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.

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

5 Reasons You Need A Social Media Manager

Virtual AssistantBusiness owners around the globe are asking themselves whether or not they need a social media manager. However, more and more of them are noticing the popularity of social media, but don’t know how, where, when, or why they should jump on the bandwagon themselves. They notice their colleagues, peers, friends, children, and family have jumped on board, on a more personal level. But, what so many of them fail to see, is that their present and future customers have jumped on for a ride too!

Right now, as you read this, your customers are flying down the road going mach 5 with no end in sight. They’re enjoying themselves too while reading/writing reviews, articles, comments & opinions on your business. They’re chatting amongst themselves (and to the rest of the internet world) about their latest visit, what their experience was, and even how it bugs them that Sally the cashier always seems “nice”, but never says thank you when they are leaving.

Wouldn’t you love the opportunity to be in that cart flying down the road too? Do you want to know what your customers are saying about you? Do you want to be able to effectively converse back with them? Wouldn’t you love to hear, first hand, about their experiences? Wouldn’t it be great to know how they felt about Sally so you could enforce stronger cashier policies?

There is no excuse for you not being in that bandwagon yourself. If you want to continually grow your business every year with the goal of higher profits and better ROI’s, then you need to be in that cart. Most importantly, you need to be sitting in the cart as strategically as possible so your customers don’t mistake you for luggage!

If the last four paragraphs didn’t provide you with enough reasons as to why you need a social media manager…don’t fret! Here are five more:

1. Contrary to popular belief, just because your 14 year old niece has a Facebook account, that doesn’t mean she could (or should) create your own businesses fan page. Hire a professional. Your goal should be to have a better social presence than all your competitors. Better website, Facebook, Twitter etc. Hiring someone who has extensive knowledge on the platforms best suited for your business will benefit you enormously. Social media is so constantly evolving, that you want a professional handling yours that you know is up to speed with the latest tools, platforms, & strategies.

2. You must have a well thought out social media strategy if you want to succeed. You must have a plan. One that will provide a road map for you so you don’t get lost. You need to be consistent with your content and most importantly, you need to make sure your content is *valuable*.

3. Just because you already have social media platforms in place, that doesn’t mean you are using them correctly. If you have a Facebook business fan page or Twitter account that gets updated once “every now and then” (when you find the time) … you’re in trouble. It actually looks worse for your business to have inactive pages than not having any at all. Also, you want them all integrated together so they are working for you, and not the other way around.

4. You need someone to remind you -not- to be a broadcaster! It is extremely easy for someone to “hide” you on Facebook and “unfollow” you on Twitter. So easy, it can be done with one click of the mouse! You need someone helping you develop content strategies that are focused on providing engaging valuable content that people enjoy reading and make them feel comfortable enough to join in on the conversation. One of the most successful companies at doing social media is Zappos.com. Check out their Facebook site to see what I mean about engaging content.

5. Having a social media manager saves you, the business owner, time (our most valuable asset). Even though an effective social media campaign requires an “all hands on deck” approach to be effective, having a social media manager undoubtedly saves you time. They can provide you with a road map and content strategy that should make it easy for you to distinguish what is considered good and bad content. They also could take away the burden of having to log onto your computer and manage comments and updating content regularly on all platforms. They do all that for you leaving you more time to concentrate on your livelihood … your business!
By Krysty Petrucci facebook.com/TribalMedia

Now it’s your turn. Have you jumped on the social media bandwagon yet? What has been your experience thus far? What have you had difficulty with? What seemed surprisingly easy? If you haven’t jumped on yet- what’s stopping you?  What are you waiting for?

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