Your small business has a brand tied to its products and services. You have a personal brand and you need to use the proper marketing tools to grow your business.
We’re used to watching celebrities become brands. Athletes like Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods are perfect examples of celebrity brands.
You don’t have to be a celebrity to build a personal brand. Many successful business owners have their own versions of Brand You that they’ve developed by marketing and connecting with customers via social media, writing blogs, publishing how-to guides, etc.
This brave new world of branding is open to anyone with a desire to carve out their niche and develop a specific reputation.
First, you need to know why you want to build a personal brand. For example, a strong Brand You will help your company brand by association. Brand You can help you build your network of followers, get you in front of broader audiences, and open doors to new opportunities. You have to decide why Brand You is important.
Once you determine your goal, the next step is to apply the basics of branding to your personal brand as well. You’ll want to determine the Brand You brand promise, brand position, and value proposition. Then you can leverage the tools of social media to develop and market Brand You.
Let’s take a look at some ideas to help build Brand You the right way.
Like business brands, you want to differentiate Brand You from all the other personal brands you’re competing with in your market.
What makes you different from your competition and how are you better than your competition? List your skills, experiences, areas of expertise, certifications and so on. Together, these attributes make up the features of your personal brand.
Next, write down how those features help your target audience or add value to their lives. This process enables you to identify the benefits that your personal brand delivers. That means the features and benefits you deliver need to uniquely position you against competitors and make it clear that Brand You is better than Brand Them.
Your audience should always come first. What you believe are your most important skills and traits doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is what your target audience wants and needs.
This is one of the most common mistakes that businesses and individuals make when building brands. Your goal is to convince them that your brand is the one they need, but you need to learn what they need first.
Businesses use a mission statement to define what a company stands for and what that company is working to achieve. Your personal mission statement should accomplish the same.
Write a mission statement that identifies who you are, your top personal brand features, and your brand goals. Your mission statement should tell the story of Brand You in one or two succinct and specific sentences.
Tiger Woods did it. Even Prince did it during “The Artist Formerly Known as Prince” stage. Why can’t you do it?
I’m talking about creating a logo design for your personal brand. Logo designs are visual, and research shows that people remember colors and images much better than they remember text.
I created the Brand You logo at the top of the page using the LogoGarden tool. It took just a few minutes.
If you have a personal brand logo design and use it on your business cards, website, or Twitter profile, you’ll create one more way for people to remember you next time they see your name and logo.
Just as a business invests time and money into marketing their brands, you need to invest time and money into promoting your personal brand.
Print business cards, launch a website, publish a blog, and get on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Write and share useful content across the social web that helps you build your brand reputation and your network of followers.
The key is to consistently represent your brand across these varied sites and profiles. For example, avoid talking too much about your personal life in your Twitter updates and refrain from uploading pictures, videos, or updates on your Facebook profile that detract from your brand image and message.
Much of your personal brand success comes from the credibility that you’re able to build around Brand You.
Look for opportunities to write guest blog posts on influential blogs where your target audience is likely to spend time. Publish comments on posts on popular blogs in your industry to join the conversation and demonstrate your expertise. Also, connect with other experts and online influencers on Twitter so you can engage with them.
A great way to use marketing is to pursue offline activities as well such as speaking at events, hosting lectures at colleges and business organizations, and teaching classes. People need to develop trust in Brand You and you can help them feel more secure by establishing your credibility and maintaining that credibility through ongoing activities.
The world changes quickly. You need to keep learning and be prepared to tweak your personal brand as your abilities, expertise and experience demand it as well as when the world demands it. Use the tools of social media to keep track of your brand reputation, so you know when it’s time to rethink and revise Brand You to continue meeting your audience’s wants, needs, and expectations.
You are your best brand champion and guardian. If you don’t promote, protect, and defend Brand You, no one else will. Personal branding success is yours to take.
