Author: Hollie Clere

#AwesomeBranding – Your Personal Brand is Just as Important as Your Corporate Brand

The Social Media Advisor specializes in training and supporting small businesses in their branding, storytelling and social media strategy. A decade ago the concept of corporate branding was still getting traction. However, today, branding is a must for companies of every size. The advances and innovation that new technologies have brought us are extinguishing traditional advertising methods. This is why branding and permission-based marketing methods are the most effective right now. People are tired of being pushy sales methods. That means that every company needs a solid, clear branding strategy so that their target audience truly understands what they are buying.
“Branding is fundamental. Branding is basic. Branding is essential. Building brands builds incredible value for companies and corporations.” Scott Goodson, ForbesContributor
The workforce no longer needs to be convinced that branding is essential. The concept is mainstream enough today that large corporations and entrepreneurs – all of them invest in a branding strategy. A corporate brand focuses on the feeling or impression that their audienceexperiences when they think of your business. A lot of thought is put into a corporate brand and ensuring all the touchpoints that a person interacts with are infused with strategic branding.
What is a personal brand and why is it important?
Your personal brand is a separate entity from your corporate one. However, the idea is the same. When branding your own persona, the concept is to develop or hone the areas of your personality best suited to what you want your audience to think when they walk away from interacting with you. 
Today, people do business with other people… not corporations. They want to build a relationship with their customers, contractors and vendors. Building like, know and trust is more than just a social media construct. This is a cornerstone of relationship marketing. This is why personal branding is necessary. What is your audience seeking? Who will they trust and want to do business with? This is not an invitation to build a fake persona because that is not authentic or genuine and it will turn others off right away. However, it is an opportunity to examine your own personality and interweave it with your corporate brandingto come up with a personal brand that benefits you and, in turn, your business.
Here are five suggestions for developing a strong personal brand:
Keep Your Inner Circle Small
1.     Be mindful of what you say. We all have bad days. On days when you are feeling off your game, limit your negative communication to those in your inner circle that you trust. Do not just vent to any random person. You never really know who is connected to whom…and who would love to repeat what you say. Plus, a negative judgment could be attached to you and your business that will last long beyond your temporary moment of weakness.

Personal Branding Follows You
Your personal brand will move, and grow, with you. If you have a career change, parts of that personal brand will go with you. People will associate your personal branding with who you are…not just who you work with.
Consistency
Don’t want to confuse people? You have to keep your branding top of mind and consistent. If you are worried this will be difficult to accomplish, be certain that the foundations of your personal branding incorporate your true personality so that just being you – at your best – is enough.
Blending Your Branding
Be sure that your corporate and personal brands blend well together. If they are contrary in any way, this will work against you.
Accept the Way Branding Works
As with any branding, what others think about you (your personal brand) is ultimately not up to you. You cannot control another individual’s impressionsand thoughts. All you can do is build a branding strategy, follow it consistently, and hope for the best.

 

If you’ve already spent time building your corporate and personal branding, then it is time to roll out that strategy into your social media marketing and other marketing content. Need assistance creating a great story around your brand? This is where we excel. We can build out your online assets to reflect your branding in the best possible light and get you on the right track to creating quality content that is consistent with your messaging.
 
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Hollie Clere of The Social Media Advisor is a “#BeAwesome” Developer, Social Media, Brand Builder, Content Manager, Trainer and Author in LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Blog, Google+,YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram and the tools to manage them.

AllProWebTools Launched AWESOME New Tools for Businesses!

https://www.allprowebtools.com/

Over the last 2 years, I have had the honor of implementing systems within AllProWebTools for my business and a variety of clients. There is so much value in incorporating business processes in a single system.  A single system you ask?  As a customer management program, I use for my business, to a myriad of additional functionality, I wanted to personally share the benefits of the system and recent enhancements that will benefit the small business owner, virtual assistant team managers and social media managers in support of their clients.


CRM – Customer Relationship Management

AllProWebTools provides a tool for robust CRM.  Sure, there are a lot of CRM’s out there, by have you utilized a tool that has customization, with a team that can write code to make the ideas for your envisioned processes work?  We have this team.  I met with the team a few months ago to discuss integration of some key functions of my business systems, processes, and to discuss the challenges of a variety of subscriptions in a massive amount of platforms … wouldn’t it be wonderful to house all of my systems and processes in one place instead of many?

AllProWebTools stepped up to the challenge and the new release provided me with a variety of tools to tackle some of the pain points I have in my day to day work flow. These, I will share with you below.

Newsletters and Mass Communications
Sending newsletters, announcements and drip campaigns have been a large pain point in effectively communicating messages with clients, potential clients and power partners.  How can I effectively setup a communication system without key functionality?  I used another system in conjunction with functions of my AllProWebTools product and it just didn’t make sense to continue tolling and developing processes in multiple systems.  AllProWebTools developed functionality to house my drip along with my newsletters in a single database.  I can now track communications to ALL of my contacts in the system to truly know when I communicated, how I communicated and what their actions were!

https://www.allprowebtools.com/

Email Integration
A Challenge with managing email in a variety of places, such as Outlook, Gmail and other hosts, is the fact that you are literally having to login to different databases to manage email communication and manually take notes on each communication in the system.  The team at AllProWebTools developed processes for my multiple email addresses to track communications as they happen with every single contact.  Which means, if I am looking up communications with Sally Sue of ABC Company, I no longer have to login and search a variety of email accounts for our communications, it is housed nicely in the AllProWebTools system, by email address for each of my contacts.  Additionally, I no longer have to login to multiple email accounts, but the system also works as an email host so that all of my email communication can come from this system alone.  I can also flag specific emails (such as spam) to not save data in the system as a contact, so that my database remains clean, containing only contacts that are truly real and spam gets removed from my tasks on a daily basis, which saves me a ton of time!




https://www.allprowebtools.com/


Social Media and Analytic Reporting

One of my struggles as a Virtual Social Media Manager, has been the aspect of reporting.  In the new launch, they developed a system to automatically import reporting for Google analytics and social media sites, so when my clients want an active report of activity and engagement, I can quickly pull up their reporting within mere moments.  This eliminates the process of manually logging into each profile, taking screen shots of reports and compiling a manual report for our clients.  Literally, 2 hours worth of billable time condensed into a few short clicks for a downloadable report.

https://www.allprowebtools.com/

As an AllProWebTools Expert, it has been wonderful to share the needs of our Virtual clients, provide insight into options for them and for the team to literally hear these requests and develop the processes for me … priceless.

The team is top notch.  If you are providing support services for you clients, I highly recommend this tool for CRM, Newsletters, Drip, Social Media Reporting, as well as a myriad of other functions I haven’t mentioned; including but not limited to Ecommerce, Website hosting, task management, team assignments, landing pages, SEO, Blog functionality, data storage (such as Dropbox for example) and so much more.  If you have a business process that needs be housed in a single database and are tired of logging in, remembering many passwords and if you are interested in streamlining processes, this is the system for you.

 AllProWebTools Certified Marketing Expert DISCOUNT

As an expert, we have the ability to offer you significant discounts on the normal $195 setup fee that would be charged if your clients purchased directly from AllProWebTools. If you contact us for setup with AllProWebTools, we will offer you a 50% discount on your setup in the system. Just mention #ALLPRO201750

Be sure to Follow us and Let’s Engage!

Hollie Clere of The Social Media Advisor is a “#BeAwesome” Developer, Social Media, Brand Builder, Content Manager, Trainer and Author in LinkedInFacebookTwitterBlogGoogle+,YouTubePinterestInstagram and the tools to manage them.

#2017Trends – Video on a Budget (How Live Video Will Make You an Influencer in Your Industry)

The hottest trend for influencers in 2017 will be video marketing. Live video options hit Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter last summer, and the trend is still going strong. With 1.442 billion monthly mobile users on Facebook and the 600k skyrocket of Instagram active Instagram users since the introduction of ‘Instagram Stories’, live video can’t be ignored.

But how do you create live video that doesn’t suck the life out of your viewers? You want to be an influencer in your industry, and that means your live video can’t be amateur hour. It also can be done without breaking the bank budget-wise.

Here are some key ways to create video on a budget and become an influencer in your industry:

1.      Know the limits of your camera. Your smartphone or streaming device needs to be clear and focused on you or the event you’re tracking. Shaky phones, hands, and scenery can jerk the viewer out of their comfort zone. Stabilize your phone using a tripod, if possible.

2.     Prepare, prepare, prepare. You are giving a speech or presentation to the world. Should you do it off-the-cuff? Unless you are a king or queen of improv, the answer is no. Practice before the live event, know what you want to say and how you’ll say it. Practice in front of your recording device multiple times so you can see how you do. Are you staring at the camera? Looking off screen? Constantly twitching? Awkwardly looking around? Do you tap your pencil as you talk? These things are important. If you look nervous and uncomfortable, it’s hard for viewers to be confident and you lose that influence you’re trying to gain.

3.      Record your live event! You can record your live event using independent apps such as Replay Video Capture. Keep in mind that the only way to record it is through another phone, desktop, laptop, or tablet. Recording while streaming on your phone is almost impossible since you have to stream from the Facebook mobile app (sorry, no browser options yet). You can offer up a reply to subscribers of your page or newsletter, save it for future use, and release it on your video social networking site (such as YouTube).

4.      Have a goal before you start your live event. You need to know what you want to gain from your audience before you begin. There should either be a call-to-action, informational, or an instructional component that will benefit your viewer. A great example of an instructional video is one where you assemble or use a product from your company (or another company, if you’re reviewing a product). Informational could be reporting live from a convention or other event. A call-to-action could be to sign up for your newsletter, webinar, buy a product, try a product, or more.

5.      You can have pre-recorded content in your video. Ensure that over 90% of it is live or else you will lose the confidence of your viewers. Use a free app like Adobe Spark Video to create your video intro and outro, or, if you are reporting on an incident or event, use Adobe Spark Video to compile those clips to be aesthetically pleasing for the viewer.

The sky is the limit when it comes to influencer marketing and live video. Be prepared for the best and worst. The more you practice, the more comfortable you’ll be.

Be sure to Follow us and Let’s Engage!
Hollie Clere of The Social Media Advisor is a “#BeAwesome” Developer, Social Media, Brand Builder, Content Manager, Trainer and Author in LinkedInFacebookTwitterBlogGoogle+,YouTubePinterestInstagram and the tools to manage them.

#AwesomeBranding – Personal Branding & Why Like, Know, Trust is Essential

Personal Branding is the core of your business. It’s what separates you from the crowd, and makes potential customers and clients pay attention. One of the key aspects of personal branding is building the “Like, Know, and Trust” factors. Here are seven ways you can develop these areas:

Create Valuable and Relevant Content:
This creates the expertise portion of branding. It’s a key part of the trust factor. Don’t think content is limited to blog posts or social media posts. Be creative in how you distribute your content. There are videos, downloadable guides, ebooks, webinars, podcasts, printables, and more.
It’s very important that you know your ideal customer or client. You can’t appeal to everyone, so don’t try. Instead, focus on your ideal client and give them the content they need. Ask them questions via a survey or other form of interaction. Find out what challenges they are facing and provide content that can help them overcome those hardships. Send personal messages to those who complete your surveys or answer your questions. It will put you to the top of their mind (know) and build a relationship (like).
Guest Posts:
Building your brand involves connecting across your network. Make a list of 30 blog sites and publications you want to be tied to your brand. In that list, write down how you can contribute to THEIR audience. You must provide content relevant to them, their audience, and you, in order to build trust. Once you make that list, check each publication’s website for submission requirements (ProTip: follow the requirements, or your request may be sent automatically to the trash bin). Create a personalized email to each publication pitching the article you’d like to write, video you’d like to contribute, etc. and how it aligns with their goals (or on a particular topic they discuss often).
Keep in mind that you will be rejected. That simply means their audience didn’t meet the needs of your brand.
Put a Face to the Brand:
People need to know who you are. People are more likely to trust an image of a person than a logo. Personalize their experience, and let them get to know you.
Be Authentic:
This is very important. You’re not the next Seth Godin. You’re the next YOU. Your experiences and observations are unique. The strengths and talents you possess can only be used by you. What do you enjoy doing in your spare time? If you love hiking through Colorado, horseback riding, or playing tabletop games, make it part of your brand. It is easier, and far less exhausting, to be yourself than to shutter the light of your personality.
Share ONLY Your Best Stuff:
Freebies, webinars, etc. are the first impression. You need to wow them with your work. If you provide high value, people will be thankful. Every free incentive needs to provide an answer to a main problem (they can take a more in depth approach through your sales funnel, of course). Most of all they need to feel as though they haven’t wasted their time getting to know you and your ability to help them.
Be Consistent:
Consistency is the key to all three areas. Whether it’s a video subscription, blog, podcast, live stream, or more, be consistent in content, time, and delivery. If you create a schedule, stick to it.
Be Grateful:
While branding is the core of who you are, marketing isn’t about you. It’s about your customers and clients. Your audience deserves to feel important. Be genuine and honest. Without them, you wouldn’t have a business.

Take time to build your personal brand. Don’t try to be someone you’re not or you’ll get burned out and lose interest in interacting with your audience. Which aspect do you struggle with? Let us know in comments.

Be sure to Follow us and Let’s Engage!
Hollie Clere of The Social Media Advisor is a “#BeAwesome” Developer, Social Media, Brand Builder, Content Manager, Trainer and Author in LinkedInFacebookTwitterBlogGoogle+,YouTubePinterestInstagram and the tools to manage them.

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