Protecting Your Brand – for the online marketer

Because I have several friends in the Relationship Marketing  community, I am writing this post  for you!

This first post is going to be the beginning of a series of posts on the subject of personal branding. In these posts I am going to discuss strategies to build your brand as well as some things that may appear on the surface as helping you but are actually diluting your “star power”

First, let me warn you…

I am going to be sharing some concepts that may be totally opposite from what the marketing community is telling you.  it is going to be an eye opener and perhaps cause some to re-evaluate their marketing efforts.

One of the most important things that you need to do is establish yourself as an industry leader. This takes a lot of time, effort and education. There is no short cut to accomplishing this. The internet has become a wonderful way to do this. Through social media and blogging you can begin to position yourself as a leader and build a loyal following.

Blogging is a great way for people to get to know you as well as get to see what you know. Writing articles that offer helpful tips and insights to the industry is a quick way to show others that you are a person that they should follow. When you offer your readers helpful and valuable content they will begin to trust you. This is one way to build a solid foundation of loyal people that if nurtured correctly can turn into some of your best business partners and customers.

As your reputation and brand begins to build there are some really savvy marketers out there who would love to tap into your community. Let me explain… 

What these marketers understand better than anyone, is that a good blog can become a magnet to many people who are seeking coaching and direction. The very people that you are reaching through your blog are the very people that they would like to attract and market to as well.

Here is where you need to really think about your overall goals…

Imagine that you have worked really hard on your blog and have spent months developing great content. Imagine that you have a loyal readership of 500 people that follow your blog on a regular basis. These are people that trust you and follow your direction. You are beginning to build that “Star power” and brand. Then you hear a cool new trend that can help you really put your blog into overdrive. In fact, you are hearing stories of people that are adding hundreds of followers to their blogs almost overnight through a concept know as reciprocal syndication.

So you decide to check it out. This syndication model is typically found in other communities of like minded marketers. Does the term “Tribe” ring a bell?

What is a tribe? 

A tribe is often started by an industry leader with a lot of “Star Power” They typically have been in and around your industry and have a lot of great ideas and content. You can learn a lot of great things that can help you build your business but there can be some consequences if you are not careful.

I want you think again about all the hard work you have done to attract a following to your blog. You have now built a community; you are in a sense a leader and someone that has “Star power” with your readers. They look to you for advice and are even willing to purchase training and tools from you because they trust you.  The money that you are making from your blog is minimal but slow growing. You are anxious to really step things up and you hear about this new concept where you can participate in reciprocal syndication by joining a “Tribe”. The tribe is made up of like minded people; they are bloggers and marketers just like you. Also in a tribe is a leader or leaders who have much more “Star power” and influence because of their experience and knowledge.

If you are not careful you can lose your brand equity…

This next paragraph is very important that you get what I am saying. I am seeing some things that really disturb me. I am seeing people who have worked so hard to build their “Star power”, only to give it away to someone who has more “Star power”.

A typical way that this can happen is to create an affiliate link to a “Tribe” where you get a small commission for finding a new member for the very “tribe” that you just joined. Yes you made a commission for introducing that new member but what did it really cost you. Now you have introduced your entire community to a larger community of marketers who are your peers and competition. Not only have you done that, but your “star power” just got overshadowed by a larger “Star” who will gladly offer their marketing and training materials to your community.

Essentially, you just gave your potential business and future marketing opportunities to them. You are now a promoter of “THEIR BRAND”.

Is this a bad thing?…

Well bad may be too strong of a word. It may not be the best thing for your overall business goals. If you are not intending on building your own personal content and training materials then it becomes less an issue. If you are working closely with a small group of others who have agreed to reciprical syndication then it can be a good thing. You just have to choose wisely who those partners are going to be and ALL of you  need to be on the same page.