Start Working on Your Brand Assets: First #MBUstorm Month Plan

Sharing is caring!

Please follow the steps here and don’t miss your chance! The MyBlogU Blog Launchpad: Content Zero to Blogging Hero Challenge #MyBlogU

And today is our official first lesson: Where to start? Keyword research? Competitor research?

#myblogu big thank you to u for creating the new contest for site development. #inspiring entrepreneurs rocks and want to say thank u

— Steffi Black #STK (@steffiblack) October 1, 2015

All of those above tasks are important for SEO and deeper understanding of the niche, but those tasks are mostly research-based. We suggest a more pro-active approach: Research your niche while building up your brand assets:

Brand what???… Why do I need them?

Your brand asset can be anything and everything that accomplishes one or all of the following goals:

• It’s able to create a steady alternative source of traffic and/or leads (preferably driving you some traffic on auto-pilot)
• It ranks for your brand name allowing you to better control your top 20 results for your brand name (Those assets should NOT be hosted on your site because you can rank only one domain for one query)
• It lets you build connections in the industry and establish yourself as an authority

Here are some of brand asset types you should start working on simultaneously with your site content:

Social Media Brand Assets

Social media accounts rank well, connect you to other people in your industry and (if you do everything right) will one day become a solid source of traffic and leads.

Obviously, it is recommended that you start and gradually develop at least 3 solid social media brand assets:

• Facebook brand page
• Twitter
• #3 May vary depending on your industry. If you are into health, shopping, food, then that would be Pinterest page. If you are into b2b, that’s a Linkedin Company page, etc.

It's amazing how well food blogs do on Pinterest. Almost makes you want to start one. 😉 #myblogu

— Kari (@Think_In_Smiles) October 1, 2015

Obviously, the more active accounts you maintain, the better, but let’s not forget that we are building a side source of income. We can’t devote 24 hours a day to it. So let’s try to make it doable.

@Think_In_Smiles Twitter is such an amazing way to make strong connections. It's my #1. Love instagram too. 🙂 #myblogu

— Laura 1G2C (@1Girl2Cities) October 1, 2015

Use @Knowem to claim your brand name everywhere else. One day you may want to develop any of them, but claiming is essential until anyone else does.

Use a tool like KnowEm to make sure your brand name is available on social sites. Could influence your choice of name/URL. #myblogu

— Don Sturgill (@DonSturgill) October 1, 2015

I love Tweepi for social media management. I'd say that's my strong suit. Been helping other brands with Twitter. #myblogu

— Create Nonprofit (@CreateNonprofit) October 1, 2015

On-Site Brand Assets

On-site brand assets are solid content assets you’ll be able to direct your readers or customers to again and again. They are meant to attract natural links and leads, so they need to be really solid and indepth.

Some examples include:

• An ebook (Use our interviews section to get help in creating an ebook)
• A unique glossary
• A FAQ (Use our Brainstorm section to get an idea what people might be wondering in your niche)
• A cheatsheet solving lots of problems on one page
• A flowchart explaining a complicated problem (in an innovative way)
• Are there more examples you can come up here?

You are in the right place – @myblogu 😉 RT @Think_In_Smiles: But, a cheatsheet sounds good too! Waiting for some inspiration. #myblogu

— Sana Knightly (@SanaKnightly) October 1, 2015

Obviously, we want this asset to rank well in Google and Bing, so use this tool to come up with some keyword phrases to optimize it with.

@myblogu Infographics are awesome as explainers. Plus they get shares like craaazy #myblogu

— Create Nonprofit (@CreateNonprofit) October 1, 2015

Interviews

If you get featured in interviews, you are building yourself strong pages that are able to rank for your personal and / or brand name. Blog interviews are also great ways to build up your social media brand assets because often your hosts gladly link to your social media profiles to let their readers learn more about you and connect.

Here’s a detailed guide on how to get featured in MyBlogU interviews and how to make the most of that: How to Build Your Personal Brand Using #MyBlogU

Other Brand Assets

Here are a few other brand assets which I highly recommend:

1. Put together a Udemy course

Create 5-10 videos (This will develop your Youtube channel using those videos too). Upload your digital guides. Here you go: You have a course you can sell and/or use as alternative self-sufficient lead generation channel.

The beauty of this tactic is that with the course you get access to vast Udemy audience who’ll discover your brand through Udemy search engine.

2. Set up a Paper.li paper

I am using Paper.li to summarize our #VCBuzz hashtag-powered Tweet chats. The beauty of it that it auto-tweets each new edition tagging featured users: That’s a great Twitter relation building tool!

3. Slideshare channel

Slideshare is a great alternative way to build leads thanks to its Lead Generation feature (It is now paid but still quite nice). Here are some tips on creating Slideshare presentations as well as free tools.

Slideshare is also a nice traffic generator: Slides can be linked.

In closing…

Look at this as the way to try new things while exploring different types of audience you can reach. Always be ready to learn: Are your competitors (or sites in similar niches) here? What are they doing? Make the most of each asset you are creating: Take your time to explore all the settings and customization options.

Link to your assets from your site and mention them routinely in interviews and articles you write elsewhere: These will make all of your assets stronger!

Content re-packaging is a nice way to make your whole asset strategy stronger and more productive.

Don't turn your websites and channels into a graveyard. Evergreen content is always more fun! 😀 #myblogu

— Roxana Nasoi (@roxanasoi) October 1, 2015

Are there any third-party assets you think should be included in this guide? Please share!

Do a weekly Twitter chat too? re: boosting your brand #myblogu

— Shannon Hutcheson (@LdyLarke) October 1, 2015