Personal Branding 101 is proud to present the following guest article by Mike Stenger of MikeStenger.com. Mike’s passion for social media shines through in his writing – enjoy!
I don’t know about you, but I Twitter and Facebook a lot. In fact, social media has been my number one traffic source and brand building tool for quite some time now. At the end of the day however, you can have an amazing website publishing amazing content, but if you aren’t building a brand, what makes up you and what you and/or your site is all about, you’re wasting your time.
Social media can be confusing and it can sometimes be complicated. Most cases people make it out that way to be complicated or “gurus” help further that problem. Branding yourself, your site, your business through social media is not as hard as you’d think and there’s a few steps to keep in mind…
- Have a clear, precise image. This is a BIG mistake many people make. They’re not clear and specific enough. They don’t have a good, instantly recognizable image. And if there’s one thing to know about branding, it’s that if people don’t remember who you are and what you’re about, they’ll forget about you, period.
Coca Cola: Clear and precise.
Walmart: Clear and precise.
Nike: Clear and precise.
Get the picture?
- Keep it simple. In fact, the simpler, the better. You don’t need to spend hundreds on a logo and thousands on a website/blog design. You don’t have to put in all these hours crafting a perfect brand image that represents you and who you are. Just create something simple and make it easily remembered.
When you go to the store to buy a pop/soda/whatever you wanna call it, you don’t look for a cola. You look for a Pepsi or a Coca-Cola. And how do you spot them? Bingo…the logo and brand image. It’s instantly recognizable (like we talked about in the last step) and it’s simple.
Us humans tend to remember and learn the more simple and finer things in life. We don’t want all this confusion. And if we are confused, we won’t always particularly remember.
- Want to explode your results? BE your brand. Become a part of your brand. What I mean by that is find the nitty gritty details on what your brand is all about and portray that through your interactions, marketing, website, etc.
Your brand is only so powerful by itself. However, when a personality like yourself is added to the mix, a catalyst so to speak, the brand becomes much more powerful and capable of growing at a faster rate.
How are you using social media to build your brand?
Mike Stenger is a social media consultant with a strong passion of business and all things Internet. You can find Mike at his blog where he talks about success, business and social media strategies. You can also follow Mike on Twitter.
Photo credit, Thomas Hawk.
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