How To Create A Brand For Yourself
Think about some of your favorite actors, bloggers, YouTubers, or musicians. What are some things that come to mind when you think of their names?
For example:
What are some of the first things that come to mind when you think of Lesli Margherita? Maybe Queen? Sassy? Sparkles? Confident? Q and AaAaAaaaAaa? This is no coincidence. This is all part of the brand she has made for herself.
What about Andrew Keenan-Bolger? Maybe some words that come to mind are: Submissions Only? Spotify Playlists? Newsie? Jack and Louisa? Also not a coincidence.
People like Lesli Margherita and AKB know what they are doing. They are not only great performers, but also business people.
When creating a brand for yourself, first, ask yourself these questions:
1. What are my biggest strengths?
2. What are my passion areas?
3. What is unique about me?
You need to understand who you are.
Second, Figure out who your target audience is. I know from experience that I cannot tweet about baseball and expect more than one or two people to connect with it. My target audience is theatre kids! The reason my tweets seem so successful is because about 85% of my tweets are tailored toward my target audience.
Know your audience. Figure out what kind of tweets, videos, etc. they like from you.
Third, figure out one or two sentences that quickly sum up who you are. This is called a "brand statement." My brand statement is on the front page of my website: "Abby is a performing artist and film maker, active on YouTube and Twitter. Abby loves to share her passion for the arts online and through her various performance opportunities"
Fourth, keep your social media professional. This means having a twitter name that is easily recognizable as you, a professional looking photo, and a bio that describes what you do. It also means not tweeting about super random nonsense, arguments, etc. If you have a lot to say and still want somewhere to say it, I suggest making a private account that only your close friends and family have access to.
Fifth, create online profiles that rank highly on Google. When people search your name your accounts will pop up. Examples would be: Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn. Establish a website or blog under your full name, so that people can keep updated with you and contact you.
Sixth, engage with your followers. Reply to comments, answer questions, favorite tweets that you think are funny, nice, etc. Don't be too cool. People connect more with people who appear warm and approachable.
Seventh, keep people updated on what you're doing; People like to connect with a real person and not just a name on Twitter/ Instagram. Invest in a great headshot. Make sure it's a photo that really captures who you are.
Eighth, be consistent. If you have a website, make sure you have a color scheme and keep your fonts limited to a few. If you have business cards, posters, etc., it should be consistent with the rest of your brand. Have you ever seen a picture or post and for a quick second you think it's a poster for something else? See? You want people to be able to easily recognize your brand. Have a logo that people can see and easily associate with you and your brand.
