Rebranding your blog… is it sad that I feel like I could be an expert on this?
I started blogging at the end of July 2011.
At that time, I was on Blogger and I was ‘Leila Mommy Business Woman’. I started blogging as a part of my direct sales business at the time, but then found this underworld of blog life.
I decided to continue with the blog, but focus more on this actual blogging thing and not just for my business.
In November of 2011, I decided it was time to “go big or go home”. I was going to rebrand.
I switched from ‘Leila Mommy Business Woman’ to ‘The Go To Mommy’.
I moved from Blogger to self hosted WordPress. I was going big.
Until March 2012, when another blogger said my name was too similar to theirs and asked me to rebrand. Again.
So I did. I became Life as Leels – which I am today.
In fact, I actually considered rebranding again, but was told:
If your audience will stay the same; rebrand. If your audience will differ from your current audience; start a new blog.
My audience here at Life as Leels is a little bit of every body.
Married, single, male (not many but a few), female, with children, without children.
Because I wanted this new rebrand to be focused on parents (or people who care for children) I started a new blog (Experiencing Parenthood).
If your audience will stay the same, rebrand.
Here are just a few things to keep in mind when rebranding:
Domain name – you will need to be sure you redirect all the old url’s to the new domain url (I highly recommend hiring someone to do this)
Social media –
Twitter is extremely easy to change. Log into your Twitter account and click on settings. It pops up immediately and is super easy to change.
LinkedIn is an easy change as well, although I highly recommend using your name for LinkedIn (or maybe I am the only one who put her blog name in the beginning.)
Pinterest is also an easy change. You can find that in your settings, down towards the bottom.
Instagram – easy change.
Google + page is another easy change (surprisingly!)
Facebook is a little more difficult. You can submit a request to Facebook to change the name, but no gaurantee.
You can keep your blog name and Facebook name different (there are a few successful bloggers off the top of my head that do this – QuirkyMomma.com on Facebook is actually KidsActivitiesBlog.com)
Or, you can start an entirely new fan page and start over with building your audience.
YouTube – once you create a custom channel name (ie: YouTube.com/user/The1TheOnlyLeelers) you cannot change that custom url. You will have to start a new channel or stick with the name being different.
Remember that if you change any of your social media URL’s that you change them on your blog as well. You don’t want to click on Life as Leels’ Facebook social icon and be taken to Leila Mommy Business Woman’s Facebook page!
Tip: When getting started with a new domain and blog name, I highly recommend checking the social media outlets for a name that is available across all channels so that everything is uniform. It makes it easier to find you!
MINI CHALLENGE
If you are thinking of going a different direction, will you rebrand and keep the same audience or will you start new for a new audience?
If you rebrand, what are you considering for a name?
If you are not rebranding, are all of your social media channels set up with the same name or something similar that makes it easy to find you across all social media channels?
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