Personal Branding-Build Your Personal Brand in 5 Days
Posted by Bill Rice on 08/27/08 in featured, lead generation, marketing, personal brand, social media
The Internet is quickly becoming the de facto authoritative source of record. It is your resume, your reputation, your credibility, and your performance. If you are interested in future success you had better own your namespace. That begins with personal branding and I am going to show you how to get a solid foundation with a 5 day roadmap.
Day 1: Build a Website (This is NOT hard)
This is your home–it is where people can find the authentic you. This is your safe place and all personal branding roads should lead back to this safe place.
I recommend this be your personal domain name. Hopefully, it can simply be your name. Start with .com, .org, .net. If necessary you can drift into .name and .me, but I suggest those only as reinforcing redirected domains if possible.
You can also effectively use a clever brand name you make up, but they may take a little longer and more creativity to build personal brand around.
My second recommendation for the home base is that it be a blog. It is fast, simple, versatile, and Google loves them. Remember our objectives are immediate search results.
Day 2: Build Your PR Engine
There are lots of ways to do this, but my recommendation is keep it simple and focused. Sign-up and complete your profile for the following services:
I will tell you how to use each in a moment. All you need to do now is sign-up and have your Web URL in each pointed at your home base.
Day 3: Brainstorm Your Brand
This is a critical step and where most stumble. I am going to break it into small concepts.
You are building a personal brand for a reason. Let’s write them down:
- Defining who you are and what you are good at
- Defining who you want to meet
- Defining who you want to meet you
- Make connecting as frictionless as possible
Turn each of these headings into 4-5 core brand concepts. Here are some examples:
- Writer: copywriting, ghostwriting, speech writing, web content
- Affiliate Marketer: ppc, seo, article marketing, affiliate programs
- Mortgage Broker: mortgage rates, mortgage refinance, reverse mortgage, loan modification
From each of these personal brand concepts craft 10 long tail topics. More examples:
- Writer: Copywriting-10 Secrets to Make Your Copy Sell
- Affiliate Marketer: Article Marketing-Driving Niche Traffic to Your eBay Affiliate Store
- Mortgage Broker: Reverse Mortgages-Helping Your Retired Parents Get the Right Mortgage
Day 4: Write–A Lot
A good personal brand only works if it has depth.
This 5 day process is going to immediately drive people to you. Make sure you look like you are open for business and it is clear who you are and why you are valuable.
So now it is time to open up the word processor. Write each of your list of articles. The list should have between 40-50 article topics. Yes, this is going to be a long day. Here are a few tips:
- Each article should only be 300-450 words
- Each should be informative or how-to oriented
- Create a standard format that is easy to read: italicized introduction, sub-headings, and lists
- Use keyword(s) in sub-headings and body of article, but no more than 2-3 times
- Include a consistent “resource box” at the end of each–brief who you are, what you do, and website link
Look at this post as an example.
Day 5: Start Promoting
Okay. I know you are tired, but we are to the fun part–self-promotion!
Expect another long day. Do the following steps. Since we are compressing this into 5 days it is important to do this in order:
- Post 10 articles to your blog (website): This should simply be a cut and paste exercise. One important trick to add a little apparent depth. Post date each but the final article when posting. I recommend spacing the post dating to reflect 3 posts per week, or whatever frequency you intend to post in the future. This isn’t intended to be a deceptive trick, but rather helps set expectations for your readers for the frequency of future posts.
- Post 10 more articles to your blog (website): These are going to be posted with future dates. This will help make you ongoing personal brand maintenance less intimidating. You now have a good queue–keep it full.
- Post 10 articles to eZineArticles: There are others, but this is the best. They have good rules, reputation, and traffic.
- Hold on to remaining 10-20 articles: Chances are you didn’t write 40-50 anyway–I know you got lazy, didn’t you? I am your coach– I am going to push you harder than you think you can go. If you met my goal you have some extra juice in the tank to deploy or reserve your call. If you didn’t make it you need to work harder–this is important. It is your personal brand. It will make you more money!
- Gmail: Add a signature block. Make it much like your article resource box, but add telephone number, LinkedIN profile and Twitter URLs. Announce your new website and expertise to 10 friends. Ask them to promote and link to you.
- Twitter: Go to http://search.twitter.com. Search for your keywords. Reply–intelligently–to 10 tweets on things of interest and relevant to you brand. Follow 10 other people in your brand area that you did not reply to tweets from.
- LinkedIN: Connect with 10 people you already know (load in address book). Ask them to endorse you.
- MyBlogLog: Add widget to blog (website). Search for your keywords. Join 10 communities of people in your brand area.
- Stumbleupon: Search for your keywords. Connect with 10 people in your brand area. Stumble each of the websites of the people you connected with on Twitter, LinkedIN, MyBlogLog. Stumble your most recent blog (website) post.
- eZineArticles: Add widget to blog (website).
Take the weekend off. Rest. Then…
Repeat Weekly.
Good luck! Happy personal brand building.
If you have any questions–contact me: http://twitter.com/billrice
—
Bill Rice is the founder of Kaleidico, a leader in contact management sales software. He is a frequent writer, speaker, and consultant on marketing and sales. He is passionate about helping organizations execute more profitable sale management strategies.
tag this
Matthew Bowe | Aug 27, 2008 | Reply
Bill… dig your stuff. For those that absolutely, positively must have print materials (logo, stationary, ltrhead, etc.), http://www.brandoozie.com is a crazy cool and fast way to make this happen. If they added a website… it’d be killer.
Anwyays… great article!
Bill Rice | Aug 27, 2008 | Reply
Matthew,
That is slick! Of course when all this kicks in for people and they start getting real business from it they will need to launch the offline brand stuff fast. Brandoozie looks like a good place to start.
Bill
Dan Schawbel | Aug 27, 2008 | Reply
This is a good list BUT, I would put day 3 as day 1 because unless you’ve learned a lot about yourself and figured out a topic and goals, then you are waiting your time. Many company’s make the same mistake of using all these tools that are there anyways, without really knowing why.
Bill Rice | Aug 27, 2008 | Reply
Dan,
Great point. Without a purpose you are wasting everyone’s time–yours and those who will find you.
BTW, great blog! I added it to my RSS reader. Everyone should check it out to learn more tips on personal branding: http://personalbrandingblog.wordpress.com/
Thanks,
Bill
Stefanie | Aug 27, 2008 | Reply
Great post - thanks for the quick steps
Thanks
Stefanie
Bill Rice | Aug 27, 2008 | Reply
Thanks Stephanie. Glad you liked it. Thanks for commenting!
Dali Burgado | Aug 28, 2008 | Reply
Wow, Bill. Go, go, goooo! I can hear you coaching!
Your steps make it very manageable to get this all done (now 40-50 articles wow I might have stopped at 20) lol.
Look forward to reading more awesome content.
I appreciate you!
Dali Burgado
Carri Bugbee | Aug 28, 2008 | Reply
Great advice. It’s similar to what I tell people all the time. However, I don’t think it’s feasible to write 40-50 articles in a day. I could probably only do a couple and I write for a living. I think it’s more important for people to research, reference and develop GREAT ideas to get noticed — and I wouldn’t rush that. Anyone who can do one or two substantive articles a day for a couple of weeks will be in great shape and well on their way to promoting their own personal brand.
frank | Aug 28, 2008 | Reply
Bill … nice post.
I like how you outline it in a simple and understandable way.
Dan’s comment about really having the strategy before you embark on all the ‘building’ is great … without the thought/planning, a clear game plan and strategy the chances of success are definitely on the slim side.
You could also make the case for doing the writing as step 2 - this would help you flesh out the types of things you want to talk about on your blog as well as get you in the habit of writing so that when you ‘launch’ your site you are already rolling.
At any rate … this was a great read. thanks!
–
http://twitter.com/franswaa
Linda Smith | Aug 28, 2008 | Reply
This is awesome. I’m in the very process of branding myself and have done all but StumbleUpon and MyBlogLog. How do you keep up with all this and still do your primary business is something I still wonder.
Ari | Aug 28, 2008 | Reply
first of all i think utilizing web 2.0 (like the ones listed below) are the greatest step in getting free marketing.
second, i took a look at branddoozie and i have to say it is quite impressive. Thanks Matthew for showing me how i can easily and afford ably make some great marketing documents.
Bill Rice | Aug 28, 2008 | Reply
Dali,
Certainly 40-50 is a lot for one day and may not be manageable for most, but it is training. It is a foundation, it doesn’t have to be flawless, and it enforces the “just get started” mentality I like to advocate.
Glad you enjoyed it. Thanks for the comment.
Bill
Bill Rice | Aug 28, 2008 | Reply
Carri,
Like I mentioned to Dali. The article count may be high, but you are practicing writing and thinking. Both will serve your brand well.
I totally agree–reading and referencing other great is critical to the personal branding process. It will get you noticed, but more importantly it gives value back!
BTW, I love your site–especially the cool navigation. Everyone check out http://www.bigdealpr.com/. I am a big promoter of conversation marketing. You certainly seem to have that as a core to your marketing services.
Thanks for the comment!
Bill
Bill Rice | Aug 28, 2008 | Reply
Frank,
You are right. Writing is not only a valuable marketing strategy, but it is also a creation and innovation tool.
Were connected on Twitter now. Looking forward to hearing more ideas.
Bill
Bill Rice | Aug 28, 2008 | Reply
Linda,
The start-up is the most time intensive, but your personal brand should be producing for your business or company. Alignment is key.
Oh, and I am writing this at 10:30 pm ET–so, a little overtime occasionally
Bill
GeekMommy | Aug 28, 2008 | Reply
Now where was this when I started doing it the hard way 10 months ago?
Seriously, great article. I’ll be referring back to it even if I’m waaaaay off the 5 day timeline.
colleen | Aug 28, 2008 | Reply
and when everyone does this (or looks like they are doing it), people will go into shutdown mode, the web will be inundated with good personal brands and they will be lost. Just like blogging was 8 years ago. The good news is it is not so easy to write 40 quality articles. the bad news is ezinearticles is flooded with articles whos purpose is clearly only to promote the author NOT to give info. I can tell the difference.
Bill Rice | Aug 28, 2008 | Reply
Colleen,
You’re right most won’t put in the effort. You are also correct that if you don’t deliver value people will know.
My advice will give people a foundation to grow from–not a short-cut.
Enjoyed your dorkage blog. Thanks for the comment!
Bill
@Knatchwa | Aug 28, 2008 | Reply
Bill;
You make some great points, thanks for taking the time to share them. When I look back I realize I am similar to GeekMommy in the sense that I started things out sometime back now and it took me longer then 5 days but at that time I was still new to the process. As I am a part of Twitter and have started following some core people the focus changed back to progress. And this blog is one more resource that is favorite and will be referred to more then one time.
Thanks for taking the time out of the day to share the great information. And With That I close, and say take it to heart it is a great way.