Entrepreneurship has never been easy. Becoming a business owner has always required grit, determination, financial support, and at least a little bit of good, old-fashioned luck.
Technology and opportunities laid bare by the pandemic certainly altered the entrepreneurial landscape. And it’s ironic that those two factors have leveled the playing field while also inviting more players on the turf. Competition is fiercer than ever.
What today’s entrepreneurs have to bring to the table is a personal brand. People are buying from brands they identify with and those that share their priorities, not nameless, faceless companies. Your brand is what makes you unique, identifiable, credible and relatable. And if you’ve figured out what your brand is, don’t keep it to yourself. Promote it loud and clear to as many people as you can. Here are three tips for how you can.
1. Make Your Online Content Sing
You know that at the crux of every successful marketing strategy is great content. Don’t overlook the importance of creating content that promotes your personal brand, not just your products and services. Remember, it’s your brand that can set you apart from the competition.
I’m not talking about just wordsmithing the “about us” page on the company website. You need to insert yourself into every piece of content to keep your brand consistent. Once you do, take it up an octave.
Maybe you’re producing YouTube videos or promoting your industry expertise via a podcast. Get more mileage out of that media by using an AI video summarizer that can translate it to written form within seconds. It will embed the video within an easy-to-read summary that you can post to your website and social media platforms right away.
Remember that search engines like Google are ranking content by more than keywords. Their bots seek out authority, relevance, context, quality, user intent and media diversity. They like content that combines words, images and video. A summarizer amplifies all those shiny SEO objects, and AI lets you have it for a song.
2. Turn Up the Volume on Your Journey
Your entrepreneurial journey makes you unique. What you’ve experienced and learned along the way defines you as a brand. People want to hear your story, so tell it.
Storytelling is a pretty fundamental human activity. It can entertain, engage, and amaze. It can demonstrate authority and create connections with others who relate to it. For customers and prospective employees, your journey may be why they buy from you and want to work for you. If you’ve learned some valuable lessons as an entrepreneur, your story creates community among those further along and those just starting out.
Again, the “about us” page isn’t loud enough. Talk about your journey in your content. Sprinkle its anecdotes in your speaking engagements. Social media provides an ideal platform for not just sharing bits of your story as it happens, but to also comment on others’ stories. Engage with entrepreneurs globally to make yourself heard as part of that community.
There are few rules to sharing your journey. Of course, you don’t want to give away any company secrets. But always, always be honest. Even simple stories resonate with readers, so don’t be tempted to embellish. You’ll lose the trust of those interested in your personal brand.
3. Boost Your Network Signal
Networking is personal branding 101. But if all you’re doing is trying to make connections with people who can do something for you, you’re missing the boat. Your networking connections should be loud and proud, diverse and multi-directional.
It’s easy to get into a rut here. You routinely go to the same local events and national or international conferences. While seeing the same faces year after year is OK, you aren’t taking full advantage of the networking potential. Identify some new opportunities, do your pre-conference preparation, and you’ll find a whole new bunch of professionals to add to your contact list.
If you really want to get your brand heard, become the networking connector, not just the connected. You need to listen to what people are saying when you engage with them, then figure out if you can connect them with the right people. Don’t think you aren’t getting any benefit from being the connector, because you are.
Your reach, influence and standing in your network communities will rise over time. Seeking out others at a variety of conferences and other events will still help you make crucial connections in your industry. But being the person who facilitates connections will make you the one whom others seek out.
Project Your Personal Brand
It takes a lot of work to develop a winning personal brand. Just don’t forget to make sure people hear it, loud and clear. That way, there will be no confusing you for a competing brand. You are, after all, the company you keep.
Read the full article here