Why image is the most important part of your blog marketing strategy
| by David Callan The image that a blogger deliberately cultivates can easily end up being their most powerful marketing weapon as numerous bloggers have already proved.It is important to appreciate the real power of image and Public Relations
in our every day lives. To do this, try and answer the following questions
to yourself. What sort of image do you get when Google Inc is mentioned? What
about Yahoo!? And what about your favorite web site? What is the first thing
that came to your mind the first time you met you spouse? Contrast this to
your current perception of your spouse.
Image is extremely important when you are dealing with the human race. You cannot escape it. Our perception greatly impacts our emotions and the way we react. Which will always have a very direct impact on the success or failure of the person or organization with us. What is really scary about the whole thing is that many times, perception can be based on lies or can be formed in the absence of truth or the true facts of the situation. In other words, how we perceive others will make a huge difference between success and failure. And it matters little whether it is business or a potential relationship.
You Must Cultivate The Image Best Suited For You, Your Site Or Blog
It is important that anybody with any sort of web presence should sit down and carefully consider what sort of image and personality they want to cultivate with their audience. Actually it should be the sort of image that is most appropriate for what they do, or the products and services that they have to offer.
More so, where a blog is concerned, image and the perception of the public and potential visitors can easily transform a lifeless, no-traffic blog into a high traffic sensation virtually overnight.
Admittedly this will require a shrewd blogger with a deep understanding of human nature and one who possesses the PR skills required to pull off this miracle.
The Oldest Quick-To-The-Top PR Strategy
In recent times, some bloggers have been using a certain technique to quickly attract massive amounts of links and traffic, virtually overnight and some of them, who should know better, have been claiming that the technique is totally new.
Actually it is almost as old as man. It is the David versus Goliath PR strategy that was used in ancient time to transform David from an unknown shepherd boy to the greatest King that the nation of Israel ever had.
It simply works as follows. A nobody challenges the leader or leading light and rides to the top on the limelight or on the back of the already terrifyingly, well know ‘Goliath’. In the David versus Goliath tale, it worked so well that the chanting crowd of women soon made it very clear what they thought of the shepherd boy in comparison to their reigning King. During a victory match, they chanted in the streets that while King Saul killed the enemies in thousands, shepherd boy David killed them in tens of thousands. This naturally made the King furious and created some serious political problems for David, but that is a story for another day. This PR strategy is definitely not new.
Here is what some bloggers have been doing very successfully. They simply challenge the position of the leading most well know blogger on a certain subject. For this to work, you had better have something solid to say, otherwise you’ll fall flat on your face and end up having the exact opposite effect to what was desired.
When executed well, the virtually unknown blogger accumulates hundreds of links to their blog page where the controversial comments have been made and the become famous overnight as “the person who challenged Goliath and won.”
Bad Boy, Negative Images Usually Sell Like Crazy
A variation of the David versus Goliath PR gimmick is where bloggers deliberately cultivate a “bad boy” image. Contrary to common belief, a bad boy image can be worth millions. Take Mike Tyson for example. His boxing ability on a ring clearly waned a long time ago. And yet his fights have continued to sell out tickets as hordes of people all over the world have completely ignored title contenders and the real current heavy weight boxing champions.
A blogger can quickly earn that “bad boy” image with an all out attack against a leading blogger. A word of caution here is that this needs to be done very carefully as chances of it backfiring are extremely high.
Attacking the personal opinions of well know bloggers is not the only way of cultivating a “bad boy” image. The magic surrounding blogs is such that you can say it all in your posts and attract all the attention you desire without having to attack anybody.