When you’re broke with little time on your hands, it can become a challenge to build your blog and home business.
So what do many do with the little time they have?
They spend it on researching free tools.
You may be doing this yourself.
You find a free tool, with no intentions to upgrade, and you sort of believe the promises made by the creators.
The only caveat is that you must do the work in order to get the results.
So you put in a few weeks of work and to no avail your efforts show little to no results.
This can be daunting, but you do more research.
The more research and implementation you do, the more disappointments keeping coming your way and you’re tired of it.
You think about giving up, but you know quite well that you’re missing a step and you want to get to the bottom of it.
Despite your limited time and you’re almost nonexistent business budget, you keep finding answers, but you don’t know which one to focus on.
One of those answers is branding yourself online. You probably read how important branding is, but you didn’t give it any importance.
But now you think there maybe something to this branding thing, so you dig a little further as we’re about to do on this blog post!
How often have you heard the importance of branding?
You’ve probably heard many of times to “find your voice” or about putting out a “message” so you can attract your target market.
Many of you are like how I was when I first heard about these wise words.
I really didn’t see what was the big deal about messaging or finding my own voice. I just wanted to generate traffic, leads and sales conversions.
I thought to myself why waste so much time on just these two, where I can skip it all and go into the action steps needed to really get me going?
The problem for so many of us is that despite the different strategies and tools, nobody knows who we are and what we’re all about.
Without this, we’re just sitting ducks for constant failure!
Besides, there are many of you who don’t have a decent marketing budget, nor have big amounts of time to figure out the different tools and strategies to begin with.
I mean, yes, you can start a free blog, but there’s still that learning curve.
Now you’re wondering what’s really so important about branding anyways? What do you really need to be focusing on daily to meet your goals?
Making Branding Yourself Online A Part Of Your Routine
Your reputation and your impression on people in general is what’s going to make you or break you.
Every potential person that’s within your target audience are looking to solve specific problems and it’s up to you to figure out who they are and what problems they have.
Most people like to leave their marketing to chance and hope for the best and this is why so many fail miserably with their blog and home business.
You want to be able to consistently make a name for yourself.
When your audience see’s your name, know you by your message, design, logo or symbol they have a good idea what you’re all about.
For example:
When you think of the slogan “Just Do It!” you think of Nike
Whenever you see the Golden Arches you think of McDonalds
Whenever you hear “Can you hear me now? Good” you think of Verizon
“Melts in your mouth, not in your hands” is a great one by M&M’s candy
and my favorite “Like a good neighbor, State Farm is There”
Imagine being able to brand yourself on social media well enough so that your audience has a mental imprint in their minds of your specialty.
As a solopreneur you are the person behind what you promote and it’s important for you to project your great character to build yourself a great reputation among your audience.
So how can you start putting yourself out there so others can see what you’re about?
You can start off by branding yourself on social media. For me it was the easiest way to start building my reputation.
And if you have a smart phone that’s even better!
Branding yourself on the go with your smart phone can give your audience real-time reach to interact with you and vice versa.
Branding yourself on Facebook and Twitter was a convenient way for me and they will definitely help build your reputation among your peers. One thing I recommended from the get go is that you only interact with those people within your niche and grow from there.
In due time you will reap the rewards in attracting more people who resonate with you and the content you put out.
The key is to start off with focusing on people who are similar to you or who had similar experiences as you. Whenever people can see the common denominator between you and them, then they become your advocates.
And one thing I like about branding on social media is that it doesn’t take too much of your time to leave a post or comment, and above all it’s practically free to do.
Since I’m also a blogger, l found that leveraging a blog to brand myself gives my target audience a place to make themselves home, build rapport with me and each other, and also gain some knowledge they can instantly use for themselves.
But for many, they just don’t have the time and energy to put together a blog in the beginning which is ok. Eventually putting one together will be a wise branding strategy in the long run since it acts as a hub to your online marketing.
Being cohesive and consistent with your branding is very important as you’re branding yourself online. You want to convey the same message in every social site you’re a part of as well as other types of sites.
This will, as a result, leave a mental imprint within the minds of your target audience as I mentioned before in the previous examples of the different business brands.
So what will you get out of consistent branding yourself with a consistent message all across the internet?
The Rewards With A Consistent Branding All Across the Internet
You have to ask yourself why are you following certain people and why did you subscribe to someone’s blog or youtube channel?
It was something about them that you resonated with and you found much value in them, right?
You probably felt that they were your long lost blood relative with so many things in common with you. Sometimes they may share an experiences that you can very well relate with and by this you feel a strong connection.
But whatever the case may be, you found that you and them were on the same frequency and you became one of their fans.
Well this is what branding does and can you imagine if you can constantly attract people that want to be your loyal fan?
Well let’s see what the positive outcome you’ll get when you consistently brand yourself online:
Traffic
Whether you have a blog or use other means of putting yourself out there online, eventually you’ll start generating traffic.
Not just any traffic though!
But the right traffic!
If you’re putting out a consistent message out there that attract specific people, then this is the traffic that’s going to be your advocates when it comes to YOU.
Everything else that you promote comes after.
This is what makes list building less of a challenge if you think about it. Why? Because you become the “Go To” person for specific problems that your true audience have.
It’s like you’re favorite car mechanic. He or she would be the person you go to because of how they branded themselves for one, and for specific problems they specialize when it comes to your vehicle.
There’s some mechanics that specialize in Transmissions while others may specialize in radiators. And if they’re unfamiliar with a certain area of car mechanics, usually they’ll give you recommendations which you take their word for it.
Social Proof
Once you start getting traffic, eventually you’ll start to get social proof.
As the mechanic gives you recommendations, your peers may also give you the same recommendations for the same mechanic.
This will build trust which helps you make a decision to go to that same mechanic for your specific problems.
This is how branding yourself online will help boost your reputation. Once your true audience gets word on who you are and what you’re about, then this will give them the reason to visit you.
Can you imagine getting 3rd party validation from someone you admire and look up to within your marketing niche. What if this person has a large following?
How much do you think your reputation will go up?
How about if you’re a blogger and you get at least 50 positive comments each time you publish a post, and a handful of them are influential bloggers in their own right?
How much will your blog be catapulted in traffic and popularity?
Authority
As mentioned before, you become the specialist!
Once you make a name for yourself who specializes in certain problems, people will come to you because of your reputation.
This is why honing those skill sets in areas that most interest you and are successful in are vital to your growth as a solopreneur. It’s whats going to make you stand out from the rest.
How can you do this without putting in a lot of time and money?
Joining social media groups, blogging communities, and forums for example are free ways that you can put yourself out there and attract like-minded people and those that are looking for answers.
When your peers start giving you positive responses on these different sites your social proof in the long run will result in the snow ball effect of continuous growth in popularity.
Loyal Following
When becoming an authority you’ll evolve into becoming a high influencer.
You’ll be able to spread your influential power within your niche that will attract a loyal following.
It goes back to the infamous saying that the money is in the list. And when you have a list of followers who trust your judgement and love the content you publish, then selling becomes less of a challenge.
Your loyal followers will be the perfect advocates when it comes to your content and the product/services that you promote. As you’re promoting your advocates will also help you promote.
Being a high influencer equates to being a servant leader.
As ZigZiglar said “You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help enough other people get what they want.”
When you become consistent in providing solutions, then your loyal following will keep growing.
Opportunities
When Traffic, Social Proof, Authority, and building a Loyal Following is continuously on the rise at a steady pace, then that’s when you’ll start to attract interesting opportunities.
When those in your niche know who you are and what you’re all about, they will invite you to take upon different opportunities relating to your personal brand.
I’ve been asked to guest post on other blogs, bloggers have asked me to guest post on my blog, I’ve had people asking me to promote their products, and a few more opportunities.
With that said, your reputation tends to grow even more, and you’ll develop this multi web of connections throughout your journey.
Conclusion
There are different strategies for branding yourself online.
This may sound like it’s going to take a lot out of your time and will cost you money to do so, but it doesn’t have to.
Focusing on just one branding strategy from the beginning will get you a lot further than focusing on multitudes of strategies at one time, that will result for the most part, not getting you too far.
When it comes to branding, you want to be able to work smart. In this day in age we have the convenience of the internet to do so.
The internet has changed the way business do branding. From Network Marketing to the Brick and Mortar businesses, it’s less tedious to make yourself known to your target market compared to the past.
As mentioned, within the internet we have Forums, Social Media Sites, Blogging Communities, and many other options that allows us to work from the comfort of a laptop.
With that said, all it takes is putting out one message which will start to attract people that correlates with it and you can grow from there.
Now It’s Your Turn!
If you’re someone who doesn’t have a big marketing budget and little time, how are you making use of the internet to brand yourself?
What personal branding strategies are you using?
If you haven’t been branding yourself online, what were you doing before?
How has it worked out for you? Was there any progress?
How often do you promote your products/services online? Would focusing on branding more improve your traffic and conversions?
Please leave your comments below and share this post with your friends. I look forward to read them!
