Building Your Online Brand: Five Basic Strategies

Having just secured my Facebook branded URL, I was reminded again why using the same “brand” across all social media properties is important.

When it comes to business and marketing, one’s good name has always been a sterling asset, and with the rise of social media, it’s imperative you “own” your name and use it in order to build your brand and reputation — whether you work for a company or you’re in business for yourself.

What follows are five basic strategies for building your brand online.

1. Purchase your name as a URL

If you are like me, you have a number of people across the U.S. who share your name. (I’ve found five people named “Dianna Huff” on Facebook, for example.)

If you haven’t already, buy your name as a URL — i.e. www.janesmith.com — from a registrar such as GoDaddy.

Buying your name allows you to then point this URL to your existing Website or use it as your Website URL if you’re in business for yourself.

I use “www.dhcommunications.com” as my primary URL because that’s my business name, and I point “diannahuff.com” to my site. This means that if someone types “diannahuff.com” into a Web browser, they’re taken to my site automatically.

If you work for a company, you can use your URL to send and receive personal “branded” email — a good thing should you have to find a new job. Think about how this email address looks on a resume, “joe@joeschmo.com” versus “joeschmo@gmail.com.”

You can also use your URL for a blog (where you showcase your industry expertise) and send prospective employers to it in addition to your LinkedIn page.

2. Complete a Google Profile

When I first learned of Google Profiles, I didn’t think I needed one since it’s easy to find me via a Google search.

However, I changed my mind pretty quickly when I learned another “Dianna Huff” had nabbed “my” name. D’oh! (I ended up having to include my middle initial for my profile.)

Having a Google Profile also ensures you show up on the first page of the Google search results (albeit at the bottom) — an important consideration if you share a name with a famous person (i.e. Liz Taylor) who hogs the first and even second page search results.

If you do share a name with someone famous, do what David Meerman Scott does and use your middle name or your middle initial to set you apart. (And don’t forget to buy the URL of this version of your name.)

3. Use the same name across all social media

I’ve noticed some consultants will use a Twitter screen name that describes their services. While doing this tells people what you do, it doesn’t tell them who you are — and I don’t know about you, but I remember people by name, not by job function.

To help people remember your name and to connect the dots across social networking sites such as LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook, use the same name everywhere.

And, don’t forget to use your name when commenting on business blogs, too.

(Quick tip: When developing your Twitter profile, add your first and last name to your Profile under “Settings.” This makes it easy to find you via Twitter’s “People Search” function.)

4. Become an expert

I read somewhere that expert status isn’t bestowed on you, you have to claim it for yourself.

To become an expert, learn about a niche or specific aspect of your industry. If your target audience is lawyers, for example, learn everything you can about them, and then become the go-to person who knows everything and anything about lawyers and marketing, lawyers and HR, lawyers and building a practice — whatever it is that you do for lawyers.

How do you learn? Read. Everything.

My good buddy Mac McIntosh once said that you can become an expert in five years if you read one hour a day on your chosen topic. You can cut that time in half by reading two hours a day.

I repeated this advice to my other good friend, Tom Ahern, a few years ago, and he’s now one of the top fundraising consultants in the U.S.

(You can listen to his success story by downloading my podcast interview of him.)

5. Talk about your expertise

Write e-newsletters about your topic, publish articles on other sites, start a blog, speak at conferences and develop how-to guides and white papers.

Consider publishing an e-book that addresses an industry challenge or that takes a contrarian point of view — or do as my client, Dora Vell, CEO of Vell Executive Search did: publish your own data that the press then writes about.

Once you get your name out there, people will associate it with your area of expertise, making you the expert — which then translates into more links to your site, and if you’re a consultant or business, more sales.

You can do lots of other things to build your online brand. Please feel free to share your particular strategy.