Putting more thought into branding

As much as you might want to focus on other stuff, it will always be worth putting some time into branding. It’s important to think about how things look to an outside eye and understand if you’re able to deliver your intended message.

I’ve always wanted The Daily Gemm (TDG) to be a space with writing and simplicity at the forefront and that’s what I focused on when I started posting to the Instagram account a few months ago. However, I’ve realised that although the simplicity element works well on the blog, it doesn’t translate the same way on Instagram. I realised that I might need to do start doing things differently.

After giving it things more thought and thinking about the grand scheme and my future plans and aspirations, I came to the conclusion that I wanted the TDG Instagram account to represent my long-term plans as a brand, rather than just to represent this blog.

And so over the past week or so I’ve been coming up with ideas for how I could do things differently in a way that works for me.

One the first things that came to mind was more visual content and more colour. Currently the TDG feed is full of quotes from my blog posts in black and white. But it turns out the ‘just words, no pictures’ philosophy that I have for this site doesn’t fit for Instagram.

On one hand my grand plans for Instagram have come crashing down but on the other hand it taught me a lot. I’ve now gone back to the drawing board and spent time planning and creating things that I’m looking forward to sharing.

Temporary excess

If you’re someone that regularly consumes content online you’ve probably noticed that right now there is more stuff than ever.

More photo’s and videos than you even have the energy to consume, it’s overwhelming.

Some days people are all sharing the same thing, telling you what you should think, telling you what you shouldn’t be doing or selling something you don’t want.

I guess the problem with more stuff is that when it isn’t helpful, useful or interesting it’s just more stuff to wade through until you can get to the bits that you actually care about.

But just because there is more to consume doesn’t mean you need to spend more time online.

Try giving yourself a time limit, being selective about what you consume and unfollowing anything that isn’t benefiting you.

Accidental escapism

Sometimes it takes accidental escapism to remind you of the kind of person you desire to be.

Catch yourself in the moment and ask yourself questions like ‘Am I being myself?’ or ‘Is this truly where I want to be?’ And then answer them openly and vulnerably.

You might find that you’re quite content with the life you’ve created but perhaps you’re yearning for more. Many people believe that dreams are something that we have to grow out or let go of, that they aren’t to be actualized. But what if they are.

Perhaps that’s the reason for your lack of contentment in life.

All you have to do is figure out what you want and then go for it with full gusto.

Making a mountain out of a molehill

It might not be such a bad idea.

When it comes to creating content, you have so many options: blog posts, Instagram feed, Insta-stories, IGTV, YouTube, podcasts, tweets etc.

I’ve been thinking about how instead of just creating one thing, you can share one piece of content across different platforms.

That’s a great way to reach more people because blog readers might not watch YouTube and people that listen to podcasts might not be on twitter.

I think it can also be useful when building a brand and trying to grow your audience to not just be in one place.

With this blog I’ve been reluctant to do anything apart from write a blog posts each day because I don’t want to create more work than I can handle alongside a full-time job, part-time study and my lifestyle blog.

But I’m at a point where I’m close to 1 year of daily blogging and I’m opening myself up the idea of sharing things on Instagram and possibly having audio versions of the post or perhaps a podcast.

And so the blogposts are the molehills but the potential to create a variety of content from these posts is the mountain.

I’m realising that this writing practice based around personal growth and random musings can become so much more than I initially intended.