How Will You Brand Yourself?

When you think of branding or brand, often you think of a rancher who takes a hot iron in the shape of a logo or a name representing his ranch and stamps it on the side of his livestock so everyone will associate that cattle with this rancher. The same is valid with branding yourself or your business venture. If you are thinking of starting a small business and you’ve identified the market, and you’ve found a niche – or a position that you feel comfortable with, now you need to consider how you will brand yourself. Even without a business and you have something to stand for or something to promote, whether an idea or a cause, you can still brand yourself. What will others see as your brand?

What Is A Branding?
Branding is creating a distinct identity for your business or yourself in the mind of your target audience or people in general. The practice of branding – in the original literal sense of marking by burning – is thought to have begun with the ancient Egyptians, known to have engaged in livestock branding in ancient times. Branding was used to differentiate one person’s cattle from another’s using a distinctive symbol burned into the animal’s skin with a hot branding iron.
In the modern era, the concept of branding has expanded to include deployment by a manager of the marketing and communication techniques and tools that help to distinguish a company or products from competitors, aiming to create a lasting impression in the minds of customers. The key components that form a brand include a brand’s identity, personality, product, and design.

Misconceptions About Branding
Marty Neumeier, author of “The Brand Gap,”- defines a brand this way: “A brand is not a product. It is not a promise. It is not the sum of all the impressions it makes on an audience. A brand is a result. It’s a person’s gut feeling about you or a product, service, or company. A brand is a reputation, your business reputation.” In other words, what reputation will your brand create?
There are two types of brands, but they both accomplish the same thing: a personal and a business brand. Let us examine the difference between the two.

Personal Brand
In a personal brand, you are simply branding yourself. For example: If you are an expert at something or want to sell yourself as such, then you might want to think of going with a personal brand. In other words, you are selling yourself. You can set up a blog, website, or a column of some sort and build a following of “you” and promote your expertise from there.

Business Brand
Business Dictionary.com in regard to the word brand states: “The entire process involved in creating a unique name for a product, good, or service in the consumers’ mind.” In another word with a business brand, you are promoting the business itself, whatever that business may be. If you are selling a product or service or if you are building a “brick and mortar store,” on or offline, then you might want to think of a good business brand that will identify something unique about your business.

What Branding Accomplishes
Shayna Waltower a guest writer for “Business News Daily” or BND wrote the benefits this way:
1. It establishes your credibility. They see you as a trusted authority within your niche.
2. You are seen as an expert. A strong brand reflects your expertise in your field.
3. It sets you apart from the competition. Remember your brand is what makes you unique. It can show people how you stand out on a cause or how your business differs from other companies.
4. It demonstrates your value to others. Your brand highlights your personality, passions, and motivation so potential customers can see and relate to it. It gives them an experience instead of merely a product or completed service.
Branding is the process of creating a distinct identity for yourself or your business in the mind of your target audience or others in general. What will your brand accomplish for you? Your brand may seem like it consists only of elements such as logos and colors, but your brand is actually the entire identity of your business. According to Forbes: “Your brand gives you personality.” Branding can help build trust.

One advantage of a personal brand is if you feel that in time you might want to promote something else or branch off from your original niche in some way, then you can do so without having to re-brand so-to-speak because it can be accomplished with the same brand or reputation.

But if you are building a business and just want to stick with a certain name or brand, then you may want to go with a business brand. One advantage of this is in time the brand itself will take on value if you decide to sell down the road.

How Will You Brand Yourself With Social Media?
Using social media platforms and tools is relatively easy to get your brand “out there!” Just use your accounts with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and others to promote your brand online. And it’s free! Digitalmarketinginstitute.com states: “regularly share content to different platforms and keep them positive & engaging. Also, identify your area of expertise. Everyone is an expert at something – whether it’s how to create and distribute great content or having a comprehensive knowledge of your favorite TV show.”
With Facebook, you can create a Business page and invite your followers to view it. Use Twitter to “tweet” your brand or message several times a week. You can use social media tools such as Sprout, Buffer, or Hootsuite to schedule your tweets and blog posts. Or plan it on the platform itself. If you have a business, use Pinterest to create a “Board” as your primary category and then “Pin” photos or information pertinent to your business. Linkedin is a popular site to promote your business and build a following to engage with and share content with others to promote your brand. Foursquare is another social media platform to target local customers by building up local followers and engaging with them as well.

Do Your Homework:
There is plenty of information out there that will provide you with tips and ideas as to how to brand yourself. There are several blogs on branding, what taglines you can use, and websites that will help you to create your logo. Just do a simple search. Give it a lot of thought. Because when it comes to starting a business, there is nothing more important than how you brand yourself.

Conclusion
If you decide to use a logo, an image, a tagline, or a catchy phrase to represent your brand and to promote it on social media then that’s good. No problem. But how you brand yourself will determine how you or your business is well perceived in the eyes of others, as an individual or an established entrepreneur.

The Secret to Market Research-How to Find Your Killer Niche!

thinkingThis is where it all starts! The idea, the thought of going into business of your own. What are you going to promote or sell? Well if you already have an idea, that’s good. But if not-that’s okay too. Because with market research or niche marketing, I’m going to show you the secret of finding a unique brand or niche-to promote online with enormous success. Here’s how it works:
What Is A Niche?
A niche is define as a situation in which a business’s products or services can succeed by being sold to a particular kind or group of people. In other words it zero’s in to a specific group, making them special or exclusive. Weight Loss is a broad category for example, tremendous competition to compete with others. But if you can narrow it down to a special group or situation maybe like weight loss for post-pregnant women or overweight children under 12, then that becomes a niche under that broad category. And that idea will be your keyword and part of your website URL.
A killer niche is something really unique, something nobody has thought of-but you!
Market Research
Market research, or niche marketing, is simply a process of collection and analysis of data to find what people are looking for. What do everyday people want? How to create a new market, something different.
Where Do I Start?
Start by asking yourself: What is something you know about well? Something that you are passionate about? This is where you are going to start searching for keywords.
Yes the one key is keywords. The other is the competition. You don’t want to have to compete with a million other websites of your niche, and you certainly don’t want to have to compete with the “big dogs” either! So what are you going to do? Here are 4 methods that will aid you in an effective market research, to where you can find that one unique niche.
Google Ad-words
It use to be that one way of doing market research was just starting an Google Ad-word campaign with pay-per-click(PPC), and you would be able to determine what keywords is getting you good traffic, providing of course that your campaign was a successful one. With Google Ad-word you’re having to pay every time someone clicks on your ad. But the Internet is always changing and things isn’t what it use to be years ago. Now there’s a way to perform market research that is free!
Keyword Search
Once you have an idea of what your potential niche is going to be, then just do a simple keyword search. One tool you can use is Google Keyword Tool, which is a free tool. Just sign-in enter a keyword and it will show you a list of other keywords you can use depending on two things: The number of search, and the competition. You want the search volume to be high, but the competition to be very low. Once you locate a keyword with more than 1,000 searches per month or more, and at the same time the competition is at its lowest-then you may have discovered what I call a “potential website keyword.” In other words, a potential niche that you center an entire website around! But more on that later.
Amazon Bestsellers
Another market research strategy is the use of Amazon.com. Amazon has emerge to one of the biggest places online where you can find what people are looking for when it comes to information. So just go to the books section in Amazon, select a category, then select at the top the word “Bestseller.” Now you have an idea of what people are interested in. Take notice of something that you can use as a niche to promote as a product, service, or information to sell online. Now your potential niche becomes a keyword to do a keyword search as described above.
Trends.
What are the current trends? What are people talking or asking questions about? Trends can be an effective market researching strategy as well, if you can get an idea on what’s the next hot thing that people are going to want to get their hands on. Just remember, the Xbox, the iPod, and the Mac-book, as an example, were all just a trend at one time. Once you get an idea, again, do your keyword search. The best way to keep up with trends are websites like http://blogpulse.com/trend or http://google.com/trends. At http://boardtracker.com you can follow what people are talking about and  http://technorati.com keeps up with the latest technology in electronics.

Building A Site
Before you launch your site though, it’s important that you make your keyword part of your domain name. In other words you are going to build your whole brand around that one “killer” keyword, due to good research marketing. You can use your site to either sell a product, services, or information? Whatever you decide, I would suggest that you create a blog with your site and off-the-bat, write 3-5 articles on your niche-using your main keyword and start driving traffic to your new site.

Even though market research takes time and effort, it is all well-spent, because sometimes you may be surprise as to what you will decide on a niche. So get busy and go find your “killer” niche now, and be sure to leave a comment below please!

Internet Marketing for Beginners: How to Build Your Own Website?

A question that has often been asked is “Can I build a website myself?” In other words can I start a business online myself which includes building my own website? The answer is yes-compared to just a year or two ago when building a website required that you knew a lot about html and other things, or you had to hire someone to build your website for you for a “pretty penny.” But my how times have quickly change when it comes to building a website and how easier it is to start a business online and get up and running for very little cost-and we’re talking about nice looking sites! Now there are free website builders where you don’t have to purchase a domain name. Just enter on any internet search “Free Web Builders” and choose one.

Reasons For Building Your Own Website

  • Sell a product
  • Promote a service
  • Share or promote information
  • Start your own blog
  • Start a membership site
  • Share something professional like photography
  • Share something personal like a family story or history

Of course if you’re wanting to sell multiple products or create an online store, then you would have to have a commercial website built for you.

Building Your Site

There’s one important thing about free websites and that is you do not own it yourself-they do. You build a website like a Word-press website for an example where you own everything on it. If you already did a search for free websites, you probably noticed one called Word-Press.com. But at Word-Press.org you can build you a site that is all yours. Just purchase a domain name for no more than $15.00 per year. Then you will have to pay for hosting of that domain name for no more than about $15.00 per month. Again you do a simple search online for “web hosting” and choose one you like. Most web hosting allow you to purchase the domain name also. Be sure you put a lot of thought in choosing your domain name since this is very important in internet marketing to help people find your business online. If you don’t want to do this, then you can use a free website builder.

Building a site at word-press.org however is something you can do all yourself but you may need some assistance with tasks such as theme selections and plug-ins. What theme would be a good theme for you and what plug-ins will you need and how to find them and install them?

Where To Find Help

This is where a Social Media Manager or a Social Media Virtual Assistant can help you-but with some cost. You can for example consider those with the “Let’s Get Social” Social Media Managers group headed by a young woman name Kate Buck Jr. These Social Media Managers trained under this logo, are also specifically trained to set-up Word-Press sites. So if you do happen to have a small start-up budget and would like a little help, these individuals are not hard to find on the web. An example of a very simple word-press site is this one where you are reading this post.

Building your own website has truly gotten a lot easier in recent times. Free website builders like “Weebly,” “Web.com,” or “Yola,” and many others have easy to follow instructions. But before you start any business or build a site, DO RESEARCH. What would be a good product or service to promote? How would you choose a good name for your website? For more information on branding, visit https://regjackonline.com/?p=218. To find out how to research a good niche, this article will be helpful to you at http://ezinearticles.com/?&id=6633136. And if you would like to speak with a Social Media Manager, just click here.

Start Building Your Site

Hopefully this information will help you to get started as a beginner. Once you get your website created, internet marketing begins. You will learn much more as you go along such as how to get people to find your site online. But for now, do good research and get started building your site.

How to Craft a Killer “Elevator Pitch” For Your Business

This article will explain the elements of a powerful elevator pitch and then walk you through how to craft your own.

What is an Elevator Pitch?

This is the 30-60 second business description of what you do and why someone should work with you. It’s called an “Elevator Pitch” because it describes the challenge: “How would you explain your business and make a sale if fate placed you in an elevator with your dream prospect and you only had the time it takes to get from the top of the building to the bottom?”

Why Is Having an Elevator Pitch So Important?
You only have 30-60 seconds to make a powerful first impression. The attention span of the average person is just 30 seconds before their mind starts wandering. The other reason is people have less time today. You need to grab them quickly or lose them forever.

Essential Elements of a Powerful Elevator Pitch
1. Concise. Your pitch should take no longer than 30-60 seconds.

2. Clear. Use language that everyone understands. Don’t use fancy words thinking it will make you sound smarter. Your listener won’t understand you and you’ll have lost your opportunity to hook them.

3. Powerful. Use words that are powerful and strong. Deliver the “Sis-Boom-Bang” to grab their attention!

4. Visual. Use words that create a visual image in your listeners mind. This will make your message memorable.

5. Tell a Story. A short story, that is. A good story is essentially this: someone with a problem either finds a solution or faces tragedy. Either type of story can be used to illuminate what you do.

6. Targeted. A good elevator pitch is aimed for a specific audience. If you have target audiences that are vastly different, you might want to have a unique pitch for each.

7. Goal Oriented. A great elevator pitch is designed with a specific outcome in mind. What is your desired outcome? You may have different pitches depending on different objectives. For instance do you want to: make a sale , gain a prospect, enlist support for an idea, or earn a referral.

8. Has a Hook. This is the element that literally snags your listener’s interest and makes them want to know more. This is the phrase or words that strike a chord in your listener.
How to Craft Your Killer Elevator Pitch

  • Write down what you do. Write it several different ways. Try writing it at least 10-20 different ways. Don’t edit yourself at all. You will edit later. This first step is for generating ideas. Don’t hold back. Ideas can be goofy, serious, wild, funny, or conservative. It doesn’t matter. The goal is to get at many ideas as possible down on paper.
  • Write a very short story that illustrates what you do for people. If necessary, the story can be long. You will boil it down later. Paint a picture with words.
  • Write down your objective or goal. Do you want to make a sale, gain a prospect, enlist support for an idea, earn a referral, or something else?
  • Write 10-20 action statements. This is a statement or question designed to spur the action associated with your goal.
  • Record yourself. You can use Dragon Dictation if you don’t have a recording device. Dragon Dictation is a free phone based service that translates your messages into text as well as providing an online link to the original audio.
  • Let it sit. Come back to what you’ve written with fresh eyes and ears the next day or later on in the same day.
  • Highlight the good stuff. Listen and read through what you’ve recorded and written. Then either highlight or circle the phrases that hook you with clear, powerful, and visual words. Obviously not all the words will fall into these categories. You still need connector words, but you want them to be as few as possible.
  • Put the best pieces together. Again you’ll want to write down several versions of this much tighter pitch. Tell us what you do and why people should want to do business with you. Include elements from your story if you can fit it in.
  • Do a final edit cutting as many unnecessary words as possible. Rearrange words and phrases until it sounds just right. Again, the goal is 30-60 seconds maximum.
  • Dress Rehearsal. Run it by as many people as you can get to listen to you. Get feedback from colleagues, clients you trust, friends and family.
  • Done for now. Take your final elevator pitch and write it down. Memorize and practice it until it just slides off your tongue naturally.
  • Continue to improve. Over time, always be on the listen for phrases that you think could make your elevator pitch more clear and impactful. And then test it out. Every once in a while you will probably benefit by starting from scratch because things always change: you, your business , your goals, and your clients’ needs.

By K Stone of Life Learning Today

10 Efficient Tips to Keep Your Personal Life and Still Be a Social Media Rockstar

I think we can all feel confident when saying “social media is here and here to stay.” What we probably are not so comfortable with is juggling our social media endeavors with our personal life. I’m sure social media doesn’t take away all of your personal life, but it can impose on it greatly if you aren’t careful. There are probably people who haven’t even begun to dabble in the social media
world for fear of not having time or it taking up too much time. Great point! However, at this point in the world, you really can’t afford not to be a part of social media. In either case, listed below are 10 tips to avoid losing out on life and how to manage your social media time.

1. Just Skim: When beginning a promotion, most of the first phase is conducting research and reading. Whether it’s Facebook, Twitter, blogs or websites, to cut down on time spent, just skim it. By doing this, you can pull what you feel is worth spending your time reading and not have to worry about the rest.

2. Use your RSS Feed: Be selective when subscribing to different RSS feeds, but definitely use it. Any information you want to catch up on will be listed there. These same rules apply to who you follow on Twitter and newsletters you subscribe to. Choose wisely and be sure whatever it is adding value.

3. Consider a Timer: If you’d really like to manage your online time, set an allotted amount of time dedicated for this. It may help to set a timer and when it goes off, you’ll know it’s time to move on to something else.

4. Automate whenever possible: Automating can be the key to your online happiness. When you have autoresponders or auto content generators in place they can save you scads of time. An easy and quick way to implement this might be your newsletter sign-ups. There are a variety of systems that will allow you to easily automate sign-ups. Even if you have a giveaway for signing up, the system can handle this too

5. Consolidate, Don’t Reiterate: If you are trying to keep up with everything, your Twitter, Facebook, Squidoo and a blog, there are ways to minimize updating them all. You can do so by doing it all at once. “How?” you ask. All of these programs can be linked together so when you update one, it will go out to all social media accounts. Many of these sites can be linked together and to a main site. This main site can be your blog, if you wish. Twitterfeed is a great place where you can update your Twitter, every time you update your blog. Your Twitter can be linked to Facebook and Squidoo.

6. Develop a Routine: Dedicate a specific time for social media on a regular basis and stick with it. It should be long enough to update your blog, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.

7. Stick to Essentials: The internet can be considered a great influence on “lost time.” One second you’re looking at a TV listing, and then something about how to make money online, and then possibly an ad for shoes we just have to have. Four hours later and you’ve found new interests in paranormal studies, cherry tomatoes and how to move to Alaska. Stick to what you were planning to do and then leave. Also, over time you will learn where to spend your time the best and it will get easier to stay on track.

8. Don’t be a Follower: Many people may give you their advice on which sites are the best for what. The thing to do is to decide which social media tool will benefit your needs the best. You don’t have to use them all, and if one isn’t working for you, go try a different one.

9. Plan: To make sure you’re spending this social media time wisely and to its full advantage, it may be good to make a simple plan. With your “dedicated social media time,” knowing to stick with the essentials and a routine put into place, developing a list of “to-dos” and goals around these should help you to stay focused. If you’re focused and determined, you’re bound not to waste any time.

10. Hire a Social Media Virtual Assistant: Ultimately, if you don’t feel you have time to even start a social media quest, or if you’ve tried and it’s just not for you but you still want to take advantage of all the awesomeness that it can bring, hiring a social media virtual assistant is another option and a fantastic idea. For example, https://regjackonline.com can help you quickly, effectively, and it’s affordable. Reggie at RTJ Online, can help create, manage and update all of your social media needs, which can be WAY more rewarding than doing it yourself if you feel like you’re in a crunch. So don’t miss that dinner date! Cruise on over to his website and see how many things he can do to help guide your social media presence, while keeping it updated and running efficiently.
By Dawn Pigoni of http://besocialworldwide.com

What is a Social Media Virtual Assistant

Find out what a social media virtual assistant does and how one can help you and your business.
Today, it’s essential and similar to brushing your teeth, that for businesses to develop and bloom, a social media presence is of utmost importance for thriving businesses. Mostly, it is due to people talking about your brand or product, negatively and positively.

Social media and the tools that they possess are extremely effective to reach millions of online users from around the world, verses a traditional website and definitely more effective than paper marketing because of technological advancement.

I know most of you’ve heard about Social Media, but have you begun the social media adventure yet?

I’m sure you feel that it’s important, but something is holding you back. Maybe you think it would take up too much of your time, or you just don’t have any idea where to start. One thing I know for sure…Social Media is here to stay.

A Social Media Virtual Assistant will help you to establish your social media presence, perform a variety of tasks, manage your social media accounts, and allow you more free time, so you can focus on your business. Social Media Virtual Assistants may even be helpful in areas that you haven’t even thought about such as researching and keeping up-to-date with social media marketing and how to help your business. They can also help to create a buzz about your brand or product through Facebook, Twitter, blogging, other social networks and forums. Outlined below are the major social media tasks they can perform for you.

A Social Media Virtual Assistant can:
<Perform Social Media Research, Strategies & Action Planning
<Setup Social Network Profiles
<Manage your Social Networks
<Use Marketing Strategies on Twitter, Facebook, & Online Video
<Manage your Online Reputation
<Perform Social Bookmarking
<Perform Article Marketing
<Perform Blog Commenting
<Post on Forums

So if you haven't taken the plunge yet, and don't really want to, or just cannot seem to find the time, now is the time to outsource all of your social media tasks to a Social Media Virtual Assistant.
This will help to create a more simple life and allow for adequate time to spend on the more important aspects of your business, as well as helping to increase your profits.

By Dawn Pigoni

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