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Are You Using Self Branding?
By Terrance Charles |
One of the most important topics I came across is the art of self branding. You see people everyday using self branding, but there’s a lot of marketers that are not branding themselves, instead branding their business first and not showing their personal side or branding, are you using self branding?
Why Should You Use Self Branding?…
That’s a great question, but it’s a simple answer. If you want to create a successful business no matter what type of business it is, you need to use self branding. It’s how people remember you, it’s the first or lasting impression that you leave in their mind.
When you look at companies like walmart, yahoo, fedex, myspace etc - there’s one thing they all have in common, and that’s branding. Larger companies like these brand their companies first because of the market value it has, but you later get to know who’s behind the companies in interviews and features etc.
But as a marketer, when I mention the name Mike Filsaime, Corey Rudl (RIP), Ewen Chia, John Reese, Dan Kennedy, Mike Dillard etc – it’s not because they have created great success for themselves that they are well known. They are great at branding themselves, most of the time you see their picture and names on 100′s of websites, so you get use to it.
Whenever I create a website or make a post, whatever it involves, I always make sure that I use my full name and my picture and that’s important because your picture let’s your visitors know who’s behind the website and they have a name to familiarize it with, so it starts to stick in their mind over time.
3 Great Ways To Brand Yourself…
#1 – Video – I don’t care how much emails you receive, there’s nothing like a video because it paints a long lasting branding image, it shows real emotion, and just from a video you can tell if someone is really sincere or not. A personal video about yourself and what you do will get to people better than a video branding just your business in some cases.
#2 – Picture – This is one that I personally use the most. On every website I create, group I join etc I always make sure that I am using my picture and my full name. The key to this is to make sure that your picture is clear because it will be the image that you paint into your visitors mind, so you want to make sure they remember quality that you posess.
#3 – Audio/Email – I use this from time to time, but I can name a lot of great marketers that use this mostly and it really left a lasting impression im my mind of them. Audio creates tone, and just from the tone of your voice, people can still tell if your sincere or does your voice sound forced.
Email is great because when you send overtime, you create brand from your name. Your name is in the senders From: and also you can use it in your title, for example… “Terrance Charles Has a Message For You…” So you continually drip on your prospects and your customers for name recognition, the whole world doesn’t have to know you, but your prospects and customers do, so it’s great to create that brand in their mind.
There’s times that I’ve seen just one video or one picture, and I still remember that person, still remember their image and the business that they were promoting because that led me to investigate more. If you aren’t using branding, you definitely should be, it will drive your business to new heights, and you may just become a internet marketing superstar, and more people will recommend you especially if you create that trust in useful content that you give.
What are your thoughts on branding, if you have any ideas or suggestions on different ways to go about branding yourself and your business, share it here – leave a comment along with your website link, I’d like to hear from you 
YOU are a Success,
Terrance Charles
TerranceCharles.com
Popularity: 80% [?]
Topics: Blog Marketing / Web 2.0, Internet Marketing Tips, Online Social Networking, Personal Business Branding, Web Traffic Generation | 4 Comments »
3:03 am on September 29th, 2007
Great post Terrance, I agree with branding yourself, when you look at the msot successful people, they have that same thing in common.
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3:50 pm on December 13th, 2007
Finally, someone who speaks sense! Terrance, your article on Self Branding is so important to internet marketing I can’t believe that more people don’t do it!
Everyday people buy stuff on the internet, from clothing to making money programs, and everyday people go to the same stores that they have been using for years, because they know the store, the layout and they trust what they are buying from that store.
When it comes to the internet, the only thing that most marketers have is what they write, and while some people will trust in what a person is posting or writing about, it’s nice to know there is a face, a REAL person behind the product.
That this person maybe has a family, a pet, a hobby that is similar to the person reading the article. It makes you real, not just someone on the other side of a computer spouting about stuff that might or might not help their people.
Years, and I mean YEARS ago, before the internet, I got into some of these mass mailings, start your own business “deals” only to find out that in the end, there was no one there to answer my questions or complain to if something didn’t work. So many people have been burned by these scams, I think it’s most important today to put yourself out there, face and all, and show people that there are some honest and REAL marketers out there!
Ron Killian
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7:40 pm on January 11th, 2008
Nice article, quite informative. Self branding is something that most of us tend to neglect but it can make a huge difference.
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2:50 am on February 28th, 2008
[...] If you aren’t branding, you need to start branding. There could be 1 same product being sold by 2 people, and the one that has the most brand and recognition is the one that will get the sale, not necessarily the one that sells it better, and that’s big in internet marketing, so you need to establish your brand. [...]
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