What’s your favorite little-known secret for building your brand’s recognizability… radio show? Writing a book? Leading a cause marketing campaign? Reality TV?
The following answers are provided by the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, the YEC recently launched #StartupLab, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses via live video chats, an expert content library and email lessons.
1. Foursquare
“To build your personal brand, use Foursquare to check in at events relevant to your industry. Posting event-specific pictures to Foursquare and pushing them out via Twitter can raise credibility. If you’re in the travel business, check in every time you’re in a new place.”
Matt Wilson, Under30Media
2. HARO
“One idea for building brand awareness is to participate in the website Help A Reporter Out. You can provide detailed commentary on topics you’re well-versed in, and be quoted in or get a link to your site via published articles.”
Andrew Schrage, Money Crashers Personal Finance
3. Piggyback Mentions
“There is always a “hot company” or subject that’s grabbing headlines. If you can find a way to make your startup a part of that narrative, you’ll be guaranteed to get some press mentions. Try to find new data or a new spin on the hot topic, offer it up on your company blog and notify journalists. The press will be on the lookout for unique content, and sometimes you’ll strike gold.”
4. Guest Posts
“If you seriously pursue guest posting opportunities all over the web, you can quickly increase your profile. Target big-name blogs (most of which take at least an occasional guest post) for the maximum impact, but even smaller sites can give you a push if its readership doesn’t have a huge overlap with anywhere you’ve appeared before.”
Thursday Bram, Hyper Modern Consulting
5. A Personal Blog
“Writing a regular, thoughtful personal blog about issues related to your industry can do wonders — though, to be fair, among a small community of people that likely isn’t your target audience. That said, someone who reads what you’re writing can help you reach others.”
6. Podcasts
“I started an interview podcast in college as an excuse to network with people I admired. As it turned out, the people I interviewed loved to share the podcast, and it ended up getting downloaded more than 80,000 times. Podcasting is a great tool for both networking and building a brand.”
Allie Siarto, Loudpixel
7. Consistency
“Consistently get content with your byline to media outlets. Become a trusted source for information in your industry. You will not only become recognizable, but also you will immediately create trust and credibility within your market.”
John Hall, Calendar
8. Courses
“Create a course on what you want to be known as an expert in. That has done wonders for me and has elevated my personal brand.”
Peter Nguyen, Literati Institute
9. Site Retargeting
“With site retargeting, visitors to your site will see your banner ads across the web. It will make it seem like the site has an enormous display advertising budget and that can help build brand recognizability.”
Josh Weiss, Bluegala
