How should entrepreneurs manage a personal brand effectively?

While you may have diverse experience in different sectors, industries and/or clients - your personal brand can be synthesized so that it captures your zone of genius... the thing you are know for.

In my case, I worked in consumer packaged goods and consumer brands... but when I went on my own in 2013, I thought the same... how can I get into this entrepreneurial space with what I know?

What I found is that strategy is my "zone of genius" and I'm proud to have diverse experience because I bring a breadth of knowledge from Fortune 50 to small business...every business needs strategy.

So now back to you... focus on the "zone of genius" value you bring to the table.. the mindshare you capture in your prospect's mind.

The goal is to be known for one thing... niche down as a matter of strategic advantage so that you can be known as "the one" to go to for that niche.

Create your unique mechanism for delivering that "one thing" and position yourself uniquely in your space.

For more information on your personal brand - feel free to check out my "Personal Positioning" mini-course:
https://www.prolific.cafe/free

yours for "prolific positioning" greatness, Patty

Start with a website. A website of 5 pages communicating your portfolio, experience, and passion will strike the right chords.

Secondly, move ahead and streamline your social media. Pick 3 social media platforms that are most relevant for you and churn out the right content from them. There are agencies that can help out with this.

Thirdly, get your interviews published on a couple of sites so that they pop on Google when someone Googles your name. If you can become a contribute to few top media sites, that's simply gold.

These three are ideas on top of my head but there's a lot that can be done to position your personal brand strongly on the internet.

Reach out if need help with anything above mentioned. I know people who can do amazing things.

Cheers!

Great question! I can relate to this from my own personal experience.

Back in 2010 I started my marketing company, and we worked with everyone from mom & pop restaurants, to professional services (lawyers, chiropractors, financial advisors, etc.), to non-profits, to thought-leaders.

We had lots of different projects, and enjoyed the diversity and novelty of our clients, but we were not strategic with who we brought on as clients. Basically anyone that was willing to pay us, we brought on as a client. And at the beginning, you need to do that to survive. But, you also have to know that will not scale, and you will not build a brand that way. It was a complete nightmare from a management and growth side...

Strategies, tools, and tactics that worked well in one industry, were against regulations in another, or didn't fit that business model, etc.

The goal of a personal brand is to build a magnet, a reputation in the marketplace, that attract clients to you, rather than you having to chase clients, and take whatever type of client will pay you.

People pay a premium for people who specialize.

The medical space is a perfect example of this.
Your general doctor, or urgent care physician serves a purpose, but they don't make heart surgeon, or brain surgeon money. And, people aren't flying across the country or world to see the top urgent care physician/doc.

So it depends on what your goals and ambitions are to determine what steps to take for your personal brand.

The basics are:

Find a growing trend/industry. Plant your flag. Specialize your skillset, team and processes to where you can get predictable, and repeatable results for your customers and clients. Build a company and a brand by creating raving customers, and being the go-to solution in that industry.

Hope that helps!

Michael R. Hunter
Founder
PersonalBrand.com
https://PersonalBrand.com

What is true across all those different experiences?

A personal brand means what is it about YOU, rather than you business, that will stand out.

Focus on the constants for you, regardless of industry or country or job. Consider these questions:
- What motivates you?
- Why?
- What do you take pride in?
- How do you want people to think about you?
- How do you describe "quality"?

Use these sorts of questions to build a description of how you act, interact, communicate, and prove your value. And that will be your personal brand: constant truths.

I started a global marketing and branding firm 18 years ago and believe personal branding is very important to growing your business because if you do not brand yourself then the market will brand you instead. The single most important ingredient to creating a great brand is authenticity and ˙here are a few tips from my experience to help establish an authentic brand without spending a lot of money:

Be original. What makes you unique or special?

Be creative. How do you want people to think & feel after interacting with you vs. your competition?

Be honest. Let your brand be known for speaking the truth, and you become the trusted advocate and go-to source.

Be relevant. Brands aren't created in a vacuum.

Be consistent. Develop a cohesive message, and live it every day.

Be passionate. Everyone loves to work with people who are passionate about what they do; it makes life much more fun and interesting.

Authentic relationships beat marketing automation every time. Technology runs our lives more than ever but it is relationships that drive business and commerce so people will find more ways to connect in person to build trust and strengthen connections. Make sure you offer several ways to talk with them and get to know them. Algorithms can only tell you so much about a customer, transactions are driven by relationships. Use automation where you can but do not ignore the power of the personal touch.

Tools you can use for personal branding/PR are as follows:
1. Mention: Mention is a real time media monitoring platform. It allows you to listen to what’s been said about you on websites and social media. Enter your name in the search box and you will see what people are saying about you across different platforms, all in one place. You can react to the mentions within the tool if you have connected your social media accounts with it. Create an alert and you will get email notifications when people mention your name or whatever keywords you choose to monitor. Price: subscriptions start from $29/month
2. Buzzsumo: Buzzsumo is a great digital monitoring platform for you to find what content is popular and who the influencers are within your niche. Comparing it to Mention, Buzzsumo excludes social media posts and solely shows content from websites. With a free account, you will be able to see the top 10 most shared content (articles, videos, interviews, infographics, etc.) based on the keyword terms you enter. Search for your name and you will see how the articles mentioning or quoting you performed across the web in a second. Price: 10 results for searches with a free account. Buzzsumo Pro starts from $79/month.
3. TweetDeck: TweetDeck is an effective tool for real-time tracking, organizing, and engagement, especially when you need to manage more than 2 Twitter accounts at the same time. It can present Twitter feeds in different columns based on your needs, which allows you to monitor both your personal and company tweet feeds, participate in Twitter chats with hashtags, or follow tweets based on any search criteria all in one place. Price: Free.
4. Canva: According to a study by Buffer, tweets with images receive 18% more clicks, 89% more favourites and 150% more retweets, not to mention Facebook and Instagram which are even more visual-oriented. It is hard to find a satisfying picture for your post sometimes, but with Canva, you can very simply create an image that perfectly matches what you are trying to say. The best part of the tool is that it provides templates with the right dimensions for a Facebook post, Facebook cover photo, Twitter post, Instagram photo, etc. which will ensure your image is presented in the right way on different social platforms. Price: free when you only use free elements or your own images. $1 apiece if you use Canva’s premium elements.
5. Feedly: Not sure what to share on social media? Feedly can help keep you on track. Feedly is a news aggregator application that helps gather everything you are interested in reading in one place. Once set up by subscribing to the publications you want to follow, you will be able to organize the content base on your preference, read them within the tool, and share them on social media with just one click. Price: Free.
6. Buffer: Among all the social media scheduling tools, we chose Buffer mainly because of its easy-to-use interface. It is a time-saving tool that allows you to update all your social channels with one click. Besides its scheduling function, Buffer also provides content suggestions on topics including marketing, inspiration, business & start-up, etc. The tool is also available on mobile. Price: Free.
7. Followerwonk: Followerwonk is a Twitter analytics tool that allows you to search Twitter bios, compare Twitter users, and analyse Twitter followers with a free account. It helps you to get an idea about how well you are connected and who you should connect with. Their analysis tells you a lot about your followers (or people you follow) such as their location, active hours, interest, authority scores, and so on. With the Search Bios function, you can identify influencers within your niche and find like-minds to connect with. Price: Free.
8. UnfollowerStats: UnfollowerStats examines your friendship on Twitter. It tells you who unfollowed you, who are not following you back, and who you are not following back. What is more, you can check how active your followers are on Twitter, when they joined Twitter and the relationship between two users. This information can be helpful for you to make decisions about who to follow or not. Price: Free.
9. Twitter Analytics: Twitter Analytics is a measurement tool provided by Twitter. It automatically generates a monthly recap for you with the number of your tweets, tweet impressions, profile visits, and new followers. In the tweets tab and followers tab, you can see more detail about how your tweets performed and the demographic makeup of your followers. We have blogged about how it can be a helpful tool for content marketing as well. Price: Free.
Besides if you do have any questions give me a call: https://clarity.fm/joy-brotonath