Create Effective Content to Market You

content creation

As a solopreneur or small business owner, you may think that content marketing is a huge undertaking and that there are better things you can do with your time. You should realize, however, that putting out great content is an excellent marketing tool for building your brand and establishing customer loyalty. In recent years, there has been a shift in marketing campaigns. Advertisements have lost their power over customers. Nowadays, people buy from brands they like and trust. But where does this trust come from? Through engaging and building relationships with your consumers using effective content. This is essentially known as content marketing. You want people to subscribe to your blog updates, follow you on Twitter, opt-in to your email campaign, and subscribe to your page in Facebook. Through the repeated exposure of your content to an audience, you effectively build a relationship with them, giving you opportunities to get them to convert. The tricky part though, is … [Read more...]

10 Secrets to a Personal Brand Upgrade – Part 2

women speaker

In part 1 of this two-part series I offered the first 5 secrets to your personal brand upgrade for 2013. Here are the remaining 5 secrets to be an awesome New You in the New Year! 6. Build "Me to the Power of We" Your personal branding success is ultimately determined by both your ability to communicate your unique promise of value AND your communities capability to magnify your brand. Your brand grows exponentially by others touting your value. Make it a goal to build the 'we' that will support your brand. Join LinkedIn groups related to your expertise, search for opportunities to be a guest blogger, comment on blogs in your niche, sponsor a 'blogathon' on your own blog, start an interview series and introduce thought leaders to your community. The opportunities are endless to build a community that will in turn grow your brand. 7. Focus on Your Real Clout, not Klout! Your online community and tribe is very important but do not forget about the "real world". We often get … [Read more...]

7 Tips to Brand Yourself on Video

blog-iphone-video

We all know the saying that a picture says a thousand words. Video takes those words one step further and makes them real and memorable. In the world of Web 2.0 people want information in bite-sized chunks. Video is a perfect medium for establishing your visual identity on the web and delivering your personal brand in a clear and concise way. Only a couple years ago using video was going beyond what was expected in personal branding. Today it has become the norm. Consider this fact. In July 2011, ComScore, a leader in measuring the digital world, reported that 180 million Internet users in the US alone watched online video content. This averages almost 19 hours per viewer in a single month! For 2012, William Arruda says that video continues to be a major trend in branding through DIY (do it yourself) and professional platforms. Here are 7 ways you can use video to promote your personal brand.   1. Video bios Michael Margolis, founder of Get Storied, talks about the need … [Read more...]

5 Tips for Your Personal Brand to Blossom!

cherry blossom viewing

Spring has finally arrived in Japan and with it comes cherry blossoms. The cherry blossom tree is a symbol of the change in seasons. With the explosion of pink blossoms we all know that the winter weather has finally passed. Japanese are drawn to these trees and are compelled to sit under them to enjoy the blossoms while they last. Unfortunately, the extraordinary pink color is short-lived as the blossoms disappear after a week or so. The cherry blossom tree becomes ordinary, indistinguishable from any other tree. The cherry blossom  reminds me of our personal brands. Our personal brand is what makes us extraordinary. It separates us from all others who offer something similar. Like a cherry blossom our personal brand allows us to stand out and attract people to our promise of value. But unlike the cherry blossom we do not want our personal brands to be short-lived. Strong brands deliver on their authenticity all of the time.  If our brand is present for just 1 week and then … [Read more...]

Your Personal Brand in Perpetual Beta

brand

Branding isn’t just for companies and businesses anymore; personal brands exist, are relevant and need to be managed, too. Whether you’re an executive, a small business owner, or an employee, the importance of managing yhour personal brand cannot be stressed enough. You have to stand out among the crowd and let people know what makes you unique. If they can’t figure out what makes you unique, then you may as well be a random face among millions of people – easily replaceable and easily forgotten. A strong personal brand can be your greatest asset in surviving these tough economic times. You have a personal brand whether you like it or not – so you need to take control of it to show off the best possible you. This is why it’s important to discover and tell your personal brand story. Because this is essentially what makes you unique and what makes you different. By knowing your brand story, you can focus on what you want to do and how to succeed in it. Your … [Read more...]

Take a Break and Let Your Brand Recover

back-injury

I am an active person and when I am feeling stressed or anxious my cure is to jump on my bicycle and head for the mountains. My own personal brand attributes include "action" and "energy." So when I suffer from an injury, muscle strain, or cold it is hard to resist the temptation to just 'suck it up' and ride anyway. However, every athletic person will tell you that you need to let your body recover. Pushing yourself through an injury will only make things worse. By resting you actually bounce back stronger than before. I had to remind myself about this recently after a back injury was preventing me from my regular rides. Is Your Brand Suffering from a Set Back? When we decide to embark on the personal branding process we are so energized to do as much as we can to be our brands. We get feedback from others about our brand attributes, we start creating the online and offline tools to communicate our brand, and we consistently and constantly manage our brands in our daily … [Read more...]

Is Your Personal Brand LINtastic?

Jeremy Lin

My trip last weekend to keynote at Ball State University took me in to the heart of basketball country. Everywhere you looked there was connection to the game. Coupled with this has been the meteoric rise of Jeremy Lin over the past two weeks. A social media personal branding sensation. It was a case of basketball, basketball, basketball! It truly has been LINsanity (he has just applied to trademark that phrase!). There are a number of lessons from Jeremy's LINtastic recent success that you can take and apply to your own personal brand; 1. Continue to play to your strengths. Even though he was not picked up originally by an NBA team, dropped and relegated to minor leagues he still continued to play to his own set of strengths. Personal Brand Lesson It is important to understand your weaknesses and how they might impact on your brand. But if you spend all your time on them you draw attention to them and you will never get a weakness to a point of strength. Take the … [Read more...]

Is Your Brand LinkedIn?

lovelinkedin

LinkedIn operates the world's largest professional network on the Internet with a current membership of over 135 million.  Close to 60% of these members are located outside the US. The latest data shows that professionals are signing up to join at a rate that is faster than two members per second! Clearly LinkedIn has become an essential tool for professionals all over the world to network, share business expertise, find jobs, advance professional knowledge, and build personal brands. 5 Quick Tips to Brand Yourself on LinkedIn Here are 5 tips to effectively use LinkedIn to build and promote your brand. 1) Have a headline that sells an experience When people visit your profile the first thing they will see is your name and headline at the top of your "profile box".  This is the most visible part of your page and you want people to continue exploring your profile.  People often fall into the trap of identifying themselves in their headline by a job title … [Read more...]

You are Faster than You Think!

We all have role models, heroes, or leaders we look up to for inspiration, motivation, and guidance. Our role models can be famous althletes and celebrities, or simply a family member or teacher. But no matter who it is, we aspire to be like them and maybe even have dreams of actually being them. As a passionate cyclist, one of my role models is Lance Armstrong. I respect him for his perseverance to beat cancer, his competitive drive to be the best cyclist, and his passion and commitment to advance cancer research. I admit there are even times while on a bike ride I have visions of being like Lance as I jump out of the saddle and sprint to the top of a long climb. This reminded me of a great commercial by Nike called "Your are faster than you think". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyuWTrrZrn0&feature=youtube_gdata_player What I love about this commercial is that the Chinese pianist sees himself as Lance Armstrong racing through the streets to get to the recital he is late … [Read more...]

Be Yourself, Only Better

Be Yourself Only Better

Recently, I posted to Instagram a photo of myself at the gym. I was wearing a Mizuno T-shirt emblazoned with Japanese characters, and the phrase, “Be Yourself, Only Better." Later that day, a Japanese Instagram friend posted the simple comment, “Me too” along with the same Japanese characters. Curious, I went to Google Translate and found that “limit challenge” is the literal translation. I was intrigued, and even more so, over subsequent days, as I got favorable reactions from other Japanese friends about the shirt – and the philosophy! Of course, this prompted me to take a closer look. So, I went to Mizuno’s website and found a flash presentation that expresses how they see limit challenge. It said this: “Every day You make promises to yourself. Be tough, only tougher. Be strong, only stronger. Be yourself. Only better. And, above all, never waver. Never quit. Never settle.” In digging deeper into their philosophy, I found a statement that … [Read more...]