Before you get your hair tied up in knots, this isn't a blog review. I wouldn't even know where to start on a review for blog like "Dosh Dosh". No, these are just some of my thoughts on some articles that Maki published.
Brand Associations
Maki's latest article on how brand associations help to promote your website and business is right on the money. When I made my thoughts on blog hosting, self-hosted and otherwise known, Todd Morris of "Success with Todd" made a comment that was also right on the money. He said, "With domain names being so inexpensive, I can't really see the sense in using sub-domains for new blogs … unless it's a branding thing."
In a nutshell, branding which has already taken place with one domain or subdomain (and yes, www is a subdomain) can carry over to other subdomains. In some cases, it's the next best thing to sliced bread. Couple it with the fact that a new subdomain will probably get indexed faster than a new domain, it's a win-win situation for some people (like me). I was hem-hawing over getting new domains, using free subdomains at other places, or using my own subdomains when I wrote that I was planning on opening up Pandora's box and moving a couple of categories from this blog to dedicated blogs. After much thought, I'll definitely be using subdomains and I plan to start in April.
If you don't think untwistedvortex.com is branded-associated with my name yet, why don't you ask prominent bloggers like Darren Rowse (ProBlogger) who RT Cunningham is? If he knows me by my name and my blog (which he does), I'm pretty sure a lot of other people do as well. I'm not bragging. My domain name isn't a household name like yahoo.com and its many subdomains, but it could be. My first and last name already are, but for the wrong reasons (and don't call me Richie, or I'll hunt you down). It all depends on how long and how hard I want to work at it.
Power Stumbling
Back in March of 2007, Maki wrote a comprehensive guide to StumbleUpon and how to use it to bring massive traffic to your website. He followed it up later with two other articles which amended some of the tactics he originally endorsed. There's a lot of good information on how to use StumbleUpon to your advantage, but I have my own condensed version:
It doesn't matter if you're a top stumbler or not. It doesn't matter if you use StumbleUpon every day or not. What matters is that you rate and review as many websites as possible, and try not to do it for your own. Do you want to be a power stumbler? It's simple. Every time you see a pingback or a Google Alert (and I hope you use both), visit that website and stumble the page that links to you, but don't stop there. Stumble as many pages as you like on that website. In essence, stumbling more than you're stumbled by other people and stumbling people that link to you makes you a power stumbler.
Brand Associations and Power Stumbling
StumbleUpon uses avatars to represent the people that stumble you. Even if a member name is different than the name they use on their blog, for example, do you recognize that person? On StumbleUpon, Maki is Autorave. I didn't have to know that, or read it anywhere, to recognize it as his avatar. I knew it was him the first time he stumbled one of my posts. The anime-style images he uses on his blog brand-associated his avatar with his blog. In fact, I would have been surprised if I'd made the association without it being the correct association, that's how powerfully he's associated anime-style images with his blog.
If I was a smart guy (and I make no claims to that), I'd be using the vortex image in my header as an avatar everywhere, or possibly a variation of it that I've been toying with. Hindsight is 20/20, as people like to say, and it would probably take a while for that association to form this late in the game. I suppose it wouldn't hurt to start, though, would it?
Maki is a power stumbler, even if he never admits it. Am I a power stumbler? People like Jonathan C. Phillips of Freelance Folder and AgentSully of Life Learning Today seem to think so, but I'm not too sure about it.
