In a world where Google is the go-to identity of your personal brand and even your personal identity – what are you doing to build up your brand?

When you walk into a room of professionals, peers or even an interview – does your resume speak for itself?

Finding your place in the world, especially in this challenging economic climate, you need to do all you can to build up your personal brand, sculpt your niche, build up your personal online equity and become a contributor to your community.

Here is a 7 step guide to building your brand through a blog

1. Sign up

There really are very few excuses other than your own motivation to get started blogging. There are many options to give your blog the identity and look you would like to present whatever your price range.

The fastest and simplest approach is to use a free blog platform such as Wordpress.com or Tumblr. If you are not ready to make a big investment they can be a great starting point and are excellent at managing your posts and even allow you the ability to customise them with hundreds of themes.

If you would like more control over the branding, you can use a customised web address (eg. danielpatricio.com) with the free Wordpress.org and even a customised them.

One of the most defining aspects of your personal brand is your name, by creating a go-to presence online you have the chance to put your stamp on your online identity. Usually the dot-com of your name will always take the top spot in any Google search and can be the most important step in creating your online brand.

There might be hundreds of people that share your name but only one person can own the dot com. The greatest investment you can make is in owning your own name.

2. Choose your objectives

Over the years I have started many blogs, very few of them lasted more than a handful of posts and have covered everything from creative writing, business, photography, martial arts, sports to poetry.

Why did they fail?

Because I didn’t define a purpose. What you need to do is define the image you want to portray.

That of course is easier said than done, there are three questions you need to ask yourself.

Personally I started writing this blog to share my knowledge with those in my personal professional circle and formulate and share my ideas on the issues surrounding the industry I work in.

What are you passionate about?

3. Start writing – find your voice

The toughest part of blogging is starting.

When I started blogging I devised a content strategy, that quickly went out of the window once I got started.

Just starting writing, aim for about 300 words, address a single issue and try to aim for at least one post a week.

Write about whatever piques your passion and write consistently – that is how you will find your blogging voice.

4. What to write about

Even when you get in the habit of blogging consistently sometimes you need that firestarter to get the mind going.

Here are three approaches to spice up your posts:

5. Comment

The misconception that many people have about blogging is that it is a one way medium. There is much to be learned from the comments.

Often a post will only seed an idea and I will find the comments we show a completely different side of the issue. Encourage commenting on your blog and comment on others that are writing about similiar ideas.

6. Stream and share

A blog can be deemed effective even if it only enables you communicate and reach out to your existing contacts better.

Do this by importing your blog feed into Facebook and sharing your blog posts on twitter.

If your objective is not advertising revenue, you should look to share your message with as many people irrespective of medium.

There are many people I have met that will have read my posts through Facebook but have never seen my posts. As long as you are spreading the message you are becoming more effective.

7. Meetup and build community

Once you start writing and commenting you will find that a community begins to develop around your blog. Blogs are not written in isolation, the most effective blogs are the entry point and conversation starter to offline interaction.

The most rewarding aspect of blogging personally has been the realtionships that I have built offline.

A blog is a birthplace for ideas, a facilitator of collaboration, your portfolio of thoughts and your online brand – lets get you started.

If you have any questions drop us a line in the comments.