If you have ever watched TV you have seen branding at its finest. Companies such as Walmart, Microsoft, and Pepsi spend millions of dollars each and every year making sure everyone knows their name. Now online it is a little different, no longer do you need to have millions in your bank account. Today we stand on an open playing field with anyone being able to set themselves apart even to the extent of beating major companies. Without money it is going to take a tremendous amount of work and patience, but when all is said and done it will be possible to stand above the wikis, major chain stores, and others well known names. First I would like to discuss some people who I respect greatly and who have branded themselves to an amazing extent having a few hundred thousand followers something Walmart or Microsoft would pay millions for.

First let's start with my favorite which is Darren over at problogger.net. Right now he has 134 thousand readers and it seems to be on a constant increase. This is a prime example of how one man can lead thousands becoming more popular than the million dollar companies. The reason for such a popularity is he connected/connects with the blogosphere proves he is the expert and provides a constant stream of content. When Darren makes a move or does something new it streams across the web with great speed. Another person who makes a huge difference online is Cricket & John Scott over at the V7N webmaster network. They decided to really expand on the traditional website or blog. Rather than setting up one or two presences they set up a full network equipped with a blog, a fully functioning forum, and a directory. They offer a bit more, but these are the core. Anyway they now have around a hundred thousand people on the forum and many blog readers. So how did they reach such a feat? Well it comes down to the core of humanity they noticed that forums that were up and running chastised members not letting them speak freely using so many rules that the majority of members were getting banned. This was the beginning of an idea which sparked the growth of a webmaster community rivaled by only the top of the top. They let community members speak their mind and place a domain knowing the difference between an actual question and spam something other forum admins know nothing about. Anyway they provided a true community for webmasters.

This brings us to what you can do when out their trying to make your presence known. Well first thing is keeping your ambitions in check remember it takes YEARS to really build a brand which is why the majority fail. Personally I think that social networking is a great step for those who want to really start building a brand. After the creation of a web presence get on twitter, facebook, and the other major networking sites. Make sure to place your links to these profiles on your web presence and as traffic starts following your and becoming friends on facebook be sure to add them and talk with them. Tell them about your experiences and what you are doing. It is even OK to tell them how you feel trust me they like that. Remember this is not the place to spam, but rather build up your online profile. When people really like you on twitter they retweet your tweets. This is key to making your brand online get people to like, trust, and believe in you and your brand will grow and grow.