Getting flustered as you’re not getting known among your passion community?
I can relate to it.
Branding, in this day and age, though quite a buzzword, is becoming fairly difficult for start-ups, entrepreneurs, and individuals.
The reasons are stark. Not getting enough leverage in our respective industries owing to being too fresh or dangerously new (yes I used this phrase carefully). Or owing to some amount of ubiquity in the way social media channels are being used to increase brand visibility.
So while we cannot evade the triteness, but we can alter the way to communicate with these social media channels – and make our messaging unique, in our own kind of way.
How?
Start a passion conversation. And use word of mouth to build contagion of your brand’s purpose.
Perhaps the best example to mention here is Gary Vaynerchuk and his AskGaryVee Show – who just doesn’t stop to amaze his community (including me) when it comes to communicating with energy and passion regarding all kinds of topic related to social media, business, growth, hustle, and entrepreneurship. This takes some real hard work to individually connect with people to answer so many different types of questions. Well, for us it might sound an impromptu, but Gary works really hard to be more participative and contributing with his thoughts.
His motto? Work. Period.
Now, you are helping your community while concurrently building your brand.
But, of course, you’d assume, Í am not Gary to actually scale it up to such a level of intensity in conversation and engagement, to which, I’d only suggest, ‘yes, you absolutely can!’
Start small, and then build it up!
Your first step should be to communicate your brand’s essence in your industry so that people who are in your immediate circle trust you enough to give you work.
And the best way to build awareness is to constantly speak to people via work of mouth marketing.
How?
- Select your top 100 prospects – and connect with them on LinkedIn, Twitter and follow them on Google Plus and their personal Web site. Sometimes ‘intuitive’ search can help you find more people on the Web with whom you could have a conversation and build rapport.
- Curate content that they’d potentially like; preferably what they write would be the best to start your content conversation
- Study their content topics and see if you see a commonality between what they write and how you perceive the piece. Or discern if there is any gap between what they are trying to reach and what you can solve via your skills and competencies. That way, you make a connection based on your thinking wavelengths on a given topic/ industry.
- Once you study your top customers’ ‘like’ list of topics and preferences, start a conversation around it on LinkedIn groups, Twitter chats – and even periscope.
- After you have studied about your industry’s influencers and prospects, you can start contacting them individually to have a conversation about what your brand can do for their business. That way you schedule virtual sales calls and interviews that will help you unearth business opportunities in the form of conducting a mini-workshop for your client, co-writing a book, participate in a paid keynote speech or land a consulting assignment.
- Via smart yet genuine word of mouth marketing by your brand allies, you will get better and faster opportunities in the above-mentioned realms.
- Get creative with your brand message when you connect with your audience. Be contextual and relevant – not everyone would like the same old elevator pitch/ spiel that you have for others when they want to know about you. Well, that is precisely why word of mouth marketing is the safest – it is clear, creative, relevant and resonating – and yes, passionate!
- Starting point? Start making videos of your craft/ work. Or co-host a podcast on an issue you are deeply passionate about – and invite people to be a part of it. If nothing else, start your own master class/ webinar, and invite your prospects to attend for more learning and thriving.
The goal is to start somewhere.
However, how does word of marketing actually help you in converting your conversations in lucrative business conversions?
The answer is simple and straight: Your brand’s existential purpose. Ok, that’s a bit of cliché, let me easier to understand: your brand’s very purpose to make a difference.
When you truly want to help others in a given realm, you can instantly get recognition from people who you desire to stay in connection with.
While some industries are naturally more lucrative than others, but my earnest piece of advice would be – don’t lose out on your area of expertise of interest; just tweak it based on what your audience wants to hear you on.
Re-engineer and repeat. That’s the mantra of getting known for what you are as a brand of your own kind!
