Comments on: Five Branding Errors That Make You Look Dumb

By: Freelancing and More! » Post Topic » Freelancing “Branding” – Why does it matter?

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 14:48:41 +0000

[...] freelancer, is the amount of competition from other freelancers. The best way to overcome this is to establish your own brand early on, and maintain [...]

By: Neil Patel

Neil Patel — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 01:50:39 +0000

You should not even focus on international market right now… just focus on building your site with enough content first.

By: Guildford

Guildford — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 10:00:29 +0000

If i am satisfied for my branding in my country, what the point to do the branding for an international market???

By: Neil Patel

Neil Patel — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 04:02:52 +0000

I didn’t. I will have to check it out.

By: Carol

Carol — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 11:27:12 +0000

people often forget what langague is for; communications – so if both sides understand – then it has succeeded, spelling mistakes or not.

have you not see that research that Cambridge universtity did?

“it doestn mtter if teh wrods are incrroet as logn as the corerct lettres are in place”!!

By: Neil Patel

Neil Patel — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 04:06:00 +0000

I don’t mind following more people. I am just not a big Twitter user… I will try and follow more people because a lot of those 5000 people are interesting to me. I wish I could follow them all.

By: Brandon Allen

Brandon Allen — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 23:02:12 +0000

Neil,

I agree with and enjoyed your post. In regards to point #4, I am curious to this point as I noticed on Twitter you have 5,000+ followers but only follow 100 people. Out of all those people only 100 worthy of your follow? That doesn’t sound much like branching out beyond your cool clique to me. Again, I did enjoy your post but I was curious as to why the discrepancy in that area? I would think that Twitter is as seamless a venue to branch out and meet new people as any.

By: Ryan Bollenbach

Ryan Bollenbach — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 23:22:09 +0000

I think this is a good start for me.

I’m trying to brand myself and I found some useful points in here .

By: A Few Good Posts

A Few Good Posts — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 08:03:10 +0000

[...] Neil Patel lists Five Branding Errors That Make You Look Dumb [...]

By: Neil Patel

Neil Patel — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 10:07:08 +0000

Actually a lot of people do. With me, when I read a blog post with a lot of mistakes, it makes it harder for me to enjoy the post.

By: none of your b...

none of your b... — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 05:12:39 +0000

you are so lame who cares about spelling? for reals….

By: Jeff Quipp

Jeff Quipp — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 20:28:20 +0000

Hey Neil, Great advice! I'm hoping supports your own personal branding effort. Its all in good fun!

By: Neil Patel

Neil Patel — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 04:03:14 +0000

Yea, you can never please them all.

By: Vikram Rajan

Vikram Rajan — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 03:47:51 +0000

ah, sometimes you have to crack a few eggs, break a few balls, and piss off the mighty 30% to establish your personal brand

By: Neil Patel

Neil Patel — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 03:29:05 +0000

Sorry you feel that way. I just took a random image from Google… next time I will pick better images.

By: Will

Will — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 17:23:01 +0000

Dumb idea to dis President Bush.
No need to continue subscribing to this blog.

By: Neil Patel

Neil Patel — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 17:09:40 +0000

I agree with your rebuttal for #2, but I was trying to point out that after you are well known in one industry or country, you need to move onto others.

As for #5 I personally don’t think everyone can be famous. If everyone was well known would there even be such as thing as “fame”?

By: Neil Patel

Neil Patel — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 16:58:26 +0000

Feel free to contact me, I would love to help.

By: Sankaranand

Sankaranand — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 09:07:35 +0000

i too have a blog in my personal brand, i just want your suggestion about my site and the do’s and dont’s i did in my personal branding

By: Neil Patel

Neil Patel — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 01:27:17 +0000

Ah, that post was done by Cameron Olthuis. He was writing about me from what he noticed over the past year.

By: Hamlet Batista

Hamlet Batista — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 15:03:03 +0000

Neil,

Here is where I found that reference:

http://www.quicksprout.com/2007/05/09/on-neils-success-what-ive-observed-from-the-sidelines/

“Any press is good press
Neil is a true believer that any press is good press. Most people would be horrified if there were pictures of them dressed in princess costumes or taking shots from a transvestites lap floating around the Internet.”

I am glad that you don’t really believe that.

By: Armen

Armen — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 13:23:32 +0000

Sound, solid advice Neil.

This is my first visit. I’m going to have a look around, and then I just might subscribe

By: Vikram Rajan

Vikram Rajan — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 15:31:55 +0000

Good points… I am a personal brand marketing advisor specifically for lawyers, accountants, financial planners, real estate, and health experts (they all have compliance & ethics obligations).

I find that way too many try to be “all things to all people” and take the World Wide Web too literally. To counterpoint #2: To focus limited time, money & energy resources — and to be more than just a familiar face (and an “experience”), professionals are wise to CONCENTRATE on a single market or community.

Once established, we can then leverage our personal brand through products, platforms, and by helping to brand others.

And to be a pain, I’ll counter #5 too: Everybody can become famous … within their specific target market niche Community.

By: Blake

Blake — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 19:49:43 +0000

@ Point 1:

I think that is true if you become too successful too fast also. Bootstrapping and making a lot of mistakes is a great way to grow and learn even if you can afford to go bigger.

A lot of these points are analogous to many other facets of business. Strong post!

By: Drew Stauffer

Drew Stauffer — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 14:28:06 +0000

I think blogging is one of the best platforms where people can just put themselves out there. Nobody, or a rare few would be as outgoing as they are in the blogging world. It’s a very easy way to network.

By: Neil Patel

Neil Patel — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 19:15:35 +0000

Hamlet, thanks for the input.

I am not sure where I said all news is good news… but I personally don’t believe in that.

By: Hamlet Batista

Hamlet Batista — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 03:50:33 +0000

Neil,

I would add to this list:

6) Pretending to be somebody your are not. Let’s say you want to brand yourself as an expert in gardening, but you don’t know much about the topic. That would be dumb.

7) Sending the wrong message. You say that all news is good news. I wouldn’t want to be associated with negative of bad news.

By: Bill Hartzer

Bill Hartzer — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 20:52:29 +0000

Your comment about “there would be no point in trying to brand yourself because we would all be seen as equals” kind of reminds me about that first Apple commercial years ago…where everyone generally was an equal and then they came along. I have to go over to Youtube and see if I can find that commercial…

Probably the one thing that I personally need to work on more is getting “out there” more and start networking on other sites besides the ones I’ve been hanging out on.

Great article/post, by the way!

By: Neil Patel

Neil Patel — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 05:12:58 +0000

I do apologize for the errors. If you have some spare time feel free to point them out so I can correct them and more importantly learn from my mistakes.

Thanks!

By: Richard Best

Richard Best — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 23:15:07 +0000

Do you mean “URL”.

Please learn to write correctly. I found 5 errors in your first paragraph.