Personal Branding: People Only See You As You See Yourself

Personal branding is the process whereby people and their careers are marked as brands.

In the online world, personal branding is something that is developed and built over time. It is otherwise known as “building a presence on the internet”.

I have found that the fastest tool to utilize in personal branding is video. It is the most personal method of communicating with others on the internet. Look into the eyes of your listeners. Gain their respect and trust through the integrity of your words, your attitude and your posture.

Posture, in this instance is not necessarily sitting up straight, although that would be advised. Posture on the other hand refers to positioning yourself as the leader and expert in your field that you are (and in some cases are becoming).

Impart the knowledge that you have, with an air of authority. If you doubt yourself, people will detect it and lose interest.

Be passionate – dull and boring is just that … dull and boring.

Be unique – your personality will attract a whole different set of people than your colleagues will. Do not be a me too marketer. Each individual has his or her own pull.

Remember, you can’t say the wrong thing to the right person.

Give value, value, value! Educate yourself and offer help to others who may not be as knowledgeable as you are. Do not be arrogant but also do not be weak.

Building a powerful online presence takes time. You can outsource some of it, for example articles. I personally prefer to write my own as no one has my personality but me.

However, if you want to outsource some of your content building, you can seek the help of odesk and elance for this.

Be positive about what you are doing and NEVER waver! Never give up!

There are times when things may not look the way that you want them to, but success comes from pressing through times such as these.

Create a blog and post regularly to it. Leverage your efforts by doing an article that can double as a post. Ezine articles are an excellent place to post articles as their site ranks very highly with Google. As a result of this, it becomes far easier to have your article rank highly for the terms you target in the organic search.

Be sure to use a pleasant, yet professional picture of yourself, and use the same picture in all of your social media profiles.

This will quickly resonate with people as they begin to see you, “all over the web”.

Be consistent in your opinion on matters of importance. If you take a stance, stand by it.

Steadily and consistently, your brand will be developed and recognized.

Secrets To Video Marketing Success

How do you create a great video that effectively targets other network marketers? How do you assemble your content? How do you engage your prospects? These are questions I often get, so here goes…

First of all, as a network marketer, your job is to solve problems and answer questions!. Therefore,  you need to be doing just that: solving problems related to network marketing. Which means you’ve got to determine what it is that your target market needs,and then provide those  answers. Which again means you’ve got to be always educating and adding value to yourself, always keeping your eyes and ears open to new ideas, tips and training that can benefit your peers.

5-steps to follow when you are creating a “problem-solving” video:

1.) Establish credibility. Briefly introduce yourself. Who are you and why should anyone listen to you? Are you “an internet marketing trainer”? A “professional Internet entrepreneur”? A “top producer” with your company? You MUST present yourself as a leader because  others will see you as you see yourself…nothing more, nothing less.

2. ) Introduce “the problem“. This must be something specific. The problem could be the struggle to generate leads, it could be time management issues, challenges facing those marketing on a shoe-string budget, or a variety of other topics. But again, be very specific. Don’t try to cover too much ground in one video.

Make sure that you let your viewer know you are actually going to solve their problem for them, that by the end of the video they won’t be frustrated anymore; they will know what to do to next. See, you’ve got to give them a compelling reason to sit through your entire video…even if it is only a few minutes long. People have short attention spans. So use a “hook” early on to make sure they don’t hit the “back” button J

3.) Be Concise. Show that you can relate; discuss struggles that you encountered along the way. Your prospect must believe you are on their side, that you have their best interest at heart and are not just out to ’sell’ them.

4.) Solve their problems. Give lots of value here. Share what is working for you. Share enough to help the person and point them in the right direction, but don’t give away everything… Leave your viewer curious and hungry for more information. Because, this is where you will want to give the call to action…

5.) Call to action. Here you can send them to your website for more information. This web site should be a landing page and it should brand YOU as a leader and an expert. A replicated company site will NOT do the job.

Remember, congruency is key: When your viewer lands on your web site, if they are to actually become a lead, the content of this site needs to pertain directly to the material you just presented in your video. Because, just as in your video you convinced them to proceed to your landing page, you now need to convince them that giving you their email will bring them yet another step closer to the ‘Solution’. Otherwise they will NOT opt-in.

Because of the above point, you may find that different video messages require somewhat different landing pages. If, for instance, in your video you talk about how some free e-book solved all your lead generation problems, then — when your viewer gets to your landing page — Make sure that you give them the free e-book and whatever else you talked about in your video. Otherwise your prospect will feel mislead and will quickly hit that ‘back’ button.

Leave your web site URL on the video from beginning to end. People are forgetful and easily distracted. So keep that web site address visible for the duration of your video. This will ensure that it really sticks in your prospect’s mind.

A second call to action: remind your viewer to subscribe to your channel, and to rate and comment on your video. Say something like, “I want to hear what you think about this”, or “I care about your opinion …so be sure to leave me a comment and rate this video”. People love to give their opinions and make their voice heard!

As a result of this, when posting to Youtube, I strongly recommend that, you add ‘annotations’ near to the end of your videos where you remind your viewer to subscribe, rate and comment. (This is a feature you will find within Youtube itself; you’ll have the option of adding annotations when editing your video after upload).

As with any social media marketing method, your goal is to get your prospects involved. Create two-way communication. Because you are obviously not “just” out to get those ratings and comments to boost your rankings on Google; you are seeking to build relationships with your prospects through your videos and turn them into future customers and/or business partners. Remember, always strive to create an environment that encourages participation

If you follow these simple guidelines, I assure you success will be yours!!

http://youtube.com/mphillibert