Hi all!
Often times when I teach others personal branding and I ask what personal branding is exactly, I am met with blank faces or educated guesses. Which is okay because it affords me opportunities to share a little insight.
I found long explanations as to what it is and in fact here is one definition that I found;
Definition
Personal branding describes the process by which individuals and entrepreneurs differentiate themselves and stand out from a crowd by identifying and articulating their unique value proposition, whether professional or personal, and then leveraging it across platforms with a consistent message and image to achieve a specific goal. In this way, individuals can enhance their recognition as experts in their field, establish reputation and credibility, advance their careers, and build self-confidence.
The term personal brand is believed to have first appeared in the August 1997 issue of Fast Company Magazine, in an article by management guru and author Tom Peters, who wrote, "We are CEOs of our own companies: Me Inc. To be in business today, our most important job is to be head marketer for the brand called You."
While I like this definition, allow me to simplify more.
Personal branding is the process of taking your name and face and adding value to it. It is a promise of value and you determine that value.
But the key to remember here is "process". Personal branding is indeed a process and your brand will not be built overnight.
I had a guy call me up one day and asked me about personal branding. After I explained it to him, he ask if it would save his job which he could lose in the next 30 days. I told him that personal branding doesn't quite work that way.
The process works more like a crockpot rather than a microwave. Remember, the more time you put into building your strong magnetic personal brand the better the staying power is of your branding.
Until next time....You are the BRAND!
Robert E Reed
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Thursday, March 4, 2010
The Value of your Brand by Jean Klett
I ran across a neat article discussing the basics in personal branding. It really simplifies the process for the everyday person, enjoy!;
Two common buzzwords in marketing and advertising today are the words brand and branding. People banter these words around in many different ways with many different meanings. A definition of a brand that seems to work well, is “a customer’s expectation of consistent value.” Oftentimes people think of a brand in terms of a logo. A logo is a mark, a graphic element, that supports and helps to identify a brand, but it is not the brand itself.
For all intents and purposes your brand is your reputation. Regardless of what you say or write about your personal brand, your brand is what it is based on who you are, how you do business, and how you provide value. If you do not try to provide value, regardless of what your materials say about your brand, they are untrue. It does not take long for customers to realize that a brand promotion is false if they are not receiving value from you.
For that reason, the first step in building your brand is to ensure that in all of your business dealings you provide massive and exceptional value beyond the expectations of your customers. Providing this value over time will create a reputation for value and for excellence, and your reputation will spread. This becomes the foundation and the embodiment of your personal brand.
The first step in creating your personal brand is to identify how you provide value to your clients and customers. Sometimes it helps to talk to them and find out how they perceive you, and why they do business with you. Once you understand the value relationship that you provide, you can then begin to define messages that describe that relationship. This messaging effectively becomes your brand. Without defining an effective and consistent brand message, the process of branding is virtually impossible.
Once you have your brand messaging in place, the key is to maintain it in a consistent format for all of your materials and promotional efforts. Your website or blog, press releases, articles that you write and anything else that you use to promote your brand identity in the marketplace must be meticulously consistent, focusing on the same brand message. If you fail to do this, or if your message is ambiguous, people will not understand your brand and will not be able respond to it. The ultimate objective of personal branding is to build brand loyalty so that your customers keep coming back to you.
Jean Klett is a business coach and mentor based out of Bordeaux, France, that assists serious entrepreneurs in building a profitable online business with multiple incomes streams.
Two common buzzwords in marketing and advertising today are the words brand and branding. People banter these words around in many different ways with many different meanings. A definition of a brand that seems to work well, is “a customer’s expectation of consistent value.” Oftentimes people think of a brand in terms of a logo. A logo is a mark, a graphic element, that supports and helps to identify a brand, but it is not the brand itself.
For all intents and purposes your brand is your reputation. Regardless of what you say or write about your personal brand, your brand is what it is based on who you are, how you do business, and how you provide value. If you do not try to provide value, regardless of what your materials say about your brand, they are untrue. It does not take long for customers to realize that a brand promotion is false if they are not receiving value from you.
For that reason, the first step in building your brand is to ensure that in all of your business dealings you provide massive and exceptional value beyond the expectations of your customers. Providing this value over time will create a reputation for value and for excellence, and your reputation will spread. This becomes the foundation and the embodiment of your personal brand.
The first step in creating your personal brand is to identify how you provide value to your clients and customers. Sometimes it helps to talk to them and find out how they perceive you, and why they do business with you. Once you understand the value relationship that you provide, you can then begin to define messages that describe that relationship. This messaging effectively becomes your brand. Without defining an effective and consistent brand message, the process of branding is virtually impossible.
Once you have your brand messaging in place, the key is to maintain it in a consistent format for all of your materials and promotional efforts. Your website or blog, press releases, articles that you write and anything else that you use to promote your brand identity in the marketplace must be meticulously consistent, focusing on the same brand message. If you fail to do this, or if your message is ambiguous, people will not understand your brand and will not be able respond to it. The ultimate objective of personal branding is to build brand loyalty so that your customers keep coming back to you.
Jean Klett is a business coach and mentor based out of Bordeaux, France, that assists serious entrepreneurs in building a profitable online business with multiple incomes streams.
Monday, March 1, 2010
Save Time with Social Media by Tammie Nielsen
Want to Save Time ?
I love what social media does for my company, my personal brand and my pocket book. But when I first started using social media I found it was eating up my time. Has that happened to you? Well, I started searching for tools and sites that would help me accomplish all I needed to do for little or no money and save me time. Because really that is the one thing I can't have more of.
Scheduling Post
There are many sites that allow you to schedule post and I have tried several of them. But my favorite is Social Oomph (formerly tweet later) Social Oomph allows me to schedule tweets and FB post in advance, manage more than one account, schedule auto responses to followers on twitter and even vet my followers among other things.
Testing
Have you ever wondered how many people are clicking on your links that you post on social media sites? Well, if you're not your should. The only way to improve your use of social media is to test, test, test and keep testing and one of the easiest ways I have ever used is bit.ly. This web site shortens the URL to a manageable size, you only have 140 characters so you want to use them wisely. Then it tracks how many clicks, what day, what time and where they came from! So if your not getting the results you want re write your post or your head line and keep trying.
Pulling It All Together
What's your home page when you open your computer? Does it have all your social media sites and web sites right there for you to work from? If not you are wasting valuable time. My PLP is one of my most important tools I use not only does it have all my sites to just click on to go where I need to but I also have a place to send people to that I want to connect with. When I am networking I frequently just want to be able to keep in touch and build a relationship with them. Using social media sites are a great way to do that but try sending someone you just met to connect with you on facebook it can be a nightmare because your name is not unique and it may be very difficlut to find you. And Twitter has some glitches many times you will not be able to find some one by their name or user name the twitter search just can't find them. But when I send them to my PLP all my buttons are right there for them to connect with me. check it out my PLP here. It also helps them remember my name because it is the web address as well as my email Tammie@TammieNielsen.com.
That's the kind of consistency that builds name recognition and is so important when building your personal brand.
Good Luck!
You can click on the links below.
Links
Schedule tweets - www.socialoomph.com
Shorten URL and Tracking Clicks - www.bit.ly
Personal Landing Page - www.brandyouclub.com
Have a wonderful day!
Tammie Nielsen
and your BrandYouClub Team
I love what social media does for my company, my personal brand and my pocket book. But when I first started using social media I found it was eating up my time. Has that happened to you? Well, I started searching for tools and sites that would help me accomplish all I needed to do for little or no money and save me time. Because really that is the one thing I can't have more of.
Scheduling Post
There are many sites that allow you to schedule post and I have tried several of them. But my favorite is Social Oomph (formerly tweet later) Social Oomph allows me to schedule tweets and FB post in advance, manage more than one account, schedule auto responses to followers on twitter and even vet my followers among other things.
Testing
Have you ever wondered how many people are clicking on your links that you post on social media sites? Well, if you're not your should. The only way to improve your use of social media is to test, test, test and keep testing and one of the easiest ways I have ever used is bit.ly. This web site shortens the URL to a manageable size, you only have 140 characters so you want to use them wisely. Then it tracks how many clicks, what day, what time and where they came from! So if your not getting the results you want re write your post or your head line and keep trying.
Pulling It All Together
What's your home page when you open your computer? Does it have all your social media sites and web sites right there for you to work from? If not you are wasting valuable time. My PLP is one of my most important tools I use not only does it have all my sites to just click on to go where I need to but I also have a place to send people to that I want to connect with. When I am networking I frequently just want to be able to keep in touch and build a relationship with them. Using social media sites are a great way to do that but try sending someone you just met to connect with you on facebook it can be a nightmare because your name is not unique and it may be very difficlut to find you. And Twitter has some glitches many times you will not be able to find some one by their name or user name the twitter search just can't find them. But when I send them to my PLP all my buttons are right there for them to connect with me. check it out my PLP here. It also helps them remember my name because it is the web address as well as my email Tammie@TammieNielsen.com.
That's the kind of consistency that builds name recognition and is so important when building your personal brand.
Good Luck!
You can click on the links below.
Links
Schedule tweets - www.socialoomph.com
Shorten URL and Tracking Clicks - www.bit.ly
Personal Landing Page - www.brandyouclub.com
Have a wonderful day!
Tammie Nielsen
and your BrandYouClub Team
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