You are what you say you are, so tell folks about yourself and what you do.

The first few weeks when I started blogging again after my 5 year break, I made up my mind that my next attempt at this was not going to be a fluke. I was willing to do anything to reach the zenith when it comes to blogging.

I shared this with a couple of close friends and one response I got was “then you need to brand yourself online”. At the time, I thought that was totally impossible. Branding can be cost consuming and at the time, there was no way my cash inflow was going to support my latest business venture. So I decided to look for the most cost effective ways to brand myself online.

At the time, I had no idea that I was doing all the right things. I guess my desire to succeed was all I had. This informed most of the choices I made. These are a number of things I did and I suggest you try it to.

First of all, get on a minimum of 4 social networking sites and make sure you are active on all of them: The 4 platforms I always suggest are Facebook, twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn. In my opinion they are the fastest growing or the biggest social networking sites you have out there right now. All the traffic is there. Even paid ads on these sites get you the precise audience you are looking for.

Next, you need to make sure all your accounts have a unified name with little or no variations: A little illustration. My full name is Sarah Oluwatope Olofin, but everyone calls me Sally. If you call me Sarah at home, chances are I won’t respond because I am not used to being called that. So if you have accounts with Google, Facebook and twitter and all of them are different names, how do you expect people to recognize you? My account on Twitter is @Toperants. My Facebook fan page is www.facebook.com/Toperants and on Google, my account is toperants. No matter what platform I decide to use, I make sure to maintain the same name all the time. There are those few cases where the name you want is taken.

If that happens and you cannot convince the user to transfer the name to you, then you can have a variation. For example, if @Toperants was taken by another user on twitter, I would have tried @TheRealToperants or @IamToperants.

You are what you say you are, so tell folks about yourself and what you do: On the internet, I became the Ranter, because that is what I told people I am. I became the blog expert, because that is what I told people I am. So if you want to be known on the internet, then please introduce yourself. No one is in your mind expect you and unless you say via videos or type what you are, there is no way we are going to know.

Connect with people that occupy the same niche space that you are in: Ever wonder why Lawyers, Doctors and Engineers in Nigeria come together to form their various associations? I like to believe is so that they can interact, rub minds together, find out what’s working and what’s not working and to constantly be informed about their field. The same goes for you. On the social networking sites and all, be sure to interact with other folks that are in the same niche as you are. That way you get to learn a lot from them. Discover what worked for them and how you can add that to your own repository.

Develop value packed materials for your niche: Give value, by writing thorough articles that answer the need of your audience. Develop information products and courses with respects to your chosen niche that will aid consumers in overcoming hassles they may encounter. People only pay for the value that you bring to the market place.

I think I better stop here, before you I lose my ranting mojo. Have a great day and drop me a few lines. Was this information helpful?

————————-

Tope Olofin loves to rant. She is a boisterous and hilarious English graduate from the University of Lagos. She believes life’s experiences are priceless and the best way to capture it is by writing. She blogs at www.toperants.com and tweets @toperants

 

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.