Personal Branding
Whether you like him or not is irrelevant.
Regardless of your political views, Donald Trump took the world by surprise when he was elected as the 45th President of the United States of America on January 20, 2017.
And before we talk more, need we remind you that this article is apolitical, and by no means is it representing our political views. Trump is only here for the simple fact that he’s done a good job of implementing a strong personal branding strategy.
Overcoming all odds and beating Hillary Clinton and others, Trump managed to secure the necessary 270 electoral votes, and a saturated red map of the United States, winning himself the big seat at the White House.
Major forecasting aggregators all around the world, one of the most notable being The New York Times, even did not see this coming. Most mainstream (and left leaning) media outlets all bet that Clinton would win the election (although some independent news sources, such as the now banned Infowars, had predicted Trump would win, and that fake polls were being utilized by mainstream media).
Trump’s case was a real example of a good personal branding strategy.
Although there could be at least five reasons of why Trump won, we’re here to take you to see his winning from a case study’s point of view on personal branding. Trump is surely one unique individual. His infamous slogan, “Make America Great Again,” is one simple thing that underlies it all.
This slogan addresses right to the core of a common problem shared by many Americans, which is rising taxation rates (among a plethora of other issues). In all his campaigns, Trump also uses simple language, and this matters – it shows he doesn’t care about complicated terms like most politicians do – which common people can find hard to understand, and which can sometimes hide the true meaning of what is being said.
Rather, he tries to keep everything understandable, so simple that maybe even 5-year-olds can understand what he’s saying.
And that, my friend, is a real personal branding job well done right there.
When done right, you too can take advantage of personal branding the way Trump did, and get yourself on track for a better job, growing sales figures, or simply just to get your name out there.
Although Trump’s personal branding involved some kinds of printed ads in newspapers and magazines (e.g. in the form of articles), these days personal branding can rely more on social media, as businesses and brands all over the world try to win their prospective customers’ hearts, competing against each other (actually, Trump did this quite well also, utilizing Twitter like no President before him).
And when we talk about social media, influencers are highly sought after. Brands all across the world are using these people’s services as the face of their advertisements, creating a sense of personal recommendation that consumers happily receive.
What is Personal Branding
These influencers understand well the fact that they also have to maintain their own personal image too in order to attract businesses that want to sign a contract with them.
Neil Patel, an author and entrepreneur, has done a very good job creating and maintaining himself as a personal brand. While he goes against other marketing agencies with more money-spending power, he has successfully built an influential personal brand, by focusing on what he does best: transparency, quality, and case studies.
He’s so good that the White House recognizes him as one of the top 100 marketers in the United States.
You can do the same by creating and building a personal brand that’s attractive to your customer base, and we’re here to help.
Personal Branding Tips
1. Start from yourself
It doesn’t matter if you’re a business owner or a solo fighter in the marketing world, before anything, it’s best if you start from yourself. Ask these questions to yourself: who am I? What are the things that I like/don’t like? What things define me? Why am I different than other people (ie: my competitors)?
After you’ve answered those questions, you now have the starting points needed to build the next steps.
2. Let the world know who you really are
Keeping “you” to yourself wouldn’t be helpful. You have to start advertising yourself and let the world see it, let them see you for who you truly are.
Say, if you’re concerned about world’s pollution rate, you can write your thoughts about it in a Facebook note. If you also run a car dealership, you can draw a connection between your personality and the cars that you’re selling – maybe you’ve personally inspected every car to ensure that they’re running well and won’t contribute much to the world’s pollution, or maybe you have personally tweaked them to reduce their emissions.
Tell this to your customers and build a natural relationship with them, who love your caring about the environment, while at the same time running a business.
3. Open up a little bit
Now, everyone’s not the same, you might be an introvert that doesn’t like to open up at all in real life.
However, keep that to your personal life only. When running a business, honesty and openness always work best.
Of course, it still isn’t recommended for you to go on about every detail of your life (like what time you usually take a bath), however, there’s some degree of “personal stuff” that you can use to build a stronger personal brand. Say, for example, you have just come back from a sales and marketing summit.
Share some of your photos when mingling (or even the sessions’ photos) and post your thoughts about the summit and how it relates to your brand and principles.
This way, your followers become more engaged with you and your business.
You can also write contents that shows your personality. For example, when writing a guest post for a blog, if you’re generally easy-going and friendly, you can involve some “dude” words in it.
Sure, this strategy might put off some people, but like Trump has shown us, being totally honest about who you are can help you create raving fans.
4. Let others promote you
So you’ve sold a few more cars. That’s good. However, what’s even better would be to be smart about it: take selfies with your customers and – by their permission – post these selfies and tag them on various social media accounts.
Instagram works best for this, as statistics show that the average Instagram user spends 53 minutes a day browsing through photos on the platform. By tagging your customers, you are encouraging them to interact with you, which can be done by giving a like or even dropping comments about how wonderful their experience was when you sold them their cars.
With this, people are hearing first-hand about who you are and what makes you a wonderful person to do business with.
5. Generally speaking, don’t try to sell
Rather, focus on things that help people to understand who you really are and what you have to offer. As time passes, people will understand and go to you when they see that you have what they want or need.
By not selling and focusing on your personal relationship with your clients, it can lead to increased sales and positive word of mouth. If it goes viral, maybe your next Youtube campaign could beat Gangnam Style in views, who knows?
As with everything else, the tips provided in this article need to be implemented in the right places: use Instagram if you want to tell a story that’s based on pictures (after all, most people are visual learners), and be on Youtube if you like to run video campaigns.
For short, concise interactions, use Twitter. Whatever means you choose, we wish you the best.
Created by Cyberius, a digital marketing company who specializes in content creation, online community management, and crowdfunding.
Get informative articles and infographics for your business to help grow your online community, and more. Contact us at: zaneta@cyberius.com.
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