Here’s a list of personal branding rules an entrepreneur should know:
1. Keep your personal life off of any social media profiles that were designed to brand you as an entrepreneur.
2. Maintain an entrepreneurship blog – you’re doing something unique – document it. People want to learn about it.
3. Ensure you answer questions regarding entrepreneurship and offer small business advice. It only furthers your brand as a “knowledgeable entrepreneur.”
4. Make sure your email signature makes some acknowledgment of your business and your involvement in it.
5. Talk about your business to anyone who will listen – and encourage anyone who listens to you to connect with you via linkedin or facebook.
6. Maintain an email newsletter/list and update people who have expressed an interest in you and/or your business – and write quarterly or semi regularly updates. They want to listen!
7. Make sure you have regular twitter updates about entrepreneurship. And have the rest be about whatever else interests you.
8. Maintain a website about yourself and your business. Nothing too fancy – just another avenue to tell your story.
9. Enjoy every part of this 
Author:
Ben Cathers is a young entrepreneur and author who successfully built three different internet startups before he was 19. Ben is the author of Conversations with Teen Entrepreneurs and was named in 2005 by CNN as a member of “America’s Bright Future.” Ben has been quoted/featured in the Wall Street Journal, FOX News, ABC News, CBS News, Yahoo! Internet Life, The London Sunday Times and in over 40 different publications. Today, Ben is working on his 4th startup (stealth mode – in the social media space), does web strategy consulting for small to medium companies, runs the social media group for Lightspeed Financial, maintains a blog on social media and entrepreneurship at BenCathers.com and is on the advisory boards of ZepFrog Corp and iGot2Know LLC.
Loading ...
Number 1 and number 8 are right on! People do want to connect with you as a person but you must also have them connect with you as an expert. It’s so important to not only allow them into your personal life (in a limited fashion) but to use that to leverage your influence as an expert. Great post – right on!
Entrepreneurship, with the rise of social media nowadays, has become more relational, rather than technical. Hence, we should always keep in mind to truly and really interact with people, providing them with solutions and answers to their issues and problems.
Ben – Nice, but I disagree with #1. No, of course nobody wants to hear every mundane detail of anyone’s personal life; however, just talking business 100% of the time often leads to folks looking like a robot. Liven it up a little, it is OK to show everyone you are a human
I agree with David. I think Rule #1 is wrong because your brand is YOU. People buy YOU and if you’re an entrepreneur – you’ve got even MORE reason to need to enhance your ‘personal brand’. ALL decisions, especially the ones that involve brands are emotional. So involving your private like, what makes you tick – or why you are passionate about something, is the perfect way to increase your personal brand, and enhance your credability as an entrepreneur. People buy people. I think if we try and keep business and personal separate – we risk adding unnecessary spin to our own lives and becoming more like the politicians who drive us crazy but never being personal. Just a thought? (This doesn’t give you permission to tell me where you are going on holiday or what you had for dinner though – there’s a line. Please don’t cross it!!)
I also think entrepreneurs should learn to seperate their voice from their corporate voice.Except if there is startegy behind that.
Ben, this is a great post. For any entrepreneur, these are definitely things to keep in mind. I agree and disagree with number one. No one wants to hear about someone’s personal life to an annoying extent. However, it is nice to know a bit about the face behind the brand. THere is a line and Jeremy wrote. Don’t cross it, but don’t be afraid to approach it.
Another thing to keep in mind as an entrepreneur – have fun! Take your work seriously but don’t take yourself too seriously.
Well done Ben, interesting post.
As for point #1, I disagree. I don’t think there is anything wrong with sharing certain aspects of your personal life (providing you’re comfortable). It makes it nice to the reader to ‘engage’ on a level other than just your business.
Your idea on setting up an Entrepreneurship blog is great. I’ve added that to my next discussion. Can you suggest any good examples to review?
Jason
#1 was way off, people do business with those people they like. they see the real me each and every time
Hi There -
Great to see this debate going on! Loved it.
To clarify my thinking behind point #1 – my point was that if you make a profile for “Ben – the entrepreneur” that shouldn’t be the same social media profile you are using to be writing all your latest status updates (IE, “off to in-laws! Off to see grandma!”) and isn’t the one where every single photo of you is publicly available (if you are building your profile as an entrepreneur expert – having 10 year old photos of you in college/school is irrelevant to the brand you are trying to build)
It’s perfectly fine to add some personal flair (“Let’s go yankees! Let’s go Jets!) on your updates, but you don’t want it to be overboard when the brand you are building is your entrepreneurship brand. This isn’t the time to explain EVERY single political thought you have (it’s fine when it’s relevant to parts of your business) and for you to offer EVERY single analysis of every sports event you watch. That’s fine on your personal profiles, but not the “entrepreneur’s profile”
So, as long as you don’t cross the fine line and go overboard, a couple of personal updates is fine
Jason – check out my old post for examples of a blog post: http://www.personalbrandingblog.com/examples-of-entrepreneur-blog-posts5/
[...] Branding Rules for Every Entrepreneur [...]