I’ve written many articles about the importance of building a brand and how to strategically appear in many places throughout the blogosphere so that you or your company can become instantly recognizable. As you know, this can bring you lots of visitors and greatly help you get your message across.

I’ve also talked about how this takes a great deal of time and will not happen overnight, as the effort is on-going and requires a good deal of work.

Well here is how NOT to build your brand, as the results will surely bring you unintended circumstances and harm your reputation, perhaps beyond repair.

Excessive self-promotion

Let’s face it; no one is in love with the self-centered chest beater who is always in your face promoting their own work or products as if there was nothing else going on in the world beyond them.

It’s like that obnoxious person at the cocktail party, when you see them heading your way, you begin to recoil and you start looking for the nearest escape route, you just don’t want to be bothered.

Excessively self-promoting your stuff just rubs folks the wrong way. You are viewed in a negative light and these perceptions, once established, can be most difficult to reverse. When you think about it you can clearly see that this is a flawed strategy that makes you unpopular and unlikely to succeed.

Promoting the work of others, on the other hand, still gets you out among the masses, but you are seen as a contributor instead of a self-centered spammer who only a Mother could love.

Promoting the work of others on a 10 to 1 ratio is a nice approach to getting your own work promoted as well. Many will return the favor by promoting your work, considering your work is of great value.

Overuse of Automation

Automation is a wonderful thing, makes life so much simpler when you can set up systems that perform tasks for you, freeing up some time do concentrate on something else or to relax.

But there is a tipping point where the overuse of these tools and systems can bring a negative outlook upon your efforts. You must learn the difference between strategy and dominance and failing to do so may bring a much harder lesson your way.

When using social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook, allow some space for others to get into the news stream, don’t try to dominate, blend in. You want to be a part of the news not THE news.

Although I don’t use it myself, the auto direct-message feature of Twitter probably has a nice result when carefully crafted and employed. But again, overuse really removes the personal aspect of the conversation and establishes a less than stellar first impression.

“Hey… it’s great to meet you, hope you buy my stuff… and soon!” some just as well read. Examine the first impression in this example, it’s just phony. Saying “it’s great to meet you” when you in fact have not is beyond authenticity and really says “I’m too busy to actually meet and greet you, but thanks for padding my follower count. I may get back to you some day.”

This is but one example, the point being; do not allow automation to remove the genuine and personal touch that we all have within us. The overuse of automated tools can backfire and cause your reputation to take a serious hit. Strategy not dominance is what’s important here.

Inconsistency

• Post Schedule

Posting to your blog is one of the most important things you can do for your brand building efforts and establishing a post schedule early on is highly recommended. I would stop short of having an “Open” or “Closed” sign in the sidebar, but your readers should have a sense of how often you update.

Do not post 6 post one week, 2 the next 4 the following and so on. Be sure to have a consistent post schedule. If that means you can only post 3 times weekly fine, but be consistent about that. Tell the readers of your blog on your About page…”I post on Monday, Wednesday and Friday of each week” and set the expectation. If no one can determine your post schedule, they will stop coming by to even try to find out.

• Topics

Be consistent in the topic or topics you cover. Unless you are a hobbyist, your blog should cover specific topics. Writing great articles about tropical fish, then jumping into the political arena on your way to the article about Aunt Hattie’s cookout is just not going to help you build your community. No one knows what to expect.

• Avatars

The business logo or photo should be consistently displayed so that people recognize it right away. Occasional updates to this image is fine, but avoid the photo-of-the-week style sometimes seen around the internet in places like Facebook and others. Have a look at the large corporations, many logos are historic, dating back many decades, while others have been updated to reflect the more modern times, but this is done very infrequently.

When you do change or update your image, be certain to update it everywhere, on all profiles. Avoid having several different images representing you or your business at once.

Conclusion

Always protect your brand and the manner in which people view it by thinking ahead and considering the possible results of every move you make. Missteps are always remembered longer than the many positive things that you will do, that’s just human nature, but a carefully thought out approach will go a long way toward your success.

Now it’s your turn, have you anything to add that we should NOT do while building a brand?

Keep Blogging!

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