There are typically two types of clients I encounter: the ones who know they need personal branding on behalf of their business, and the ones who barely understand branding in even a general perspective.
Of course a business (whether it’s a product or service) should have its own branding strategy – as you may know this includes an integrated marketing and PR approach compromised of traditional and digital promotional methods.
However, what business leaders tend to overlook is the need to also brand themselves on behalf of their brands. This humanizes and gives brands a face behind the logo, and it also allows business leaders to become a subject matter experts in their respective industries.
For those business leaders looking to get some quick branding wins in the digital space – or marketing leaders supporting business leaders – here are some personal branding tips that allow for a quick ramp up:
Establish a personal yet professional Twitter handle.
· Make it look pretty, but also get some foundational stuff in place like a Twitter list for established industry brands, subject matter experts and competitors.
- · Retweet. Retweet. Retweet.
- · Set-up Google alerts to schedule original tweets with the right hashtags.
- · Schedule tweets using a free tool like Hootsuite (to start at least).
- · Create original and crafty content. And, use video, a lot. Build some awareness and a timeline of creditability and then do some paid follower ads.
Become an author in the digital space.
- · Of what you ask? Blogs, white papers, case studies, e-books and industry snapshots.
- · You – or your marketing person or consultant – know your industry pretty well, so write some blogs a few times per month and post them on your website.
- · Think big picture to save time. A group of 2-4 blogs can easily become a larger piece, like an e-book.
- · Promote them on your social channels (Twitter and LinkedIn are most effective for business-ish content, the other social networks are for consumer content).
Get your name out there – fuel the Ferrari and hit the gas.
- · Have your marketing person or consultant pull together a PR plan to secure you some guest blogging opportunities.
- · Draft and distribute press releases with you as a subject matter expert for some of the content marketing you've written.
- · Send emails to employees and customers/clients asking them to share your content (be selective, don’t do this for every piece of content you author).
- · Self-publish on LinkedIn. Your connections will get a notification you wrote something.
- · Get quoted by establishing relationships with local media.
Go for the whole enchilada.
- · Put some paid promotion around the content pieces that have gotten the most response on Twitter, from bloggers and media.
- · Test out both Twitter and Facebook. See where you get the most traction. (LinkedIn is very expensive with little return unless you have a large budget).
- · You don't have to spend a lot of money on ads either. Test a few, and start with a nominal amount per ad ($25-$50).
- · The one or two that get the best response should move to round two with more money ($75-$100) to see what happens.
Who’s doing it well?
That’s today’s homework assignment: Google to find out why the following individuals are killing it in the personal branding game.
- · Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group.
- · Jennifer Lopez, international media mogul.
- · John Legere, CEO of T-Mobile.
- · Laurence Bigio, former client and CEO of Caribbean Media/Challenges Magazine.
- · Dr. Neda Vanden Bosch, current client and cosmetic physician.
As you can see personal branding isn't just for celebrities or media moguls, it's a key value-add to any business's brand, whether it's B2B or B2C.
Approximately 30 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs have an active presence on at least one social network, according to data compiled by AdWeek from Socialmediatoday.com and Brandfog.com.
Other business data that I found interesting:
· CEOs who participate on social media can build better connections with customers nearly 90 percent of the time, almost 85 percent of the time with employees and 66 percent of the time with potential investors.
· Consumers are more likely to trust (82 percent) and buy (77 percent) from a company whose CEO and leadership team engage on social media.
Are you ready to establish yourself as a personal brand, or maybe re-tool your current brand? Portray yourself as personable, relatable, qualified and well-researched individual to speak on the topics you choose.
By that, I mean source properly when it comes citing facts and figures that you are referencing. You don’t own those facts. They came from somewhere. Give credit where it’s due.
Think of yourself as a journalist now. You absolutely do not want to be pinged for plagiarism. It destroys a personal brand and fast.
The question you probably have – and that I get asked often – is: does what I've suggested work? Yes. Does it happen immediately? No.
A timeline of 3-6 months is about what it takes to get someone personally branded. In terms of budget, you are looking at spend of a few thousand dollars (sometimes more if there's budget for it), but the name recognition on the results page of a search engine is worth more than its weight in gold.
Let's face it, the first thing someone does before they do business with you or your company is Google you. You can control what is shown and seen if you put in a little bit of work.
Have you started building a personal brand of your own? Please let us know in the comments below.
Guest Author: Anthony Beven (A.K.A. Social Ant) is a marketing & PR consultant. Visit his website www.socialant83.com.
