On a previous post, I showed you how to develop your own brand by helping your closest friends develop their own personal brands. Now that you have a close group of friends with a strong understanding of how a personal brand can develop your personal and professional lives, it’s time to solidify the personal branding dream team.
Choose your niches
A dream team is composed of people with complimentary skills and assets. There is no perfect combination; just make sure that each of you has a specific area of expertise that compliments each other perfectly. For example, my blog is about start-up tips and relationship advice for entrepreneurs. I am currently looking for blogger that focus on personal finance, marketing and PR, and user interface & design to join my blogging dream team. [Btw (by the way), if you’re reading this and feel that you focus on one of those areas of expertise, hit me up so that we can chat about the blogging project that I’m developing]
Get a yourexpertise.com domain name
A lot of the advice that is given in the personal branding world is to get yourname.com. That is important, but if you want to magnify your area of expertise, it is crucial that you get a domain name that is specific to your niche. For example, my friend Ramit Sethi has a blog called http://Iwillteachyoutoberich.com. Without even thinking about it, you know that this blog is about personal finance and tips to help you get rich.
Have each of your team members get a yourexpertise.com domain name and write at least 3 posts a week about your specific topic. Stay consistent, be unique, bring something new to the blogosphere, and add a personal touch to each post so that you guys build readership and gain momentum.
Solidify the circle
Check out my blog at Young Successful Entrepreneur. At the top you’ll see that I have a section called “Current Projects.” This section is the 4th most clicked section on my blog and helps bring traffic to my companies. The reason it has so many click thrus is because it is placed at the top, it is a different color from the background so it’s clearly
visible, the descriptive text is short and concise, and their are images next to the descriptive text that encourage people to click.
You should therefore create a very similar section on each blog on your dream team. By doing this, you encourage people to click through to your teammates blog and create a “blogging circle” that helps keep your readership interested in what you guys are writing about. Share your readers and your reach and subscribers will grow dramatically.
Another great way to share traffic is to consistently mention your team members in your blog posts. I do this a lot for my business partner Yu-kai Chou and am consistently the 4th largest source of traffic for him.
Leverage the power of referrals
When you tell someone that you’re an expert in vintage fashion, you seem like someone that likes to brag about himself. If your friend introduces you to someone as an expert in vintage fashion, you instantly gain credibility and people that you get introduced to will instantly see you as an expert in vintage fashion.
Have each of your team members think of a short introduction that you would like to use when your team members introduce you to someone else. For example, my friend Tony was introduced like this: “This is Tony. He’s an excel ninja and writes like Hemmingway.” Pretty soon, people started approaching Tony for excel help and saying how well written his blog is.
My last piece of advice is to refer influential connections to each other. For example, Yu-kai Chou always refers people to sit down and have some tea with me when they’re in the LA area. If I am able to impress this person when we meet up for tea, then I’ll look impressive because I live up to the hype that Yu-kai bestowed upon my, and Yu-kai will be even more impressive because he will now be known as a generous person who likes to connect his network of impressive people together.
Let me know if you would like to add any tips about solidifying your personal branding dream team. Shoot me an email with the blogs of your dream team members so that we can all get to know each other.
Author:
Jun is the Founder and CMO of Future Delivery where he is building Viralogy, the Social Media rank. His personal blog, Become a Young Successful Entrepreneur, gives a real, unfiltered view of the Startup Life so that current and aspiring entrepreneurs can learn from his successes and mistakes.
