If you want to see better results from your marketing, you need to brand yourself online. When you can communicate your brand effectively and completely online, your potential customers will seek you out. They’ll know exactly what you are about, what you represent and how you can help them. Branding helps you stand out in the crowded marketplace and will give you something to organize your marketing around.
These three steps to better branding will help you get more from your marketing efforts – AND – are simple to implement. Don’t put it off any longer! You need to brand yourself now in order to make an impact. Use these three steps to help.
1. Decide on your expertise and show it off.
Your brand should be built around what you can do for your website visitors or your customers. You need to have one area of expertise that you want to focus on for branding purposes. For example, you can become “The Idea Guy” or “The Laptop Mom” (both of which are branding statements that work for two entrepreneurs). Focus your branding statement on one central idea and it will be much easier to show it off. Show off your expertise on your blog, on the social networks and throughout all of your products. Make sure that your content is localized around your expertise so you can show off your skills on your blog, with your social media updates and in your written pieces.
2. Decide on a central image or avatar.
Online visitors are very drawn to images, so it’s important to you create a visual image to attach to your brand. Your avatar should be consistent no matter where clients are looking for you. This means that the picture that you use on Facebook should be the same as the picture that you use on Twitter, your website and any forums that you join. With one glance, people recognize you. The more they see you – the more they will begin to trust you. If you’re using a different picture on each site, it won’t have the same type of impact. If you don’t feel comfortable using a picture of yourself for your avatar, have a custom logo created that expresses who you are and what you are all about.
3. Carry your personal brand across the board.
Once you’ve decided on your theme and your avatar, you need to let people know about it! There are several places that you can let people know about your branding statement. You can add your avatar, URL and a short branding statement to your email signature file. You can also add it to your signature file on any forums that you belong to. You should make sure that your Facebook profile, Twitter profile and other social media profiles all reflect the same statement. Be sure to edit any self descriptions or bios that you have on article directories or press release submission directories. The key is to be sure you are consistent across the board so that no matter who comes looking for you – you’re the same.