Branding Your Business will help you be successful with creating YOUR business brand. It offers tips for entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, webpreneurs, and new startups.

1. BRANDING YOUR BUSINESS
By Lorraine Reguly, B.A./B.Ed., Author, Writer, Editor, Blogger,
Self-Publishing Aide, Consultant, Owner of Wording Well

2. BRANDING YOUR
BUSINESS
*Part 1: Branding Your Business
*Part 2: Setting Up an Online Presence

3. Topics to be covered in each part:
 Definition of Branding
 Ingredients of Successful Branding
 Characteristics of Good Branding
 How to Brand Your Business
 Creating Your Unique Selling Point (USP) or Your Unique Value
Proposition (UVP)
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 Using Social Media to Enhance Branding
 Statistics of using Social Media for Business Branding
 Branding Using Hashtags
 How to Set Up Your Online Presence
 How to Grow Your Online Following
 How to Deal with Massive Amounts of Email

4. Definition
 Branding is everything involved with your brand. From your voice and
purpose, to your URL and style.
 “Your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the
room.” – Jeff Bezos, Founder of Amazon
 Branding involves using promotion and advertising to position
something as a source or solution for something else. Your brand is
derived from who you are, who you want to be, and who people
perceive you to be.
 The principle behind branding is that when someone thinks of
something they need they will immediately recall something they
have seen or heard about --- something that has been branded.
 Your brand is basically telling your clients and customers what they
can expect from you, your products, and/or your services. It helps
them understand what differentiates you from your competitors.

5. 4 Ingredients of a Successful Brand
 An understanding of your customers
 Friendliness towards your customers
 Honesty in how your company presents itself
 Depth beyond color and typography

6. Arleen Harry from Garrett Specialties wrote an article which says that
characteristics of good branding are comprised of these key concepts:
 Knowing your target market. A good brand has to understand it’s
audience. Many times companies try to appeal to everyone and in-turn
fall short because they lack direction.
 A brand has to be driven by passion. It takes a passionate company
to build a successful brand. That includes employees and customers
that are willing to stand behind the brand. Word-of-mouth marketing is
an expression of enthusiasm for a brand and can be its biggest
supporter.
 Businesses that are passionate about their brand have returning
customers. They have returning customers because they are
consistent with good customer service and a product that delivers.
 Create distinctive ideas. A product or service should have something
unique about it. Uniqueness will set a company apart from the rest. A
unique quality can also be a very strong selling point.
 Getting your name out their using different forms of media. A
successful and distinctive brand connects with its audience over the
internet and through social media. Another way to build brand identity
is at trade shows and with custom corporate gifts.

7. How to Brand Yourself: Be consistent across the board!
There are many different things you can use to help brand your
company:
*Business cards *Your favicon (install manually or
use the All In One Favicon plugin
for WP)
*Letterhead/Company Stationary *Your About page
*Logos *a freebie to build your email list
*Website (with a relevant domain
name)
*Your email address
*Taglines *Your email signature
*Résumés *Social Media
*Portfolio *Blog comments
*the free BrandYourself service *Proper clothing in photos and
videos.

8. Creating Your Unique Selling Point (USP) AKA Your
Unique Value Proposition (UVP)
Your USP or UVP is what sets you apart from your competition.
To get you started on developing your USP/UVP, answer the following
questions about yourself and your business.
Based on the answers, you will start to develop your unique qualities that
make you stand out.
 1. What is your niche?
 2. What is your educational background (college degree, work
experience etc...)?
 3. What is your current situation (mother, married, single, etc.)? Is
this relevant to your business?
 4. What type of services or products do you provide?
 5. What is it about you that makes you be the one to hire over others?

9. An example:

10. Using Social Media for Business Branding
Neil Patel from Quicksprout has created an infographic about branding. It
can be found at http://www.quicksprout.com/2014/07/25/how-to-build-
brand-awareness-for-your-business/.
Some highlights of this infographic include the applied benefits of using
social media:
 It showcases your brand
 Business-client relationship building
 Increased exposure
 Strong online presence enhances your company’s trustworthiness
 Brand credibility
 Increased sales
 Allows businesses to quickly access consumer feedback
 Boost traffic and search engine ranking

11. Some social media statistics:

12. Some more social media statistics:
 33% of consumers use social media to find new products,
brands, and services.
 86% of marketers say social media plays an important role
in their business.
 89% of businesses that use social media see an increase in
exposure.
 It takes 6 months to a year to start seeing results.

13. Branding Using Hashtags
 Use hashtags for maximum exposure and to help build
your brand.
 Use only 2 per posting!
 Use them on all platforms, too.
Examples:
#HowTo #B2B #B2C #BizTip #DIY #business
#consumers #entrepreneurs #innovation #smallbiz
#mktg #marketing #networking #retail #tutorial
#smallbusiness #sm #social media #startup #startups

14. Part 2: How to Set Up an Online Presence
 Personal vs. Professional? Both?
 Which social networks to join
 How to set up pages/accounts
 Social etiquette tips
 Tips To Use When Building Your Online Presence

15. Most Popular Social Networks:
Facebook
Twitter
Google+
LinkedIn
Pinterest
YouTube

16. How to Set Up Accounts and Pages
 Go to the sites and join.
 Fill out the required information.
 HINT: Use the same email address for all
sites!

17. How to Create a Google+ Page
1. Go to https://plus.google.com/ and create a profile.
2.Go to https://plus.google.com/pages/create and choose BRAND.

18. 3. Make sure you choose “Product or brand” and then agree to the
Page Terms.

19. Accessing Your Page
1. Go to Google+.

20. 2. Choose “Pages.”

21. 3. Choose the page you want to access.

22. Editing Your Page

23. How to Create a Facebook Page
1. Got to https://www.facebook.com/ and create a personal
profile first.
2. Chose “Create Page” from the drop-down menu.
3. Follow the prompts.

24. Social Media --- Etiquette Tips
 Give people credit.
 Don’t police others.
 Don’t ask for a “follow.”
 Trade monologues for dialogues. Engage!
 Don’t shout for attention. You’ll turn others off.
 Promote others’ posts four times as much as your own.
Follow the 80/20 rule.
 Don’t try to be something you’re not, or someone else.
Just be yourself.

25. Tips to Use To Build Your Online Presence
 Use WordPress for your website, and buy hosting. WP has excellent
functionality and many free plugins available to use. (at WordPress.org)
 Write relevant and awesome blog posts, for your own blog AND for others!
Use e-book 20 Blog Post Must-Haves (free from Wording Well) to help. Use
free resources such as Paint, PicMonkey and Pixlr Express to help create
and customize images.
 Use tools to help you organize your social media posts and status
updates. (Hootsuite, Tweetdeck, etc.)
 Use free promotional tools such as JustRetweet and Future Retweet, etc.,
and create Slideshare presentations to help with exposure.
 Create an awesome bio for your About page. Use this to help:
http://lettershoppe.com/write-a-better-bio/.
 Set up accounts at BrandYourself and about.me.
 Disable email notifications. Dear Blogger’s article “How to Cope With
Massive Amounts of Email Notifications” offers many tips, including
screenshots of what to do and where to do it.

26. Proof that guest posting works to increase
traffic to your site. (Stats taken from my new
author site)

27. Check your stats. You’ll see how much
others can help!

28. Remember, growth takes time!

29. Experiment With Your Profiles!
Here is what my Twitter profile looked like
when I first joined Twitter… in 2013:

30. Here is another version of it:

31. And yet another… which is FINALLY
starting to look professional! ;)

32. …and yet another...

33. My Current Twitter Profile (which has
been improved DRAMATICALLY):

34. BrandYourself

35. BrandYourself is helpful, too!

36. Proof that BrandYourself works. (Stats taken
regarding my author site, not my business
site)

37. Make it easy for others to find you by
creating a widget for your site.

38. Place a widget on all of your sites! (I
placed one on Wording Well.)

39. My BrandYourself Profile (can serve as a
résumé and/or portfolio)

40. My about.me page

41. My Skyword Profile

42. My Google+ Profile

43. My Facebook Profile

44. My Facebook Page

45. My Facebook Author Page

46. My LinkedIn Profile (what non-LI users
see)

47. The LinkedIn Profile users see

48. As you can see from my many profiles, I have
maintained consistency across the board.
For my business brand, I have used the same
image and colours, and the same words to
describe myself.
For my author brand, I have used images of
butterflies in different colours because I love
both.

49. Tips for Creating a Great “About” Page - from
http://lettershoppe.com/write-a-better-bio/
Over a variety of platforms you’ll find that there are essentially three types
of bios: long, short and social media. Usually the longer bio is easier to
start with, since you’ll have more room to get your personality, qualities
and credentials across. If you have trouble getting it down, start with a
freewriting exercise and answer these questions:
 Why do you love what you do?
 How long have you been working in your industry?
 What have your favorite projects/clients had in common?
 What drove you to pursue this field?
 What goals do you have for your brand?
 What do you do outside of work?

50. Handle Emails Like A Pro
Read the post “How to Cope With Massive Amounts of Email
Notifications” (at http://www.dearblogger.org/change-email-settings)
for tips. Trust me, this is a great article!
I joined Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Quora, Google+, Slideshare,
Pinterest, and a bunch of other sites. I was also sent tons of email. Then
I was sent a ton more.
 I was informed when someone “liked” one of my posts.
 I was informed when I had a new “follower” on Twitter.
 I was told when someone re-pinned one of my pins.
 I was told whenever I had a new blog follower or a new comment.
 I was sent an email for just about everything!

51. Adjust Your Settings
 The most obvious solution is to “stop” getting email
notifications!
 How do you do this?
 The solution: You adjust your settings!
 But this is often easier said than done.
 Read the post “How to Cope With Massive Amounts of
Email Notifications” for explicit instructions (and a lot of
screenshots) to disable notifications on about.me,
Facebook, Google+, Klout, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Quora,
Slideshare, StumbleUpon, Twitter, WordPress/blogs,
YouTube.

52. Brand discovery is about figuring out what you want to do
for the rest of your life, setting goals, writing down a
mission, vision and personal brand statement (what you do
and who you serve), as well as creating a development plan.
Two resources that will help you:
 Brand Design Template
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wIolLnC6LL
5-l3TNFaXvfmVssUBPaMpNR6lYrKxJN98/edit?pli=1
 How To Develop Your Brand
http://thebrandedsolopreneur.com/

53. Need help?
Contact me, Lorraine Reguly, for a free 30-minute
consultation.
 Reach me by phone at (807) 251-2836.
 Email me at lorrainemariereguly@gmail.com.
 Connect with me on Skype.
 Visit Wording Well at http://wordingwell.com to
find out what I can do for you and your business.