Dawud Miracle had a good idea about signing your blog comments with your name. It helps to make people comfortable with who you are as well as your brand on the internet.
I agree that consistency is a strong component of brand building — on the internet and offline.
Having a unique name helps too. Wish I had a cool name like Dawud Miracle. Somehow I have ended up with a “generic” name “Chris Brown”, as well as a generic blog name: Branding & Marketing and a generic business name: Marketing Resources & Results.
Obviously, I didn’t have much to do with my name: Christine is my given name, but feels too long and formal. I prefer Chris, although I know people have gender confusion about that name. Brown is my married name, and the 5th most popular surname. Searching the words Chris Brown results in 62 million hits. Heck, even “John Doe” only produces 19 million. You can see what I’m up against!
Coincidently, the business name and blog name I use also have a generic version. They help to describe the services. The names come up in the search engines because that’s what people search. I like to make it easy for people to find. But believe me, it was a challenge to make those words come up high in the search engines. I’m getting there, but still have a long way to go.
I liked one of his ideas: to sign with both my name and my blog name to comments. Dawud Miracle: Healthy Web Design, I think you’re on to something. Even adding just one word from either of my web sites brings me to the top.
Chris Brown: Branding & Marketing
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Nice post Chris.
People started calling me Buzzoodle Ron (Company name, First Name) and it has kind of stuck. Plus I like signing that way for just the reasons you mention.
Thanks Chris.
One of the reasons we comment on other blogs is recognition - right? I simply feel that we can go a step further and create a signature that really identifies us to those who read out comments - bloggers and commenters alike.