Comments on: First Impressions, Blogs, and Your Personal Brand

By: Hillary

Hillary — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 18:07:18 +0000

It’s true, if something has a bad design or is too cluttered I do not even bother to read it. First impressions do count. Great article, thanks for the tips.
http://www.personavita.com

By: mypharmalife

mypharmalife — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 13:23:48 +0000

Great
WBR,
Alex
http://world-pharma.pillsfm.com
My favourite pharma supermarket

By: Natural Male Enhancement

Natural Male Enhancement — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 22:07:29 +0000

Thanks for very interesting article. btw. I really enjoyed reading all of your posts. It’s interesting to read ideas, and observations from someone else’s point of view– makes you think more.
So please keep up the great work. Greetings.

By: Maria Elena Duron

Maria Elena Duron — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 03:54:58 +0000

David,
Great post and to the point. Extremely helpful tips to anyone starting a blog or who is blogging for their brand.
I plan on reading more!
Maria Elena Duron

By: Tobias Baeck

Tobias Baeck — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 23:52:57 +0000

Hi, just wanted to give you some props for the post. Good to see there are more personal branding fanatics out there.. keep up the good work, I will keep on reading!

By: David Armano

David Armano — Wed, 14 Jun 2006 02:34:17 +0000

Maggie,
The best thing you can do is become familiar with good design and branding. Try this:
http://www.designinteract.com/sow/archive.html
There are many different kinds of examples here. Some are clean, some are flashy, some are even more usable than others–but most of the examples here have their own definitive voice.
Google is also a great resources. Type in phrases for what you might be shooting for like “usable web pages” etc.
Basically get familiar with the basics and emulate. Most people who make these mistakes never bother.
Not sure about the garden posts comment. Did you mean Viral Garden? That’s Mack’s blog.
PS, I just looked at your company link. For a highly usable and clean b2b site, see Grainger (worked on this). b2b doesn’t have to be ugly.

By: Maggie

Maggie — Tue, 13 Jun 2006 18:23:35 +0000

I really think your post was interesting. My boss has recently assigned me to make a blog for my company, but I am worried that all those bad things you listed that could happen will happen. What are the best measures to get started? And what is this garden posts that people are responding with?

By: Eric Frenchman

Eric Frenchman — Sun, 11 Jun 2006 01:39:47 +0000

Oh I hear you my fellow Prof blogger. That’s why your post was very timely. I decided to start changing it around and have been playing with some design. The blog when I started served me well, but with increased traffic, more experience, and Mack’s advice about visiting as many blogs as possible I noticed it was time for a face-lift. Thanks and I will work with the brand some more.
Eric

By: David Armano

David Armano — Sat, 10 Jun 2006 21:20:42 +0000

“we were challenged with maintaining what had unintentionally turned into a ‘blog brand’ and supporting business objectives. ”
“what I didn’t realize was that by *not* providing readers with visual cues to guide their perceptions of the ‘brand’ Diva’s readers had developed their own ideas of what the site/brand should look like.”
Toby. Excellent story. Somehow I knew there was a good one behind Diva.
Eric–are you taking notes? Brand Happens. If you leave your brand totally up to intepretation, people will fill in the blanks. A great brand is both defined and open to intepretation, but there needs to be a strong foundation.
Just like Toby’s design did not say “Diva” Pardon My French does not say–well… “Pardon My French!”. Hence it needs some attitude. I think this would go a long way with readers.
And Toby–I really like the winning design. It’s in sync with your brand persona.
Last point–Toby mentions that her reader’s expressed passion. Back to Doc’s brand (or lack of)–there is no passion, but more importantly the brand comes across as NEUTRAL. But if you read Doc’s writings–he’s far from neutral and has definite opinions.
Take this quote for example…
“Oh, one more thing. The bill that passed the house flipped a large bird in the general direction of the nation’s municipalities”
Seems pretty passionate.
Is his blog in sync with his personal brand? You be the judge.

By: Toby

Toby — Sat, 10 Jun 2006 19:12:24 +0000

David – thanks for the shout out about Diva Marketing. When Peter and I redesigned Diva we were challenged with maintaining what had unintentionally turned into a ‘blog brand’ and supporting business objectives. We decided to blog the entire process on both of our blogs including posting all the comps. We thought it would be an interesting learning experience for us and for others; we were also curious about the feedback we would receive.
Although, I believe that graphics are an important marketing blog tactic, what I didn’t realize was that by *not* providing readers with visual cues to guide their perceptions of the ‘brand’ Diva’s readers had developed their own ideas of what the site/brand should look like.
What was even more amazing to me was their passion about the design elements from color to image and more. As we well know, bloggers are not shy about voicing their opinions! Here are a couple of comments:
“I picture you in a cool outfit, sipping a cosmopolitan or martini, very Carrie Bradshaw. Smoking a Cuban cigar.”
“The design does not say “Diva” to me . Too much corporate in a fashion designer sort of way..and the shoe element feels thrown in, not part of it.”
“I wonder, if they had to visit the site regularly as we do with blogs — would they have even stronger opinions about the design? My guess is … yes.”
Link to Diva comps – http://www.theblogstudio.com/blogarticle/we-have-a-winnah#comment