photo credit: AndyHasFins on Flickr
Success Factor #8 Video!!
If you've been able to get away with no video, no podcast, or no other audio broadcast of your business message, you are missing out on a rapidly emerging movement across the worldwide net. More than ever before, videos build traffic and online conversion. How can you take advantage of this trend? YouTube would be the best place to start, but I really like what David Kaminski over at Shama.TV had to say about the Nuts and Bolts of getting started with your video message. All of the great business presences on the net have their own videocast. The essence of what the guest speaker on Shama.TV had to say was that you want to create your own video site, perhaps a separate page on your current site, on which you can post your own original content. You can also share it on YouTube, but when you post your own content on your own site, it's your own.
One effective means of providing value to your readers and customers is through practical "how-to" videos. For example, @marismith provides a ton of valuable how to content on her videos. Here is just one example of that. Think about simple 5-10 'how to' videos you can present on your site and across the web to build more awareness of your personal brand.
A final word on video: Think about the three E's that were shared in an earlier post: Educate, Entertain, and Engage. Two 'web celebrities' who are all three of these would be @successfool and @garyv. Check out both of them and their webcasts to find out great modeling of how you can harness the energy of video and the web for your business in 2010. Also, be sure to tag your videos with keywords targeting your business niche, so that searches will lead back to your site/s.
Success Factor #9 Personal Brand
As I've written previously, you must find ways to STAND OUT from the crowd.
There's a great quote shared by Jay Berkowtiz, from TenGoldenRules.com regarding the importance of developing your own personal brand.
"Start right now: as of this moment you're going to think yourself differently! You're not an "employee" of General Motors..Starting today you are a brand."
Tom Peters 'The Brand Called You' quoted in Fast Company in August 1997
Here are some practical personal success factors that Jay shares to help you build your personal brand.
a) Be Your Own Brand Manager
- Develop your brand marketing plan
- How are you going to promote your brand? How are you going to take it to the next level?
- Set specific, measurable goals
- What makes you distinctive?
- How can you enhance your unique skills
- Think about writing a book, e-book, articles
- where do you like to hang out
- What do you love to read?
- Create your content in an area that you really care about. For some good reading on this, check out this great video piece from Gary Vaynerchuck.
e) Embrace Your Inner Author
Create unique content, write a blog, submit articles to industry publications, create a website, build great content on Facebook and LinkedIn.
If you are interested in writing an e-book, Pat Flynn from Smart Passive Income Blog, has written a generous series of blog posts which I will be referring to once I start writing my first e-book (hopefully coming this year :)
f) Build a Network of Friends, not just connections. Give to get, ask about them, contribute to them, ask to guest post.
g) Volunteer to Shine
To develop new skills, work in a comfort zone, then push yourself enhance a skill through freelance opportunities: Guru, e-Lance and BINTRO offer an opportunity for you to sell personal assets that might not be part of your current job but can be on your future resume
h) Innovate to Lead
- test new technologies, taking a free trial.
- report on how they work on your blog
- position yourself as an early adopter and soon people will be asking you about the next big thing!
j) Speak Up! Join toastmasters, volunteer on committees at work.
In summary, this personal success strategy is to carve out a niche or niches for your own personal brand. You can utilize all the above tips to manage and expand your brand. You can also write your own e-book, become more comfortable with public speaking (check out a Toastmasters club near you), and make sure that you build your own personal online profile through PeoplePond.com as well as building your own Google profile.
Finally, I am going to share some great resources on personal branding. Get Out of Neutral: Manifest the Life Experience You Desire
, is written by one of my favorite gentleman on the internet, J.B. Glossinger, who has branded himself extremely well. He is the founder of MorningCoach.com. Dan Schawbel is a young man who is defining personal branding these days. He has written a great book, Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success
And finally, Gary Vaynerchuk has come out with a classic, Crush It!: Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion
All three of these gentleman are prime examples of how to build your personal brand.Success Factor #10: Semantic Search (Web 3.0).
Well, this gets into some technical stuff that I have no way of explaining! This has to do with Web 3.0. Amazon is a great example of this type of marketing. When you look up one book you are interested in, it will show 5-6 other suggestions, based on what others have read related to the book you are picking. In addition, it shows ratings of the books, inviting the input from their readers. In order to better understand this, you may want to get in touch with Jay Berkowitz, whose slideshare presentation inspired this whole post. Suffice it to say, if you are doing all 9 strategies offered in the last two posts (here and here), I believe that you will be well positioned to take advantage of this success strategy.
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