“If people like you they will listen to you, but if they trust you, they’ll do business with you.” – Zig Ziglar

Branding has been a buzzword in the advertising industry ever since it has evolved. It has always been there however with the recent rise of social media marketing, personal branding has reached new heights and touched new grounds. This is one trend that is hard to ignore because it is prevalent everywhere, especially if your brand aim is to establish itself online.

A successful brand relies on a lots of things one of which is its unique positioning in the marketplace. This is the reason why we as Orange county website Design Company are pushing hard every day to establish our brand in our niche. Today regular content on Social platforms in not marketing but necessity. We know that it is a big claim to make but trust us this is true in every sense. Every business today is competing for its users attention and to grab it you need to be heard in a right way and right way is on Social Platform.

We have compiled a list of few recent surveys from various websites to give you an idea of where the consumers are:

1) As of 2019, there are 3.2 Billion users on the Social Media, which equates to about 42% of the population

2) 54% of Social browsers use Social media to research products

3) Daily active Instagram stories users increased from 150 million in January 2017 to 500 million daily active stories worldwide in January 2019. You can check an article that will help you understand how to grow your audiences using this platform.

4) Social Media users grew by 202 million between April 2018 and April 2019

5) Close to $74 Billion was spent on Social network advertising in 2018

6) 96% of the people that discuss brands online do not follow those brands owned profiles

7) Facebook now sees 8 billion average daily video views from 500 million users

All these numbers are staggering and the best part is that they are still growing. This is why it is imperative to analyse your Online game today and play it accordingly. Your unique identity sets you apart from your competition and contributes towards the overall success of your company.

A brand is the set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer’s decision to choose one product or service over another. – Seth Godin

Before I get into the details about why you need to brand yourself, let me take a step back. When thinking about a brand for a business, firstly you need to decide whether you want to build a personal brand or a business brand. Now, the two have a difference, however, you can build both. For example: Gary Vaynerchuk is a perfect example of how to build and maintain both the brands simultaneously. However to shed some more light on the same topic let me brief you a little about this.

A personal brand is built around ‘you’ – means you brand your business with your name. On the contrary, a business brand is build around an identity that you create for your business – means crafting a name that is independent of your personal name.

What does it mean to brand you?

Personal branding is the art of becoming knowable, likeable and trustable. – John Jantsch

To brand yourself is to create an identity for your self – a professional identity, and attach it to a message that would set you apart from fellow workers in your company or in your industry. You present your best qualities and skills in an appealing way to the online sector, targeted to a specific audience who is in search of your area of specialisation.

1. You need to give a face to your company

Yes, brand name can work for some companies. However, almost all companies (even the “big” ones) have to choose an agency that is more human than choosing a mere logo to talk for them.

People like to interact with people – not machines!

Personal branding should be able to earn you a good and positive reputation that people would admire. This is where social interaction becomes so important. You need to make sure that you are present on Social platforms to entertain the questions of your customers all the time. These days all major social platforms allow businesses to work with Chat bots that auto reply to the customers on behalf of businesses. This is one practise that is gaining a lot of momentum in 2019. If you reply to your customer immediately they feel more connected and attached to a brand. So make sure that you are engaged with your customers consistently.

Your brand is what people say about you when you are not in the room. – Jeff Bezos

2. Create a visual expression

Your brand must be able to create a visual identity of yours. When your name is mentioned, you want people to remember your name and not just your brand logo! This will really identify your business brand. The mention of your name should make people visualise your face as well as your brand logo. A good way of doing this is to promote your logo with every post you put on social media. Most brands do it. They watermark their logo with what ever piece of content they make or publish on social media. This not only gives brand a consistency but also cements the brand image in the subconscious of its customers. All good brands make it a point to ensure that they put in their imprints in every little work they deliver.

Personal branding is all about building rapport at scale and rapport is one of the most fundamental sales techniques. Whether you call it personal branding or charisma, it’s a very powerful tool that veteran salespeople naturally employ to close more deals with less effort. – Mark Roberge

Personal Brand Management Strategy

Once you have established your brand, your next task is to manage and actively promote your personal brand. Thanks to digitisation, today’s world demands consistency. You need to be smart with content and its placement. Most brands make a mistake of overcrowding the platform with meaningless content.

As a brand you need to be clear with your message and strategy. You must know what you are trying to achieve with your content. You must have a clear matrix to analyse the effect of your content. To put in simpler words, you need to be proactive with what you put online about your brand. You need to take control of your online brand image and provide a platform – website, outlining your achievements or create a blog to share your ideas and experiences related to your industry. If you don’t share your ideas, no one will know if they are any good.

Apart from creating a vibrant branded Twitter account for your start up, business owners should consider creating their own personal account on Twitter. Fans and followers often want to connect with the person behind the brand. – Lewis Howe’s

The strategy for your personal brand should be proactive and be reflective of your natural capabilities. You have to understand your own personal DNA. Don’t do something because Steve Jobs or Bill Gates did it. Stay true to yourself and your brand. To be honest this is what customers love and connect with. People love to connect with people, which means they connect more with experiences that are more human. Therefore, make sure you try and connect with them. An unplanned bombardment of product/service advertisement on Social platform is a waste of resources and time.

When working with content on Social media, please understand that brand development takes time. You need to put in hours and hours of hard work before you can see any definite result of your efforts. However, once you are able to crack the code with your audiences there is no looking back.

Effective Use of Social Media Platforms

Look around you and you will see that the world is on Web. Everyone is holding a phone and is surfing through stories through the day.

The question is simple: How to get in front of those users? How to make your stories relevant to these customers? Or in other words to how to win your customers attention. This is what it is in today’s time. You are competing for your customers attention. Smart phones have changed the market dynamics.

An average person on daily basis consumes hell lot of information. Therefore, it is imperative that you are thorough with what you are delivering to your customers. You need to be creative with your designs and graphics. If you are not sure how to do them yourself, you can hire a good Orange County Graphic designing company. Whatever it is make sure that you are on top of your social media game. Of course, you should always try to win and find your audiences organically, however, it will do your business no harm if you keep aside a separate budget of paid marketing as well.

Paid advertising on Facebook and Instagram is still cheaper and yield great results. You don’t have to do all the marketing yourself, you can hire experts in Digital marketing to do the job. As a brand you need to challenge your marketing mindset. Social media is the game and you need to play it well. You need to ensure that you take your brand and present in right way to right audiences. Insta user will want a different story as compared to a LinkedIn one. You need be smarter with your strategies. You need to talk about your values. You need to showcase what you as a brand stand for. Mere presence is not going to help; you need to engage with your audiences. You need to ensure they are taking to you and about.

Still under doubt about the presence and power of social media, read these facts:

1. 75% of male internet users are on Facebook and 83% are females

2. In US, You Tube and Facebook are the most watched Social Media Channels

3. 81% of Millennial check their Twitter account at least once per day

4. LinkedIN boasts more than 530 million users profile

5. Three quarters of Facebook users check use their Facebook everyday

Still need proof? I guess not. Remember that your reputation is everything. You build it through everything you do, whether big actions or small decisions. Consumers tend to make more favourable judgement of a particular product because of positive biases for a certain brand or people associated with it. Like, consumers like a certain product because it is endorsed by their favourite celebrity. Similarly, if you develop a unique personal brand then your company gets to enjoy the same status.

Take for example Yelp. Now, most of the users before buying from a business prefer to check their reviews. These reviews are powerful and stats prove that they shale and mend the psyche of the buyer. Not only Yelp but on any e-commerce website as well, customers prefer to first check a product review before making an actual purchase.

In fact, see it for yourself, if you had ever shopped from Amazon, I am sure before making a purchase no matter how lucrative the deal you would have checked its reviews. This is what good branding does. Rather this is what good branding should be about. It should be able to generate favourable reviews about your business. Again you can use Social Media to aid you in this process. Ask and encourage your customers to leave you reviews.

Make sure that you answer back to each and every review you get on your website. The more you interact the healthier it for your brand. No matter if the review is good or negative, make sure you reply to each and every comment you receive on your brand. Customers tend to respect those brands more that are proactive in admitting their mistakes and promise to rectify them.

Always remember that once you build a trustworthy reputation in the market, you are a winner.

Even individuals need to develop a brand for themselves …. Whatever your area of expertise, you can take steps to make people think of YOU when they think of your field. – Webzine

How branding benefits your career?

Brand yourself for the career you want, not the job you have. – Dan Schnabel

It is important to create a unique brand for yourself, independent of your identity within your company, in order to stay marketable. This opens doors for more opportunities both within and outside your organisation. It allows you to market your skills to meet the customer’s needs. There is an interesting article dedicated to this, you can check it out here. It helps you to understand how you add value. The biggest benefit you get from understanding who you are is a stronger belief in your own value.

There are plenty of platforms where you can showcase your skills. LinkedIn for one is where all the recruiters are. If you are looking for a Job change this is the best platform to be hooked upon. Put your best work there. Trust me every day, there are some amazing stories coming out from this platform. This is a platform that allows you to showcase your skills and work. Again it is imperative to brand yourself in the best possible manner to stay ahead in the market. To conclude, just remember that being you works the best!

Be bold and original. Tell people something that they don’t know. With social media having gained accessibility into people’s lives, it has become easier to create a brand online that people can see at any moment.

Start by knowing what you want and who you are, build credibility around it and deliver it online in a compelling way. – Krista Neher

Your brand is the gateway to your true work. Focus on identifying your target audience, communicating an authentic message and project yourself as a ‘pro’ in your niche. When you create a compelling brand you attract people who want the promise of your brand – which you deliver.