Creating a personal brand is like climbing Mount Everest. It takes dedication, commitment, and long-term work—so much work, in fact, that many people skip creating one altogether. Nonetheless, if you’re an entrepreneur, personal branding is too important to skip or get wrong.
Entrepreneurs face fierce competition in today’s business environment. This means you’ll need to give your clients a reason to not only choose your products but also to choose you. People want to do business with those they like and believe in, so your personal brand needs to be more likable than your competitor’s.
Want to gain better tools to climb your Mount Everest? If you know the right strategies, you can not only gain the right tools, you can even shrink the mountain. It will never be “easy.” (Nothing ever is!) But with the following five personal-branding hacks, you can increase your branding success exponentially.
Leverage the power of influencer marketing
For one of the most powerful hacks this year, leverage the reach of influencers. Why? Picture the advantages of having a leader in your industry share your content to a wide audience. An influencer with thousands (or even millions!) of followers could do in one day what would normally take you years to accomplish.
The first step is to locate a highly influential person in your industry. When you pinpoint someone, show interest in his or her content by sharing their posts, commenting on their content, and maybe posting positive reviews about their business. You could also email the influencer directly to compliment them on a recent video or post. Ask them questions or share some thoughts of your own.
If possible, try to feature an influencer in your content. You can talk about a business process they came up with or a solution to a common industry challenge, or even just quote them in a blog post. Then simply tag them and let them know you talked about them in your content.
If your content is useful and high-quality, there’s a good chance the influencer will share it with their audience. Over time, a synergistic relationship will form. Repeat this process with as many influencers as you can find.
Luckily, you don’t have to do this on your own. Traackr and BuzzSumo are two popular resources for identifying and engaging with influencers in your field.
Guest blogging: It’s still crucial!
You may have heard that guest blogging isn’t as important in 2017. But as Due founder John Rampton recently pointed out in a Forbes article, this isn’t the case at all! The reality is that guest blogging can launch your personal brand into whole new levels.
The goal is to provide interesting and helpful advice to a hungry reader base in your sector. What subject are you the most knowledgeable about? What is the niche that really ignites your passion and urgency? That’s the topic you’ll want to choose for your guest blogging endeavors. After a while, your brand will start taking flight in the all-important blogosphere.
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