Investing In The “You” Brand
Posted on 21. Aug, 2010 by Vivek Krishnan in Blog Tips
Brand management is an important concept that many companies have always focused on. If you thought that brand management is only restricted to companies like Pepsi and Mercedes, think again. More and more bloggers are understanding the urgent need to invest in the “you” brand.
The “you” brand is basically the brand image that you create for yourself and your name. Basically, if your name itself is a brand name – people can associate any work you do with it. There is a difference between creating a good brand image about your company and your name. There are more advantages of investing in branding yourself rather than your company. The number one advantage is that the “you” brand is recession proof. People like Guy Kawasaki, Seth Godin and Darren Rowse are great examples of individuals who created a robust brand image around themselves.
Suppose you have a company like Mercedes – its market demand will be greatly varying according to various external factors. On the other hand, if you have built a brand around your name then you will survive no matter what the market conditions. This concept was also explained by Gary Vaynerchuk at a conference, who began blogging to millions with his wine blog.
As a blogger you must focus on ensuring that people associate your blog with your name. The main benefit that you will enjoy with this is that you will earn:
1) Credibility: The biggest advantage is that people will begin to take your blog more seriously. It will create a buzz that this person knows what he is writing about. People who are new to blogging can instantly take up you as their new idol.
2) Leverage: Credibilty builds trust and reliability. Any new blog you start or any new product that you launch can be given instant leverage by using your name in it. People will associate your past work with this new one and will automatically assume that it is very useful.
From the above it is easy to see why building the “you” brand is the need of the hour. Even if all blogs on the internet fail to take off, if Darren Rowse begins the same blog you will find that it has more readers subscribing to it within a week than you will ever be able to get in a year. Reason: The “You”brand, nothing else.
Hope you found this useful! Do comment below.
