Owning a business is a very exciting adventure. It can also be the most difficult thing for you to get into if you are not prepared. One of the most intimidating aspects of business is branding. The reason is because many people look at all of the big corporations such as McDonald's, Wal-Mart, and other types of businesses that have been around for a very long time, and think that they could never beat these guys out. The truth is that you are not necessarily trying to knock these guys out because they aren't trying to knock each other out. The purpose is to brand you enough to make a presence. When you make a presence for yourself, you draw attention.
It is very important for you to brand yourself for whatever marketplace you are trying to infiltrate. When we talk about branding, we are not necessarily talking about emblems or logos. You also have to take into account certain branding signatures that make businesses well known. For example, you might see a crowd of people go to a particular business because of a specific deal that they have on certain days (i.e. free drink with purchase of two hamburgers). Sometimes deals, discounts, and many other common methods of advertising can cause people to take notice.
So how do you create a brand strategy? You need to understand the totality of what separates you from the other competition. Don't concentrate on trying to be the top dog in the marketplace. Instead focused on what you can do to stand out from the crowd.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Top 3 Personal Branding Tactics You Should Know
You are not special and like everything else, you are the same decaying matter. Therefore, you need to brand yourself to get known. One best way to do this is through the Internet. Branding yourself in an online environment built on go-baby-go and on entropy is hard at its best; however, to help you with this, I have created a quick list of top 3 personal branding tactics you might try to get yourself known in your field. If you feel this one is interesting, don't hesitate to blog, stumble, bookmark, and dig. Well, these are great tactics by the way!
1. Listening
• You can build ego searches using Google Blogsearch and Technorati. • Frequently give meaningful comments on blogs about your posts and of course about yourself. • Be aware of the conversations hiding in Friendfeed and Twitter. • If you have the budget, purchase listening tools such as Radian6. • Store your ego searches using Google Reader. • Check who are linking to your site using Yahoo! Site Explorer. • Check how people relate to your website using heat map tools such as CrazyEgg. • Listen and learn from those in your field of expertise. • Don't forget to listen to podcasts and check out iTunes to see who are talking about your point of interests. • Track things such as community/audience sentiment if you want to track efforts to results.
2. Home Base
• Your blog or website is your home base. Not everyone would benefit from a blog but people who want to brand themselves would. • If you can afford it, buy a content-appropriate but easy-to-spell and easy-to-remember domain name. • Make use of a nice layout. It proves that you are more than just a social media dabbler. • Remember to write about YOU and your BUSINESS on your "About Page". • Give your visitors an easy option to give comments. • Give your visitors an easy way to subscribe to your website content. • Use fonts that are easy to read and look at. • A site full of ads is a site that doesn't treasure its audience. • Pay more attentions to the widgets you have in your sidebar. • Have a reasonable loading time. • Make sure your site is registered in top search engines. • Maintain your website on Technorati.com. • Make your site well-built on Google by using WebsiteGrader.com.
3. Passports
Passports are your accounts on social media platforms and other social networks. It would help you a lot to create an account on some of these websites to better extend your campaign on personal branding.
• If you are trying to keep your social media audience, Twitter.com is necessary. • MySpace and/or Facebook are useful and effective social networks where you can create your outposts. • Do photo sharing through Flicker. • Do video uploading through YouTube. • Do voting through StumbleUpon.com or Digg.com. • ï€ Promote your events through Upcoming.org. • ï€ Social bookmarking works well with a del.icio.us account. • Take advantage of OpenID benefits of WordPress.com. • ï€ Maintain your professional network through a LinkedIn account. • Take advantage of Gmail.com's calendar, reader, docs, and a lot more.
It pays to try new things. Who knows, the above tactics will help promote you. Try them!
1. Listening
• You can build ego searches using Google Blogsearch and Technorati. • Frequently give meaningful comments on blogs about your posts and of course about yourself. • Be aware of the conversations hiding in Friendfeed and Twitter. • If you have the budget, purchase listening tools such as Radian6. • Store your ego searches using Google Reader. • Check who are linking to your site using Yahoo! Site Explorer. • Check how people relate to your website using heat map tools such as CrazyEgg. • Listen and learn from those in your field of expertise. • Don't forget to listen to podcasts and check out iTunes to see who are talking about your point of interests. • Track things such as community/audience sentiment if you want to track efforts to results.
2. Home Base
• Your blog or website is your home base. Not everyone would benefit from a blog but people who want to brand themselves would. • If you can afford it, buy a content-appropriate but easy-to-spell and easy-to-remember domain name. • Make use of a nice layout. It proves that you are more than just a social media dabbler. • Remember to write about YOU and your BUSINESS on your "About Page". • Give your visitors an easy option to give comments. • Give your visitors an easy way to subscribe to your website content. • Use fonts that are easy to read and look at. • A site full of ads is a site that doesn't treasure its audience. • Pay more attentions to the widgets you have in your sidebar. • Have a reasonable loading time. • Make sure your site is registered in top search engines. • Maintain your website on Technorati.com. • Make your site well-built on Google by using WebsiteGrader.com.
3. Passports
Passports are your accounts on social media platforms and other social networks. It would help you a lot to create an account on some of these websites to better extend your campaign on personal branding.
• If you are trying to keep your social media audience, Twitter.com is necessary. • MySpace and/or Facebook are useful and effective social networks where you can create your outposts. • Do photo sharing through Flicker. • Do video uploading through YouTube. • Do voting through StumbleUpon.com or Digg.com. • ï€ Promote your events through Upcoming.org. • ï€ Social bookmarking works well with a del.icio.us account. • Take advantage of OpenID benefits of WordPress.com. • ï€ Maintain your professional network through a LinkedIn account. • Take advantage of Gmail.com's calendar, reader, docs, and a lot more.
It pays to try new things. Who knows, the above tactics will help promote you. Try them!
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