Why your brand MATTERS

Welcome to Boostly Podcast Season 11 Episode 100. This is a recap of my interview where we talked about why your brand matters.

Here's the audio for this episode:

Here's the video for this episode:

Timestamp

00:00 Start
01:10 Tip #1
01:50 What is branding?
02:35 About building community
06:10 How to build relationships
06:30 Showcase authority
07:40 Share behind the scenes stuff
09:00 Create your own PR agency

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Transcript from the Episode

So my tip number one, everything starts with your brand, your website, your social media profiles, how you look how your hair on zoom today, this is all an image, okay, I'm five foot three, rather short. So I wear a hat to make you memorable. I've got a big belly laugh, hopefully to make me memorable. Okay, this is all to do my branding. I'm not suggesting you go out and wear a sparkly hat. But we do need to be memorable online as well as in person and on zoom as well. So absolutely everything is to do with your brand, not just the way that you look, your profile picture on social media. It's also by the way that you interact with people as well.

What is branding?

So branding is apparently the way differentiation is the way that consumers identify and experience a product or service or person by the look, taste, feel. And sound. Okay, now you guys are on hospitality, it is all about the experience. How can you portray that experience online, we need to do that. We've got, according to Google, seven seconds to impress somebody, if they're looking at your website or your social media. On that desktop, we've got four seconds to impress somebody on your phone. So we need to make those four seconds count all those seven seconds. So branding is absolutely everything.

About building community

And we're talking about building community. So Contrary to popular belief, build it and they will not come. Okay. FOMO is all about a combination of your brand and building your community building relationships and all the other bits as well that I talked about as well. So how are we going to do that? Well, FOMO tip two is relationship building. Okay, creating content for the lurkers. Please, please, please, I'm sure you may have heard this before. Don't get obsessed with how many fans or followers you have. It's nothing to do with that. It's all about the lurkers. Because you're all lurkers. Yeah, you all scroll on your phone and look at other people's stuff. So if we're lurking, chances are your potential clients are also lurking as well. So let's make that our content really counts. Okay. And so you need to this is a combination of your brand and relationship building. We need to reply to every comment, you know, if we get a comment, or we get a like, if you're just starting out. And if someone has taken the time to like your post, why don't we thank them say thank you. Okay, and when you're when you've received a comment, why don't you thank them, and try and carry on the conversation. Thank you so much. How's your day?

Now? We've all been to a party, right? What have we all been invited to a party at one point or another? I'm sure we have. Right. And you may put a circle people, two people talking, the rest of them are listening. The rest of them are lurkers. Okay, that's what's happening. So when you're commenting on your post, if someone is responding an then you reply, you're creating content for the lurkers. And if they're lurking on your post lurking on the way that you can get communicated with someone, you are building your fan base. Okay, so create content for the lurkers.

It's not just in the post that you put out, not in the posts that you publish. It's also in the comments, the way that you interact with people in networking groups, you know, you're you're part of a membership Now, why don't you interact with each other and help each other out and in memberships? Because you never know who knows somebody. And then there are online groups. You can get involved with Facebook groups, Twitter chats, you know, LinkedIn groups. You know, there are lots of zoom meetings that's happening at the moment, even a messenger I'm part of the messaging groups like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, you know, things like that.

There's a chap called Gary Vaynerchuk or Gary Vee. And there's a link at the bottom here, if you type that in bit.li in the title case, and you'll be shown to a blog post where he helps you to build relationships in the hashtags. But in a nutshell, it's basically how would you talk to someone if they were in front of you. That's how you talk to someone online. That's all it is. people struggle about what to write on social media, just talk to someone as you will talk to them in front of you.

Now, we're all nice people here, right? Hopefully, we're all nice people. And we're not serial killers. I hope not. And, um, so be just be nice. Just be nice. That's all you need to do in order to build relationships. Don't make it back do a search make it about you know, the person that you're going to, you know, you know, whose life you're going to impact. And this is about creating content for the lurkers okay. So try not to get impostor moments rather than imposter syndrome. imposter moments is where things are fleeting, the momentary think on that imposter moment, think on it, reflect on it, and then move on, learn from the lesson and move on. Okay.

How to build relationships

Also in building relationships as well, we need to remember that the written word always sounds stronger than intended because the emotion is actually placed by the other person by the reader rather than the writer. So Maya Angelou said people will forget what you said people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.

Showcase authority

The third step then is to showcase authority. And behind the scenes stuff, you know about your business, you know, about your, you know, your hotel or your you know, your building. Okay? So tell people about it show behind the scenes stuff. What most people tend to do is show after the fact they'll take a proud picture when the things done, what about in the lead up to it, the reason why we get up you know, that we love these reality TV shows, is because you know, like Great British Bake Off, or I don't know if anyone watches Kardashians or whatever, you know, we want to see behind the scenes stuff, we want to see the highs, we want to see the lows, we want to see what's going on, not just, you know, the highlighted edited bits at right at the end. So we need to do the same. Okay. So if you do have the best place, you're an award-winning, go and shout about it. Don't be British about it. Go and shout about it. If you've had a five-star review, don't be British about it. shout about it. We're creating content for the lurkers. Okay, don't worry about the people who are going to judge you. Because if they're going to judge you, they're probably not your customers anyway. Okay. So let me say that again, don't be British about it. Be proud of it, just say how it is, you know, it isn't bragging if you can back it up.

Share behind the scenes stuff

Now behind the scenes stuff, and what am i mean by that? Well, I did an interview with, you know, several hospitality businesses. On on Instagram, I've got an account called voices of hospitality. And I interviewed people, it was a 5-6 minute interview with the businesses and then in a lockdown hat. And so I just wanted to raise awareness with my business partner about these, you know about these businesses.

And what we did was from that seven-minute clip, that seven-minute interview, we created a trailer, that's pre-FOMO. Then we created live FOMO. So when we published it, we talked about the story itself, and then post FOMO, just in case you missed it. So from that one video, I actually created 37 pieces of content. Okay, so one video, I post on Instagram, on Facebook, on LinkedIn, tell different stories, I alter the stories ever so slightly, but that's the way that you can actually really spread the word about what you do. So don't create one post about an event. create lots of posts in the lead up to it, okay, and you're never going to be bothering anyone because no one's gonna be watching your account. 24 seven to watch everything that you do.

Create your own PR agency

Hang out where all the journalists hang out. So this lady on the left hand side, she has a business that creates a PR for pet businesses. And but she created this post, it was just Well, not just it was a booklet, a booklet that her clients would receive when they become a member. Okay, now from that Instagram post, she got two signups already. Now, it wasn't that just that Instagram post that generated those two new clients. It was because of all the lurking that those people had done all the time. She showed up she showcased how amazing her businesses she showcased the impact that she had on her clients. She did it on a regular basis. She showed a lot of behind the scenes stuff and when the time is right for your clients, they will become your clients. Okay, so as step number four, then get famous, you know, talk about your reviews, definitely, you know, shout about it. You know, when you've got a Facebook review, make a pretty picture from it and put it on Instagram if you want to film it.

Get personal

So when someone has expressed an interest in what you do, get them into the direct messages, get them into the personal messages, and you can go really gangbusters here so on LinkedIn or, or Instagram, you can send an Instagram story or send a voice message or if you want to go really crazy, send a video and again, don't worry about it being polished.

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