Personal Branding was the reason why I got started online and, in fact, I have talked a lot about it from time to time in my blog posts.
Some of you have asked if personal branding has tangible rewards, and if somebody can make money through it. Well, I am here to tell you that, in most cases, you will not make any money to personal branding in the short-term.
When you think branding, do you think of a logo, an advertisement on TV, radio or on the internet? You are not alone if you do that because branding is yet another misinterpreted and misunderstood word.
Branding is usually identified with the practice of putting a symbol on a thing to indicate ownership. Companies have used their logos on the products they sell and campaigned to imprint their logs in people’s minds.
Recently, a gentleman sent me a review of my blog design and proposed that he could give me a better design and a better navigation for about $500.
Should you build a brand image on your name or should you establish a company name and brand it while you remain invisible?
I had this discussion with a young online marketer from India several months ago who wanted to stay behind a company name for his own strategic reasons. And that topic seems to come back in different forms over and over. So, I decided to touch on that as well in this post.
People from one school of thought on branding prefer to establish a company name where they want to stay anonymously behind the scene. They do so for following reasons:
And then, there are others who believe differently. People like John Maxwell, Michael Hyatt, Neil Patel and others who drive their businesses by putting themselves up front. They build their own brand name bigger than any other brand identity of any other company that they run.
Personal Branding is not a term most probably you are unaware of anymore. Chances are, you are already working hard to build your brand identity in the marketplace.
I thought of writing about this again today because I see a lot of people doing too many things going in all directions in an effort to build a personal brand probably because they still don’t understand what it really means.
So, let’s talk about it!
As an entrepreneur, managing your brand reputation is very important. In today’s marketplace where social media is such a dominant marketing tool, you simply need to be on top of things on social media.
Do you really have to be on top of social media?
Well, not if you don’t want to grow your business by leveraging the power social media and internet marketing has to offer. You can simply ignore it and build your business slowly using traditional ways and it may still work the way it always has.
But if you want to be on the cutting edge and build your brand identity online to take your business on fast track, you can’t afford to ignore social media marketing. And that is when reputation management becomes an important aspect of your overall campaign.
If you have had a few jobs by now, you do realize how important your resume becomes whenever you are looking for the next opportunity. If you are an entrepreneur, you know how important it is that your prospect takes you seriously.
Over the years, I’ve helped many people in building their personal brand online. Yet, I’ve also met those who don’t believe in personal branding online though they do work very hard to build and maintain their brand value in traditional ways.
Working with people from various walks of life and helping them leverage the power of the internet and social media, has been a tremendous experience. The process of personal branding is a lot of fun and also challenging at times. It is fun because it is not just very engaging but also very rewarding when you do it right. But, it becomes a challenge when the process is broken.
The goal of a brand name is to attract more business, more customers towards it. The goal of branding is to influence the marketplace positively to drive more revenues.
Whether you are just starting out as an entrepreneur, or you have some business background, you know that we all are a brand name. Depending on how small or big our circle of influence is, we all have a brand value. We all influence people around us.
For a brand to be truly magnetic, to attract more people towards it, here are 9 most important rules of branding engagement. The more you are aware of these rules and the more you practice being sincere about your branding activities, the more magnetic your brand value is going to be with time. So, here you go:
With the rise of social media and online marketing, social media consulting has become a flourishing industry in itself. Many business owners outsource the task of social media marketing to somebody who can handle it well.
It is such an important area and there are so many self-proclaimed internet and online marketing experts out there. As a business owner, if you plan to hire a social media expert, you must select the person you choose to work with very carefully.
You need someone who can understand your value system, raise your brand awareness in the marketplace and help your brand name gain popularity in social media. Here are 12 key checkpoints you can use to evaluate your prospective social media consultant:
Speaking of Personal Branding, first of all I encourage you to visit the post I wrote while launching my e-book Personal Branding GPS. If you haven’t taken a look at that article yet, go ahead and take a peek to see what Personal Branding is and why is it important to you no matter what your personal or professional goals may be.
To briefly recap, you might want to be recognized for your talents, you might want to create a reputation in the online world to reach out a wider range of audience or you might want to build a business online using the talents and abilities that you are proud of.
Knowing what not to do while using social media for business is at least as important as knowing what we must do to leverage social media for busness. Earlier, I shared how to leverage social media for business where we discussed some of the basic steps for the entrepreneurs to take control of their personal brand and online reputation for business success.
Social media is the most powerful tool in hands of an entrepreneur who can leverage its power for business growth. If done right, the benefits of using social media platform are tremendous.
However, it is equally important to know and remember the cardinal rules of using social media for business. If used inappropriately, social media is powerful enough to only increase the pain.
