Do you do anything to build your personal brand?

[Deleted member 59730]

For many years I had a reputation in London as a photographer working under my own name. My wife got tired of being referred to as Bob ********'s wife. She built up a reputation in Dubai as an artist and it was the my turn to be referred to as Jenny ******'s husband.

 

[JEREMY HAWKE]

Jeremy Hawke

Everybody in business around here knows what this means . We wont be on the telly but locals know it as a brand , Even when we went for lunch on Saturday the place just knows a courier company

 

[Mark T Jones]

Key take-aways from this thread:

1. It really does very much depend on what you are tying to create.

2. There is a lot of confusion around what a personal brand actually is.

TBH I'm negatively biased by idiots on the Apprentice banging on about it.

 

[JEREMY HAWKE]

TBH I'm negatively biased by idiots on the Apprentice banging on about it.

A personal brand takes a very long time to build it is not something that can be established in a few years. It is highly unlikely that it can be established nationwide or beyond but worse than that it takes a lot of hard work

 

[Ian J]

Do you feel it would have helped your business further if your client was able to refer to you as "Ian from Factoring Solution" in that interview, and the same for people who knew as the bloke who writes the blog?

Enormously

 

[Mark T Jones]

Enormously

Though 'The bloke with the factoring blog' could potentially be an effective personal brand - if that's how you want to be seen!

 

[apricot]

Do you see any value in building your own personal brand?

I'm thinking about things like talking at events, contributing to other websites, posting advice on forums (like this one!) and building your social media presence.

How have activities like these benefited your business ad what's been most useful for you?

That depends on the business. Some business is about the person so they need to work on the personal branding but some business definetly not need personal branding and seeing someone putting themself above the company can be a bit weird.

I have a friend who is a programmer and he's got a company but he is actually the one doing all work so promoting business for him dont really work but he is out there with his name, as a person, he gets more attention and more interaction and more business.

I run a eCommerce business so my comments would be the same as fisicx (Although, I have changed my profile picture after profile picture post but nothing to do with personal branding!)

Personal branding can also be very time consuming and takes a lot energy. Just make sure you really getting back what you need after spending all these time and effort.

 

[SEODEV#338055]

You're going to have to expand on this as I don't see what you're suggesting?

If you read the information on the second page there are three links

• Get verified on Google
• Update your Google Knowledge Panel
• Create a free business profile

I guess somebody searching your name on the world's top search engine and finding your business profile featured at the top of the side panel as the number one listing might help with publicity

 

[fisicx]

That’s not what this thread is about.

 

[SEODEV#338055]

That’s not what this thread is about.

OP said

"Do you see any value in building your own personal brand? I'm thinking about things like talking at events, contributing to other websites, posting advice on forums (like this one!) and building your social media presence. How have activities like these benefited your business ad what's been most useful for you?"

I suggested building a social media presence by creating a strong profile which is clearly identifiable on Google

So you are wrong I'm afraid

 

[Lucan Unlordly]

It might have gone unnoticed but my profile pic is not actually me, I have no Lordly connections and never actually tell people exactly what I do or give the names of my companies...

My Christian name precedes 90% of the @xyz.co.uk emails I/we send out and over 1000 customers talk to me as if we've met and know each other personally. At one event, somebody I'd known for many years was criticising, some harsh - but very true - comments I'd posted on a forum that he didn't realise I ran. He genuinely didn't associate me, my outward persona and my keyboard attitude on the forum until I told him. In a way I have the benefit of being known as 'the face of company' yet unknown in real life. Bit like Colonel Sanders?

I post on here on UKBF, not to raise my profile but because it's helped me learn stuff I probably should have known years ago so I can see the huge benefit it is to others. Having run one myself, I know that without a variety of new posts and shared experiences, forums soon die.

 

[SEODEV#338055]

Having run one myself, I know that without a variety of new posts and shared experiences, forums soon die.

Agree with that

I like to engage with serious professionals in focused debate about current eCommerce related topics

UKBF is a rare breed which allows me to do that

But I don't care about anyone's 'brand', avatar or their pet gerbil's feeding routine only the content of their posts

 

[Jacob Evans]

I'd recommend creating a strong online presence on different platforms (forums, online groups & discussion boards + social media). I also think contributing to other websites is a great idea that definitely should work.

 

[Paul FilmMaker]

Yes. This is marketing 101. I get calls and DMs of people wanting to talk to me to get my take on 'stuff.' They consider that I know what I'm talking about when it comes to video.

And then they become customers.

So yes, I use video (because I'm in video production) and ping out a load of videos talking about, er, video...