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Pursuing Nick's talk on making a daily commitment, Colette picks up the next important factor in maintaining a sustainable readership: making yourself memorable by design. As I mentioned in my panel, it is not hard to make a gaming blogosphere journalist notice your original work to prove a readership on paper. However, going the extra mile to communicate what you or your blog is really all about.
Commitment is important, but we can't stress this enough to bloggers that only focus on producing volume on an otherwise granola blog. The traffic you've worked so hard to earn may never connect with you. Bloggers must work to solicit an honest, emotional response from their readers. Vapid writing and mission statements are a total waste of your time. I find this especially true in writing for gamers. We quest and read and problem solve and murder people all day, so we can see bullshit coming from a mile away.
In "Branding Yourself", Colette touches on how she broke into the industry as a freelance writer at Kotaku, camwhores, whiners, biting on controllers as anger management, and the story behind Tomopop.com. Unfortunately Ms. Bennett was unlucky and due to a GoogleDocs vs. shitty Wi-Fi fluke, losing all of her speaking notes minutes before the panel got grooving. Nevertheless, the show must go on so we winged it! In the video you'll find practical advice on how to package your online portfolio whether its to find a job or to carve out a memorable space online of your very own.
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21 comments + 95764 views
Interesting topic to discuss.
I'm curious, does Collete intend to do anything further with the blow in game slot or was it just to get her foot in the door?
"Just shut the fuck up and write what you want to write."
HAHAHAHAHAHA
If you ever write a self-help book, that needs to be the title.
Oh man, I use to bite my SNES controllers too. I went through a lot of SNES controllers as a kid. The controllers I use now still have bite marks on them, and my friends get a strange reaction when they see them.
Awesome job on the panel Colette.
One time I bit my Gamecube controller. I think I was playing F-Zero GX at the time; I'm sure you understand.
I actually have bitemarks on my NES controller, but that's not out of anger. I was trying to access the secret bonus level in DuckTales when you're flying back with Launchpad. I didn't realize pressing down was a timing thing and just thought I wasn't pressing it hard enough. So I used my teeth.
Fine fine job Colette! You did awesome!
<3
I have one of those stitch hats. I guess I'm a nerd
I agree with everything said about branding. That is a tough process, but extremely critical to your overall success; believe me, it is more than just eye-candy. If you can't do it yourself, then FIND someone to do it for you, someone with experience in brand identity, preferably not your cousin's best friend who just happens to have Photoshop (pirated). Get someone who has done it before and who knows a thing or two about branding, and communicate with them about what you want to do and get the ball rolling. I've seen some really shitty results from people who have 'ideas' of what they want their brand to be like, but the execution is so horrible that it doesn't matter how ingenious the idea was.
That said, Destructoid's brand alone is probably one of the most powerful ones I've seen on the web, and that is saying something. However, didn't Destructoid have a mission statement way back in the day?
We did. It eventually became our about us/history page as we grew and things happened to us but we did give the mission statement thing a shot. We tried a lot of things to help people understand what we were all about -- primarily editorial voice, but everything from our podcast to my handsome metallic alter-ego is just saturated with a consistent outlook on the gaming universe. Our stuff "feels" like Destructoid. I guess I'm saying don't just stop at a motto and a logo. Let your brand become you.
I guess it's a little big about consistency, too. I don't have any blogging credentials, really, but I do like to think that people read my stuff. So when I moved my blog Surplus Gamer over to Dtoid, I felt it was really important to also get some consistency between my various gaming identities - so now when I have a username for something game-related, I try to make it SurplusGamer. So that's now my 360 gamertag, I registered that name for Spore Creature Creator, that sort of thing. And even though I'm hardly a force to be reckoned with, I do kind of - perhaps naively - think about it in terms of having a consistent brand that people can latch onto. Hey, if someone who reads the Dtoid c-blogs recognises my name when they're hunting for a Shoggoth on Spore Creature Creator, then that's good enough for me.
she is so right. ok guys help put and go to lookongames.blogspot.com
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