See How Easily You Can Brand Yourself with Social Networks
- Written by Neil Patel on May 6th, 2007
- 18 Comments »
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MySpace, Bebo, and Facebook are just a few of the popular social networks out there that are visited by millions of people daily. They are some of the most popular sites on the web, which is why you should use them to help brand yourself. The majority of these sites are filled with young teens, but this doesn’t mean you should not use them because these young teens are going to be adults soon. Also, social network usage is growing amongst adults.
The image above is of John Edwards MySpace profile. Currently John Edwards has over 30,000 friends and if you browse through his friends you’ll notice that many of them are adults that probably have a full time jobs and are of voting age. Granted his profile is reaching out to anyone because he is looking to be the next President, but chances are thousands of individuals in your industry are also on these social sites. If you are looking to brand yourself through social networks, here’s how:
Profiles
The first thing you need to do is create a profile on all of the main social sites. This could be as simple as adding a picture of yourself and a paragraph about yourself. Ideally you want to create an in-depth profile with tons of information on yourself as well as unique information about the industry you are currently involved in. The key to setting up a successful profile is to make sure it is personal and some what interesting so that people will want to get to know you.
Networking
Once you have your profile setup you need to start networking with other members within that social network. Some easy ways you can network with others is by:
- Adding members as your friends
- Leaving comments on member’s profiles
- Private messaging other members through email or instant messaging.
Stickiness
The way branding works is that people usually need to see a brand over and over before it becomes memorable. If you want to brand yourself visitors need to keep coming back to your profile, so you need to constantly update your profile. Make it sticky by adding interesting content, new pictures and even videos of yourself. You could do other things such as add music but if you are trying to brand yourself try and mainly add stuff that is about yourself and not others. There are exceptions to this rule, especially on social networks where you can attract other members who have similar interests as you, but try and stick with stuff that will brand you as an expert in your industry.
What are you waiting for? Get out there and start creating your profiles!
This entry was posted on Sunday, May 6th, 2007 at 10:27 pm and is filed under Social Networks. You can follow the blog through the RSS feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Good post with really simple advices.
I’m sure that social network can hep anyone to be famous but it’s not as easy as it appears.
U’ll need to spend some hours per day contacting groups and oher users…
PS: excuse my awful english
I have a few social sites that constantly bring in traffic to my website. They are a good source of branding yourself outside of our own personal site.
Good post!
Good article, I have been trying to convince some of the heads at my job to try the social scene to great brand awareness maybe this article can help them steer in the right direction, thanks
Simple but to the point. Leave it to Mr Baby Man to find these kinds of items!
Great points, Neil. I would definitely try to use your same “user id” on the different social networks…as many people tend to go from one to another. I know I personally “hang out” on several communities as bhartzer.
Good article Neil. Do you recommend having the same profile across all the social sites, or would you “tweak it” to suit each sites audience?
Your articles are really great! Good to see some good content on social networking encouraging people to see the potential in it opposed to always seeing how “stupid” and “immature” it all is. Those who say such things are missing a great deal of potential. Keep up the great work!
See How Easily You Can Brand Yourself with Social Networks
MySpace, Bebo, and Facebook are just a few of the popular social networks out there that are visited by millions of people daily. They are some of the most popular sites on the web, which is why you should use them to help brand yourself. The ma
What about LinkedIn? Is it not in your list of recommended social network sites? I asked because it’s a very platform that let’s you place your CV online in a very organized way.
Branding in social networks will probably work better if you have the advantage of being a good looking girl.
If you are not and you need some traffic, pretend to be one
Funny that I am reading this now. I set up a personal myspace account just this afternoon. I have been on myspace but more for meeting other VW owners for another website of mine.
So I decided to market my blog a bit on there.
Great advice! I have a profile on myspace that I think fits your criteria. I am at www.myspace.com/gamay
I would add this tip - Myspace offers a free blog that is integrated into your page. You can ask your Myspace friends to subscrie to your blog, and post blog updates using the Bulletins feature.
Kathleen Lisson
Albany, NY
30,000 friends? Lot of hard work. So many people are doing this everywhere. How can any one Digg 5,000 or 10,000 stories or follow 5,000 people on Twitter? Neil, thanks for telling what to do but please tell me how much is enough for branding.
I wish I had the answer on how many friends is the right number. You can try the quantity game, but it is probably best to go after quality.
I have noticed on myspace that many of the users have ‘label friends,’ that is, associate themselves with certain ‘myspace friends’ that fit their self-identified interests. That’s one of the reasons political candidates can have so many ‘friends.’
These people define themselves by the political candidate they are supporting, so if Myspace is a window into who they are, that political candidate is a good label.
I would think that a unique retail store would find Myspace a perfect fit, a local wine bar or restaurant, for instance.
The way to capitalize on myspace? Update your blog weekly and ask your ‘friends’ to subscribe. Post interesting information using the Bulletin feature. Ask your Friends’ friends to be YOUR friends.
Kathleen
You can also make tons of money through intangible goods. For example, tons of people are making thousands a month offering ringtones on MySpace.
i always add people on my social bookmarking accounts regardless of who they are or what their age are.. i’m just fond of meeting people.
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