Personal brand vs business brand dilemma
Whether you should build your personal brand vs business brand is an important first step for your online marketing campaigns. Whether to focus on building your personal or business brand online is an important question to consider. The answer is frustrating, “It depends!”
The best way to decide is by presenting a few business scenarios for entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, and micropreneurs. See which one best aligns with your business model. Either way, in 2023, Google is rewarding strong brands with good search engine rankings and potential customers are looking to work with businesses that communicate authority and trust.
Entrepreneurs
Entrepreneurs are usually developing proprietary products or building large e-commerce sites. Their goal is to keep building and scaling their businesses. The goal is usually to attract investors and eventually sell the business. The new owners can then continue to scale the business.
In this case, it’s better to build and market the company brand, instead of building a personal brand. However, an entrepreneur can get personally involved as you market the company brand. This helps to build their personal brand as well. Look at Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, and Mark Zuckerberg as examples.
Solopreneurs
Solopreneurs have an entrepreneurial mindset; but, they usually wish to refrain from scaling their businesses. They prefer to remain small and have a more manageable business. This allows them to stay in control and make all the decisions on their own. They are the product they offer. For example, if a solopreneur is a health coach. Solopreneurs use automation, e.g., new technology, apps, and software to acquire larger projects and additional clients.
They operate a solo business; but, they may collaborate on larger projects with other solopreneurs with different skill sets. Together they provide the total solution.
Solopreneurs should build their personal brand, instead of branding their company name.
Micropreneur
A micropreneur is a microbusiness that operates on a very small scale. They’re usually the only ones in the business. They handle all aspects of their business including accounting, payroll, content marketing, and other tasks on their own. Examples of micropreneur businesses include bloggers, freelancers, and photographers. This business model allows them to do the kind of work they desire while offering a balanced lifestyle.
There is practically no difference between a micropreneur and a solopreneur. Both are willing to accept the risk of starting and managing a very small type of business. Like solopreneurs, micropreneurs are encouraged to build a personal brand online.
Employees
People don’t work with companies, they would with the employees they trust. For example, if a financial advisor works for a major company, his or her clients will follow them to a new company if they change jobs. They are loyal to the employee who has built a trusted relationship with them.
Should an Employee Build a Personal Brand Online?
Since most people often change jobs, a great online brand can help with the interviewing and hiring process. An updated LinkedIn profile is an online resume and having a website and branded network is an online portfolio.
When a company decides to conduct a Google search on a potential new employee, what do they see? A great digital entity that controls Google Page 1 can be a competitive advantage. So, employees should build their personal brand online.
Personal brand vs business brand - next steps
No matter the type of entrepreneur you are, you need to build a strong online personal or company brand. This is achieved by building topical authority in your niche. Having achieved topical authority in your niche can result in Google rewarding you with higher rankings for your branded content. Once your website is trusted, your web pages and blog posts can rank for a variety of non-branded long-tail niche keyword phrases.
Having a solid digital entity also communicates authority and builds trust with potential customers and Google.
To achieve topical authority in your niche, you need to go deep with excellent educational content instead of wide. For example, a site on weight loss is too wide and the chances of gaining topical authority are slim. However, a site about weight loss for obese children is narrow and focused. Specific content can be written to advise concerned parents on how to help their children lose weight. You can build a personal or company brand online with this type of content.
To build topical authority, Google provides a content standard called E-E-A-T. It stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. Your content must include these elements to gain topical authority. Your experience or expertise is what Google considers adding value to factual well-researched information.
Other blog posts on developing an online reputation management strategy, as well as how to build rapport online with potential customers are provided to complement building your personal or business brand online. It's important to understand that generating brand awareness is also important to building your brand online.
For more information on how to build a solid brand online, check out the Brand Velocity program. It’s an actionable accelerator program that includes direct access to vetted technical resources to help you build an online branding network that connects to your website’s blog. When you publish an article, it’s automatically syndicated across your personal branding network. These sites can rank simultaneously with your website on Google Page 1. This communicates authority and trust while increasing organic traffic.
Other modules include developing a content marketing plan, using ChatGPT for SEO-optimized articles, as well as acquiring third-party validation for your personal or business brand. Check out the Brand Velocity Program’s curriculum for more information. The Brand Velocity mission is to help entrepreneurs affordably build their brands online as the first marketing step in building a successful business.