IF I were starting out today?

Does anyone know Bob?

30 years ago I couldn’t have learned about you in a post, on Facebook or on a business profile page such as  Linkedln. I would have had to ask around, talk to my friends see if they know who you are. That’s all changed today. Now it’s quite common to do business with strangers, and from miles away! How is that possible? Instead of asking around about Bob, now you can look him up on Facebook, Linkedln or other social platforms and read what he’s all about in that space. Call it social profiling, or proofing, your judging this person from what you read and see. This is not to suggest that all face to face socializing is done with, actually it’s been morphing into other digitally promoted spaces like meetups, go to meetings, SKYPE and organizational conferences and more. If I were starting out today? (this post), in a new adventure, perhaps writing a book, selling paintings, consulting or whatever how would I get the word out?

Digital bread crumbs

Start by leaving a trail, just as if you were entering a heavily wooded forest. The difference is this trail would be digital—website blog for example, the forest the internet, but you would still be you. So what about you? Writing about things, passions, experiences or whatever gives us a glimpse about who you are. How you think, judge, and approach situations is important to the reader especially if your talking about something that reader may have an interest in.

What are other methods of communication  in relation to bread crumbs— and leaving a trail. Well there’s Facebook, Twitter, Linkedln and many more ways you could write about yourself and your interests. There all good sources, and they attract quite different views so you might want to tailor your communication for each of these platforms.

As an example a Linkedln reader would probably not care very much about a post of your cat sitting on the chair, but a Facebook friend might relate.

Black is my favorite color

Make your profile write up as consistent as possible across all platforms,  your posts can vary to fit the audience that your writing for.  For example I’m writing this post— If I were starting out today? on my personal brand page MARK MEDEIROS.COM this subject is more on a personal level as opposed to me writing on 50 PLUS WEB MARKETING where I would be talking more about marketing and WordPress tools that you might use in your business. On that site my “Logo tag line reads— “Helping you get your WordPress site up and running fast”. These two web blogs are related in that I’m discussing start-ups just not as specific to using a CMS like WordPress to build your blog. My Bio on each is very similar and my articles are as well. This is important for your brand recognition.

How do I know it’s working for me? I can tell by the emails and contacts that I receive, their related to people starting things, or in business trying to get their web marketing efforts to work. Marketing is much about reiterating a consistent messages, as an example, if I were to “make up” a slogan for a dog training service it might be something like this:

“Bentley doesn’t know he’s a Golden Retriever so don’t say anything.”

Now my posts would be all about Golden’s and how to care for them etc, but I might also write about dogs in general. Do you understand what I’m talking about?

So here is the take away. If you want to market yourself or your product you have to get out there and get known. Join groups, get on social platforms, start a blog etc. I wish you all the success I hope you learned something here on my blog, hope you come back again. Send me a quick not an let me know what your up to!

Mark Medeiros