Learning How To Build your Brand at the #BloggerBrandWorkshop with Currys PC World

Since becoming a full-time freelance writer and blogger, I’ve been working really hard on building myself as a brand. I want people to see Squibb Vicious and think of strong imagery, flowing words, quality content, and not just the girl with blue hair! I want to be a proper brand and I know that’s not going to come easy, but it’s something I’m willing to put the effort in to. This is when Curry PC World swung into action and offered me a helping hand in the form of the #BloggerBrandWorkshop.

With the help of the One Roof Social team and Microsoft, I had a fun-filled evening seeing old faces, meeting new bloggers and learning a lot about the things I should and shouldn’t be doing to build myself up as a brand and as a blogger. So I’m going to share with you three things that I learned that I feel need to be passed on and shared in the blogging community!

The Use of #AD

So when it comes to paid content, we all know we have to declare it, but how do we declare it properly? When you are paid in cold hard cash or gifted an item you use #ad when the brand you’re working with has pre-approved your content and you’ve agreed to deliver a certain amount of posts and social support. So, in short, if a brand wants to approve anything you’re sharing before it goes live, it’s #AD.

The Use of #Spon

So I admit it, I didn’t know how to use this one as I thought #AD and #Spon were the same thing, but they’re not! When you’re paid in that lovely cold hard cash or you receive a gift that you’ve agreed to share then you need to use #Spon when posting if the brand hasn’t asked to sign off your work. So this works a lot for Instagram Stories when you’re unboxing gifts but the brand hasn’t signed off your clips, for example.  When you’re gifted an item but are not being paid a monetary value then you do not need to use ‘Paid Partnership with….’ but do you when you’re being paid cash.

Invoicing

When you’re earning money from your blog, you’re going to be invoicing brands, agencies and PRs. It can be a really boring task to do but you want your money so it has to be done. When invoicing be sure to put your payment terms on there, mine are within 30 days and if they aren’t paid by then I add a late fee. When it comes to adding a late fee Gov.UK recommend that the interest you can charge if another business is late paying for goods or a service is ‘statutory interest’ is 8%. If for any reason, you decided to take a non-payer to Small Claims Court, your payment terms on late fees will stand you in very good steed to win your case!

Not only did I learn those really important facts, I also learned that I really need a Microsoft Pro i5 with Microsoft 365 on it to be able to work to my full potential… or so I keep telling myself! My MacBook turns 10 this year and I am so due an upgrade as I no longer have a laptop to take to client meetings or use when we are traveling and the Microsoft Pro i5 will more than fill that void! Whilst as the event we learned about what Office 365 can do including, add 3D animations to PowerPoint presentations with “Morph”, which would work so well when we storyboard for videos so we can see ideas in 3D. When I’m working on a blog topic that needs a little more research then “Researcher” takes care of the heavy lifting in seconds and adds citations for you, oh how I wish I had that back in my Uni days! And if you’re working with a brand and want to share ideas then collaborate in OneNote, and you can simply rewind and replay someone else’s ink strokes to follow their train of thought. How awesome are those new additions? I mean, Office is cross-platform now so it can be used on you iMac, your iPhone and near enough any other tech device but I still think it’s time for me to move over to world of Microsoft!

Thank you to the team at One Roof Social for teaching me a lot, the team at Currys PC World & Microsoft for opening my eyes to their products and to Joe Blogs for swopping in to help just at the right time!