8 Tips for Building your Personal Brand on the Internet

Posted by in Branding, Internet Marketing | 4 comments

Building your Personal brand

Building your Personal Brand

If you are a small business owner you should know by now that marketing on the internet requires more than just selling your services and products via your website.  Building your personal brand is just as important as building your business brand. The popularity of social media networks has caused business owners to attempt marketing via these platforms.  It isn’t as clean cut as you would think.  In light of recent politicians and their social media blunders you must educate your self on each platform works.  It is also important to understand that successfully marketing your brand online will take a great deal of time, effort and often requires you hire a professional to handle it for you.

  1. Figure out your Niche.  It important to stay focused and specialize in one or two products or services instead of trying to do it all.  Spreading yourself thin takes away from your focus and confuses your users.  Narrowing your focus increases the success of your brand.
  2. What makes you different from your competitors?  You need to know the following…. What makes you and your company special? What are your strengths?  What are your goals?  What is your purpose?  It is important to reflect on these questions and find the answers as early as possible, then build upon them with your message to your users.
  3. Begin claiming ownership of your name by reserving your domain.  You also want set up profiles on social networks, bookmarking sites, etc. Be consistent by using this same name across every platform you plan to use.
  4. Use social media monitoring tools to manage your personal brand. Begin keeping track of both your personal and business brand using monitoring tools.  I currently use SproutSocial, Hootsuite and Google Reader.  Start familiarizing yourself with
  5. Personal Branding

    Stand Out From your Competitors

    how to use these tools now.

  6. Choose one picture and one logo and use it across the board.  Make sure the picture you choose is a good representation of you and conveys the image you want your users to feel about you as a symbol of our brand.  It is important to use these images consistantly to ensure that no matter where a user finds you they know they are in the right place.
  7. Be authentic… It is important that you be yourself at all times. Your users want to get to know what is special about you and how that relates to your business brand.   You cannot be build trust by pretending to be something you are not.
  8. Post / Blog /Tweet regularly.  Your users cannot adequately judge who you are unless they communicate with you.  What better way to start that communication than by writing blogs, tweeting, sharing interests and posting something attention grabbing?
  9. Do not Sale yourself.  There are enough people out here spamming users… your efforts should be geared toward giving you users something they need.  Give them beneficial information that they can use and share with their friends and family.

This should be enough to get you started.  It is important to remember that you should be present for the conversation that is going to take place once you begin communicating.  This does not mean you have to stay online all day but you do need to check in and respond to your users when they comment or have questions.  Following the tips above is only the beginning; personal branding is an ongoing effort that cannot be neglected.  You are in this for the long haul so get ready…. It is now time to start building your personal brand.

 

Aries – Graphic Design & Internet Marketing / AriesGDIM
Tami Highbaugh-Abdullah
Creative Marketing Director
317.345.4182
Tami@ariesgdim.com
AriesGDIM.com / AriesGraphicDesign.com
@ariesgdim – Twitter
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  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_KMHT3RAEE4CGF2YKOGFZJW73GI Paul Blakeney

    People don’t understand how powerful the internet can be for helping your branding. Building a blog for your business is a very smart move. You can personally brand your business to only fit you and no one else. You can build your customers with a blog. I’m happy that I realized this at a young age.

    http://hcgdrops.com/

  • http://www.lraquelpeterson.com Lauryn Doll

    Love the new blog look!

    I just want to add that in addition to keeping a consistent logo – make use of a strong avatar. Even if you switch out your avatars, sometimes your face is a powerful statement of confidence on the internet. Some marketers and niche professionals may not want to identify their face with a certain topic or image, and that’s fine too. You can create artistic modifications of your photo… and if all else fails, apply consistent color schemes to all of your online social media profiles… and apply your logo.

    • Anonymous

      Thanks Lauryn you are so right. A good and consistent headshot is a very good personal brand identifier.

    • Anonymous

      Oh and thanks for the compliment on the blog. I love the new look as well. It goes well with my company colors red, orange and yellow. The clean white background really brings out my updated logo.

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