creator, and curator.
Kinda the best of both worlds.
Bottomline, you have a lot of flexibility when choosing this option.
Considerations
The only real consideration here is that you, as an individual, may not be fully associated with the brand.
People will come to know the brand and may look right past you.
Of course, you can counteract this by continuing to reinforce and embrace your name throughout your social media channels.
3. Stay Anonymous and Live and Die by Your Blog’s Name
This is the final option for you to consider for your blog.
In this situation, no one knows who you are, they only know the name of your website/brand.
This strategy works if you really want to stay out of the limelight.
Some of these sites do have a real human behind them and you can typically find them on the site’s About page, but they are not as easily associated with the brand.
Benefits
Your anonymity can be hugely beneficial in real life. As I mentioned earlier, there are some crazy people on the Internet. Sometimes it’s good they don’t know you. Just sayin’.
This approach also works if you are trying to build a side hustle while still working your day job. Maybe you don’t want people to know what you are up to.
Maybe (hopefully not) you are building something that could be seen as direct competition to where you are currently working. Don’t do this.
Detaching your name from the product also opens the door to opportunities to build a massive website with multiple contributors. Think BleacherReport.com and HuffingtonPost.com.
You could become the next huge online publication that hosts and serves up content from a multitude of contributors.
Having your website known solely by its name, and not by yours, allows you the most flexibility with how you proceed – because nobody knows it’s you!
Considerations
Using the blog/brand name and not using your own name will make it really difficult to grow.
People (meaning your potential customers) like to engage with and bond with real humans.
They don’t like interacting solely with a brand, unless that brand is huge (think Nike, Coke, McDonalds huge).
Think about the last time you were on Twitter and you got into a conversation with a logo. Yeah, not so much.
Hiding behind your blog name and living by the brand name alone means building your audience will take extra time. As long as you are ok with the long journey ahead, have at it.
Wrapping it Up
As you’ve seen there are quite a few benefits to how you name your blog and considerations you should take into account when doing so, especially as it relates to your personal brand.
Take a look at the list above and dig into the “why” behind what you are doing online and see if you are positioned for your ultimate goal.
While you do that, I’m going to try to become known simply as “Jeff”. (Yes, I put my hands in the air and moved them outward as I acted like I saw those 4 little letters in bright shiny lights).
Or, maybe not.
