Many people tend to underestimate what is needed in order to create an efficient personal brand. Now, imagine that brand being applied to something which can be conceived of as greater than yourself.
Yes, I'm referring to ZachsThoughts. What else would I be referencing?
But it may make sense that people wouldn't get it. After all, I have spent years trying to craft a publication — em, a blog, — that effectively speaks volume of who I am. Which includes branding and all the like.
This semester, I had the amazing opportunity to take a course by Prof. Talan of American University on personal branding, and what it means to not only brand organizations and companies that are way above your pay grade. But also yourself. What does it mean to transform yourself into a marketable being for other people to utilize? It seems simple in theory, but requires a bit more work than you might think.
Okay, so why am I talking about myself? Well, that's because I may or may not have forgotten that this blog is essentially me, and I am it.
Hence the name.
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As I have explored the depths of the Internet, particularly the writerly corners, I noticed something. Many writers, who used to be solo bloggers, have attempted to expand their confines to allow more contributors and people to join their blog. In essence transforming from the original function of a blog (that is basically a web journal) to a quasi-professional magazine.
People may laugh, but I believe that such a project may indeed be worthwhile. Not only can I make my hobby project seem less vain (like seriously, look at the name). After all, many big publications started out as one-main shows and expanded as time went on. Think: TechCrunch. Even the massive media conglomerates like The New York Times Company and more started out as simple operations that became something much bigger.
Now, was I expecting to become this huge brand. No, but I thought, and still think to a degree, that expansion is needed for the blog to remain viable; and I do not mean financially viable, because that is not the case.
The ultimate downfall with my blog, as is something that I have indicated since literally the second this website's first iteration went live, is advertising and marketing. Which is primarily because for the most part, advertising and marketing in today's digital age involves short-form video, and… I hate recording myself.
Of course I know what you are saying: "Well you can grow without video! You just need to do [x], [y], and [z]! Which is fair, but you need to remember that I am more invested in my blog for the content. Not the marketing efforts. I share the blog because why not? What's the harm in having other people read my writing?
So as you can likely imagine, we are in this position where I am in a loop of not wanting to advertise yet wanting to advertise, but not knowing what to do.
Enter: Substack and the rising appeal of writers coming together in tiny magazines.
With all of these factors slowly coming up again, alongside the need for me to see my own personal brand through, I had a stray thought that would have had ZachsThoughts become something much bigger than me, with other people* involved, and maybe make something that we can all believe in.
Note, I never said money. Money comes when you're doing it genuinely and gaming the algorithm, not by milking yourself dry.
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The name for the preconceived project that I came up with was 'Enthemeseis. Which, on the surface, may seem like a weird name. It isn't a word in the English language. At least one people may know of. That's because it is really just the English transliteration of Σκέψεις, which is "thoughts" in Ancient Greek.
You can likely see where I was coming from.
So I went to work trying to figure out the best way to use the new name into the pre-existing blog, and being able to balloon it to a place where it would be more than just me.
Except, it seemed that my idea was horrific, because, the reception was not exactly the most positive and I felt like there was no support other than me behind the project. So I axed it.
And thus we are back to square one: ZachsThoughts,
So, what did we learn from this botched experiment? It's simple. When you put your heart and soul into something that you love, then you become it in a sense. I have put hundreds, if not thousands of hours into this website and blog. This is my pet project that I need to figure out how to grow as a solo operation without making me tear my hair out.
Secondly, people do genuinely care about the ZachsThoughts brand. It might need a bit more of a nudge, but there are humans who enjoy the content and site that I produce as-is; and that is a wonderful thing to have as someone with as small and limited of an audience that I have managed to cultivate.
If you are interested in giving your thoughts in how I can make ZachsThoughts better (you should see what I did there ;)), then just reply to this email. I would be overjoyed if someone has something to say that can make this plucky project even better.
Well, that's all for now. See you!