You, Your Brand or Your Message
What exactly are you wanting your audience to do?
This is an important question.
- Do you want your reader to get to know you?
- Do you want them to have “positive associations” with your brand?
- Are you trying to spread a message?
Good communication starts with your goal. Fuzzy goals create fuzzy thinking. Fuzzy thinking leads to fuzzy communication.
It’s like setting out on a journey, but not being quite sure where you want to be, you just enjoy the scenery until you run out of gas.
Before you write or speak, decide the outcome you want, and drive towards that destination.
If you found this article useful,
bookmark it at Del.icio.us for future reference
Posted on February 06th, 2008 by Chris Garrett in Writing
Articles you might also like:
Subscribe now with RSS, daily emails or weekly emails to receive more tips, new media news and a FREE ebook!
My thoughts about this are fuzzy, Chris. Your assertion has the ring of truth; but then reading over your 3 possibilities leads me to say “They’re not identical–but they overlap about 90%.”
Got to cogitate some more about this.
Good advice. The biggest mistake I made with some of my blogs was not having a clear vision up front.
I tend to agree with Mark. Each of those areas overlaps with the others. The only possible exception would be in the case of a corporate blog, where the brand and the message are important, but the individual writer(s) may not be as important.
Can I answer Yes, Yes, and Yes?
I’ve found that my fuzziness wasn’t so much with what I wanted to say, but with who I wanted to say it to. As that’s been coming into better focus, I’ve found that my posts and subject are changing over time.
The two are, of course, very deeply linked. Audience should always determine at least some aspects of the message.
@Mark - Hopefully my recent post clarifies, but the idea is to think what your primary goal is and most of all WHY
@George - Yup, if you do not know where you want to end up how do you know if you are off course?
@Adam - I think if you really drill down your intentions you can find they are not as overlapping as they first seem
@Sonia - Yes target audience is a critical decision because you have to cater your message to their specific needs and biases
Branding can be tough if you donot undestand your niche. A good brand can only justfy its own category