The following answers are provided by members of Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, YEC recently launched BusinessCollective, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses.
1. Add It to Video Content Experience
“Any video you produce with yourself in it, make it integrative to augmented reality as though you are sitting there with your audience members, while you discuss your topics in those videos. This will create the effect of being in the same room and make the viewer feel closer to you.”
2. Create a Branded Avatar
“Create your own virtual avatar branded for your personal identity to be used in VR. Your avatar should be customized with features that make it stand out. Keeping your avatars as consistent as possible across various VR experiences is key. This way your avatar becomes more recognizable. You can also create a unique target marker that contains information on your personal brand.”
Jordan Edelson, Appetizer Mobile LLC
3. Organize Virtual Reality Office Tours
“For conferences we sponsor and have booths at, we created a virtual reality office tour. This tour features members of our staff, our rooms and the various things that make our culture fun (like video games and booze). These moments on VR help the people who watch (usually potential recruits) feel like they’re already part of a team.”
Kenny Nguyen, Big Fish Presentations
4. Try Facebook VR Hangouts
“A couple of months ago, Facebook released a VR hangout app where you can talk to your friends in virtual reality with avatars. Personal brands could create or join private networking rooms to chat with their community in real time.”
5. Don’t Use It Just to Use It
“I’ve seen it used in so many wrong ways, I’m wondering if it is actually beneficial for personal branding. So many run with any trend and don’t really study it first to see if it fits what they are trying to accomplish. Understand what it does first or there won’t be any positive high-impact results.”
Murray Newlands, Sighted
6. Find a Problem, and Solve It
“VR and AR are, ostensibly, new technology. With infancy come problems that need solutions. In order to truly impact the VR and AR landscapes, find a way to solve common problems. The paperclip is a simple tool, but it’s become ubiquitous because of its ability to solve an issue almost everyone encounters; so create the virtual, or augmented, paperclip. ”
Blair Thomas, eMerchantBroker
7. Use as a Creative Social Media Tool
“We’ve already seen agencies using Snapchat and Instagram in the last few years. Agencies can go even further with AR by implementing it into their current social media strategies. Adding creative filters and animations to everyday objects or products, while correlating to your brand values, can improve brand experiences. AR can be great for taking video and content strategies to the next level.”
Solomon Thimothy, OneIMS
8. Add AR to Your Business Card
“There are so many possibilities to use AR and VR for personal branding — it just requires a little outside-the-box thinking! For AR, you could create a business card with UBleam that allows users to scan it, and an augmented reality wheel with all your social media accounts appears. This makes it easy for potential business partners to click and follow you.”
9. Stick to Something Easy
“Don’t try to go above and beyond with this unless you have a talented video team that can accommodate this relatively new technology. If you have the ability to include VR or AR in your branding efforts, start small with something like an office walkthrough (if you have a cool spot). Once you begin to master the simpler videos, try to incorporate the technology into a virtual meeting.”
Bryce Welker, Crush The CPA Exam
10. Share Videos of Your VR/AR Experience
“Getting followers to actually engage in a VR or AR experience will be a challenge if they don’t previously know what to expect. Be the first to share a virtual or augmented reality experience and you will benefit from being one of the first to do so. These technologies are very marketable because everyone is waiting to see how they will be used. Jump in and show your audience how you do it.”
Diego Orjuela, Cables & Sensors
11. Add to the Spiderweb
“In advising founders and brands, I often tell clients to go ahead and voice their opinions on a particular technology and weigh in as to why, or why not, they will be using it. Even if it seems inapplicable, it is often good to tell your followers why you are taking a pass, or why you are embracing something that may seem counterintuitive. Before you know it, you may be a thought leader.”
Ryan Bradley, Koester & Bradley, LLP
