Building a personal brand for your business might seem a daunting task to tackle, but it could be crucial to the wider perception and ultimate success of your business.
My video above contains lots of tips on how to go about establishing a personal brand for your business, including everything thing from an ‘about us’ video to directly engaging with customers on social media. It’s well worth trying to implement as many of these suggestions as are relevant to your business – though maybe stagger how you go about this so you don’t end up spreading yourself too thinly!
However, while you go about this process, don’t forget to give some thought to the ‘voice’ of your business and how this plays into your personal brand. A tone of voice document is good for this, to lay down ‘rules’ on what you would say, and wouldn’t say. Are you a kooky, fun brand who can afford to be playful with your tone of voice and in how you respond to consumers? Or does your business trade off being a respected expert in your particular field, in which case it might be better to maintain a more serious thread within the way you communicate, in order to build trust with your consumers? If you are a serious brand, making jokes with your customers might just be off-putting.
To decide on the best voice for your business, think about who your customers are and what they want from your business. If you’re just starting out, you might choose to road-test a couple of different routes on your website or social channels – you’ll soon start to see which gets the best reaction. Ultimately you should establish the voice from the inside out — don’t just assume what customers will like.
One of my key pieces of advice in this field is to avoid being patronising — it can result in an instant black mark with the people you’re trying to get on side. As a general rule, I’d also advise against being overly controversial – although that in itself is something you should discuss internally, as there are many brands out there who have quite successfully built a personal brand around the specific intent to court controversy!
Ultimately, nailing your business’s tone of voice and personal brand almost always comes across most authentically when you stay true to who you are, what you believe in, and what made you start the business in the first place. If you look to bring this to life within your business and the way it operates and communicates with customers, you can’t go far wrong.
