Tag Archives: Branding

Conferences, Photo-A-Day

Brand, Brand, Brand!

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Brand, Brand, Brand!
Photo-A-Day #1419

I’m going brand crazy lately because I am so excited about my upcoming new Blog design. Yes, my blog is being redesigned by someone really cool. I don’t have the design to share with you, yet. But, I do have the new logo. I’ve been reading about branding and getting your brand out in front of everyone. So I stopped calling this blog The BenSpark and shortened it to BenSpark.com.

People seem to know me as Ben. When I go to conventions people call me Ben. So I am known as Ben Spark. That works for me, it works for this blog. For the past 5 years I have commented on blogs all over the place under the name BenSpark. So my brand is out there. But I’m still not making it personal enough. I started the branding overhaul by personalizing my Twitter Account. If you are on twitter it is crucial that you create your own background and you brand it. Make it personal and let people know who you are.

I began to think about blog conferences and blogger events. Bloggers like Shoemoney and John Chow have T-shirts that they give away. Other bloggers have their brands out and about as well. So I decided to step it up and put my brand out there too. I already have my “I’m Not A Famous Blogger” T-Shirt and I also decided to buy some baseball hats and have the new logo embroidered onto the hats. I haven’t done that step yet but hopefully they will look as sweet as the mockup I created from these photos that I took with my Xshot today.

I have some other branding related ideas for swag and as they happen I’ll talk about them but I don’t like revealing much about this until I actually have items in hand. But if you are heading to IZEAFest or Affiliate Summit East you may get a chance to pick up some BenSpark.com swag. I’m going to have some good stuff too!

Okay, so what do you think of the hats? I personally like the flames but Allison says they are a bit redneck. However, I don’t care, I like flames, I love em on motorcycles, my Harley shirts and even on Optimus Prime (I’m sure my Transformers lifelong fan status might be revoked just for thinking that). But I’d like to hear that you folks have to say. Let me know what you think of the logo, the hats the colors. Which color is your favorite?

Blogging, Photo-A-Day

A Famous Blogger? No not me…

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Blu Winnings
Photo-A-Day #1417

Yes, I won something else. I’m working on a specific post that deals with all of my contest winnings but this post is to tell you all that I am going to be tasting some Frog soon. BluFrog in fact. I won a case of BluFrog from Martha Decker and it arrived really late in the day that I dare not try it for fear of staying up way too late. I’m going to try it tomorrow before my meetings so I can stay up through them.

Today I made a decision to get rid of one of my blogs. I took down I’m Not A Famous Blogger. That address is still mine and it points to this blog now (It will soon point to an updated About Me page). That was a blog which was all about being an IZEA Insider. Don’t worry I am certainly still an IZEA Insider and think IZEA is awesome. I realized something, though. If I was blogging about being an Insider on that other blog then I really wasn’t saying much about it on this blog, the blog that people read. It made no sense for you to follow me on Twitter as BenSpark and as INAFB. So I took INAFB down too.

I read a post a while back by Ted Murphy about investing in your personal brand. It made sense to me that if I was investing time into yet another blog and not into BenSpark.com which has become such a personal brand that people know me and address me as Ben rather than Drew. People often apologize for that but to me it just shows that my personal brand is in people’s heads. I’m Not A Famous Blogger is an idea that I had borne out of seeing all these other bloggers who are rolling high. I certainly don’t go rolling high anywhere, I enjoy my simple life, love my family and love to take pictures and blog about them. While I certainly wouldn’t mind living the dot.com lifestyle I know that I just want to be me and I’m Not a Famous Blogger.

What does this mean to the IZEA Insiders I’m Not A Famous Blogger Crew? Well it means that you’re going to get a lot more attention as a member of my crew because this is the blog that gets the attention. I’m going to take some time to showcase the people on my crew in spotlight posts on this blog. So expect an e-mail from me soon.

Consolidation is coming. I have way too many balls in the air right now and in order to pay good attention to all of my blogs some are going to be culled from the herd. I made each blog as an offshoot of my personality but realize that All aspects of that personality should be showcased on this one blog. I’m not in it to make money, although I do make a little, I’m in it because I love blogging.

So, if I have tips and tricks for you for social media sites I’m going to talk about them here and not make you go to one of my lesser known blogs. It looks like The Wired Kayaker is going to become a part of this blog and not a stand alone blog anymore because that is such a seasonal type blog that in the days and months that I am not on the water I just don’t want to write much about kayaking. So when that blog is incorporated into this one I will be tagging those posts with WiredKayaker so that they are in an easily accessible category. That is a much bigger blog than I’m Not A Famous Blogger so it will take some time to assimilate.