What’s the best way to encourage someone to pay attention to personal branding when they’re new to the concept?
These answers are provided by Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most successful young entrepreneurs. YEC members represent nearly every industry, generate billions of dollars in revenue each year and have created tens of thousands of jobs. Learn more at yec.co.
1. Set Up Google Alerts
“When it comes to building a personal brand and staying on top of it, you need to make checking your brand into a habit. The most effective way I’ve found to keep tabs on my own personal brand is to set up Google Alerts that go straight to my inbox whenever my name or company’s name is mentioned.”
Bryce Welker, Crush The CPA Exam
2. Check Out Social Media Accounts and Reviews for Large Brands
“If I was working with someone new to branding, I’d suggest that they choose a well-known brand related to their industry and research them on social media and a review site such as Yelp. This gives you a chance to see both how the brand presents itself and how customers react to it. It’s important to notice what kind of content they post and the tone they use when responding to customers.”
Kalin Kassabov, ProTexting
3. Provide Resources
“To encourage someone to pay attention to personal branding, provide them with resources to help them learn. You could send them articles from reputable publications, entertaining and educational YouTube videos on the subject, or even point them to a great podcast episode about personal branding. Hearing it from other people in a way that resonates with them will help them learn.”
Stephanie Wells, Formidable Forms
4. First, Craft Your Message
“Personal branding has been very popular these days — from Gary Vaynerchuk to Richard Branson. Utilize social media as much as possible to grow a personal brand. First, craft your message: What is your brand all about and how do you help your audiences? Then jump to social media and create videos, blog posts and other valuable content to get your message across.”
Jean Ginzburg, JeanGinzburg.com
5. Talk to Them About the ROI
“The return on investment on personal branding, when done properly, is immense. Customers will seek you out directly instead of shopping around for multiple service providers. They’ll remember you by name and think of you first when they need your products or services. It’s no different from corporate branding in the sense that it makes you reach top of mind awareness within your audience.”
Amine Rahal, Little Dragon Media
6. Explain the Importance
“First off, when explaining the concept of a personal brand to someone, you must elaborate on why it’s important that they have and maintain one to begin with. Reviews, general mentions and your image on the web are everything when it comes to success these days. By making sure your personal brand is well received by the target demographic, you’ll never lose a customer before the first contact.”
Jared Weitz, United Capital Source
7. Ask Them to Reflect on Their Own Perspective of Other Brands
“Odds are they’ve noticed and liked what other people or personal brands are doing. Ask them if there is any personal or company brand that really stands out to them. What do they like about it and how they would describe said brand? By doing this, you’ll help them uncover the effects branding has actually had on them, thus making a point about what branding is and why it is important.”
Andy Karuza, FenSens
8. Create Great Content
“A rookie mistake a lot of people make when it comes to building a strong personal brand is trying to implement “get followers quick” tactics. Focus on creating great content first and be consistent and persistent when doing so. A good way to start is to tell your story in the most authentic way you can.”
Diego Orjuela, Cables & Sensors
9. Be Purposeful in the Things That You Put Out There
“Everything you post online lives forever in one way or another. Unfortunately, you have no ability to predict or control how others will use that information. It’s important to have a plan for how you want to market yourself to the world and to set boundaries for yourself in terms of how you engage.”
Andrew Saladino, Kitchen Cabinet Kings
10. Help Them Understand Their Current Brand
“Jeff Bezos is famously credited with saying: “Your brand is what people say about you when you are not in the room.” Run an anonymous survey on Facebook (there is an app for that) among their friends to see what other people honestly think about them to help them realize what their current brand is. This will open their eyes very quickly.”
Eugene Gold, WOW Payments LLC
11. Ask Them Simple Questions
“The best way to encourage someone to pay attention to personal branding when they’re new to a concept is all about awareness. In the early stages, it’s asking them questions like, “pretend I’m meeting you again 10 years from now. Who am I meeting and what is it like to be around you?” Or ask them about a mentor: Why do they admire that mentor and how did their mentor become a mentor?”
Arry Yu, Yellow Umbrella Ventures
12. Run a Personal Brand Audit
“A great way to learn about branding and online reputation management is to perform it on yourself. Something new hires and employees can do to get started is to go through this process themselves. We all have social profiles, but they each rank all over the place in terms of Google and SEO. Provide your team with the tools to run this first search and then have them do it again with your own or competitor brands.”
