Ramon Ray on Branding with Expertise

By Kim Hanna

Welcome back to Let's Talk About Brand! 

Today we’re talking with Ramon Ray of Smart Hustle. Ramon has done a great job of branding with expertise. He started in the tech sector, focusing in small business tech. Now he is a renowned expert not only in tech but also in small businesses and their needs, business in general, and marketing.

He has worked at the United Nations, spoken at the White House, interviewed President Obama, and testified before Congress. He runs the amazing Smart Hustle Growth Conference every year. He has a whole community of smart hustlers, small businesses, and is an in-demand speaker all over the world. He’s the author of four books, including The Celebrity CEO. We're so lucky to have him talking with us today!

Branding With Expertise

Expert has become kind of a diluted buzzword. What does ‘expertise’ actually mean?

Ramon says that there are about three key components that make someone an ‘expert.’ First, you need some experience in the given subject. Second, you must be a student of it. In Ramon’s words, this means, “you wake up and that's all you think about.” Third, you must be able to talk all about the topic with confidence. That's Ramon's recipe for expertise! 

Becoming known as an Expert

Ramon answered another great question from our Twitter chat: “what did you do to kind of shift the needle the most when it came to being known and respected by people as an expert?”

Ramon says the answer is social media. “I'd like to think that it works because it’s varied. It's different. It's fun. It's engaging. I get to shine a light on others. I get to shine a light on myself. It's always interesting,”

Social media allows Ramon to share his message, build his fan base, and build his community. You can also communicate directly. He says, “You can communicate whatever you want. You're in control of the message.”

How Ramon Started in Small Business Marketing 

Ramon started his career in the technology sector. He has extensive knowledge in this industry, and he loves helping small businesses. He also blogged several times a day. Over time, he became known as one of the leading voices of tech for small businesses.

Part of how Ramon stood out in this space is because people weren't really doing it yet. However, it was his experience that enabled him to have the expertise to work with small tech businesses. 

He built his expertise in some pretty amazing ways - including hosting an event with Michael Dell launching Dell Vostro computers. Perhaps his greatest mark of expertise was testifying before the United States Congress to explain why small businesses are important. He advocated for SCORE, which is a government service that helps small businesses grow. 

What led Ramon to some of these amazing opportunities was focusing on his area of expertise. When people went to look him up after seeing these public events, they found more information on his expertise.

Personal Branding

We asked Ramon his best advice on personal branding. He says there are a few components that are important: repetition, frequency, consistency, and visual images.

“It doesn't have to be, but as me and Christine know, that visual identity is why people are scrolling. I think those are a few elements of why personal branding is important.”

Value From Making Mistakes

We took some questions from our Tuesday Twitter chat, Let’s Chat About Brand. You guys ask a lot of great questions! One question was, “Which mistake have you made in the past that you learned the most from or value the most?”

Ramon’s answer: “I'm very compulsive. That's my biggest, biggest problem. I say yes fast without thought.”

“I do events in the New York City area. I get hundreds of people at my events locally. I get the opportunity to do an event in California. Same playbook, because I'm Ramon...everybody's just gonna come, right? I took about a $50,000 investment, give or take. Totally zippo failure.”

But, there is value in mistakes. Understanding this mistake has helped Ramon learn to slow down. He also says, “You could use red balloons, but purple balloons may not work.” In other words, just because his event worked in New York, doesn’t mean it would work in California. 

Definition of Personal Success

We asked Ramon if his definition of personal success and motivation has changed over time.  

“I think success is, how can I be happy and serve others? it's not a dollar number. I just want to live life happy.”

Find Ramon

We love the excellent advice Ramon gave us today! Thanks so much to Ramon Ray for chatting with us today!

You can find Ramon at ramonray.com. Everyone should also pick up The Celebrity CEO, which is Ramon's awesome book. (He has four books, actually. But this one is red, so it's obviously the best one.) 

Join us next Friday at noon eastern on Facebook live to Talk About Brand!

Roberto Blake on Creating a Brand, Not Just a Channel

BY KIM HANNA

This week we’re talking about building a brand, not just a channel, with YouTube creator and educator Roberto Blake. 

In addition to his work on YouTube, Roberto is also a creative entrepreneur, public speaker, and business coach. He's all about educating and motivating creative people with new videos every week on his YouTube channel which has 475,000 subscribers.

His Awesome Creator Academy helps creative entrepreneurs leverage YouTube to grow their audience, increase revenue and develop their businesses and brands. 

Check out some of Roberto’s top recommendations on building a personal brand here:

Is it a good or bad idea to go hard on one particular channel as opposed to having a broader footprint? 

Roberto has achieved great success on YouTube, but he agrees that it’s important to have a broader footprint. 

It's all about having a purpose as to where you should be. For example, Roberto is mainly known as a YouTuber, but he has a very active and engaged Twitter presence as well.

Roberto’s philosophy is “why not?” He says, “If you're already spending three or four hours on your main thing, taking away or adding 15 minutes to your plate to do something else doesn't really impact that...there's not a downside.”

Many people believe that having multiple platforms dilutes your focus. Roberto suggests that there is no downside to posting a few Instagram stories, replying to people on Twitter or things like that. If anything, It can help increase your exposure as people find your brand on other platforms. 

Becoming known as a YouTube creator

Roberto did not start building his brand solely through YouTube. In fact, he started as a  blogger; in his YouTube videos, he would include his website in his video intros. Roberto made his channel partly to drive traffic to his site. 

He’s also active on Twitter and Facebook. This brings us back to Roberto’s earlier point that using multiple platforms does no harm. He says, “I actually probably for years was just as hard on live, streaming every single day on multiple live streaming platforms in the early days of mobile live streaming more than I was even when I was doing daily YouTube content.”

Roberto’s live streams and blogs were largely about his career as a graphic designer and digital artist. His early focus was helping other freelancers and creative professionals. He interviewed other up-and-coming digital artists who would later be featured in various magazines and publications.

As Roberto consistently posted on his blog and did livestreams, he realized that his own brand was growing at quite a rapid rate. From February of 2015 through December of 2015 Roberto grew from 20,000 to about 75,000 subscribers on YouTube!

Differences between a creator, an influencer and a personal brand

You might have seen this question in our #ChatAboutBrand Twitter chat on Tuesday. We thought we’d ask Roberto how he feels about these three distinctions. 

Roberto’s definition of a content creator is basically anyone that creates content. They could be an influencer, personal brand, or none of the above. 

“A content creator doesn't have to be a content creator in the sense of being a public facing or forward figure,” Roberto explained. “If you produce beats but your voice isn't on the track, you're a content creator. And if you're making money as a musician doing that, you're a content creator. If you're not the face, and you are the editor of something - you're remixing content, but you're not personally in the content - you're still a content creator.” 

You can also be an influencer without being a content creator. 

“You could be an influencer by virtue of being a politician. You could be an influencer by virtue of being a public figure and a public speaker and having a story. That doesn't make you a content creator.”

A personal brand is a forward-facing figure with a public reputation. Personal brands can also be content creators and/or influencers. 

Roberto says these three words are not interchangeable. “Some people can encapsulate multiple buckets. Some of them it's just one bucket, and you can't assume that you've got the others.”

What do you think? Are you a content creator, personal brand, or influencer?

Creating the Brand

When asked why he branded the way that he did, he said, “I built a brand with the understanding that I wanted to build a brand that I could live with. But some people are a caricature of themselves online.”

Roberto’s brand is very authentic. Being authentic is a great way for your followers to feel like they know you a little more. Plus, a part of being authentic is showing that you’re not perfect all the time. To be successful on social media, you do not have to be ‘perfect.’ 

“I think what people get wrong is they think that they have to be 100% all the time, but that's exhausting, and you're not your best all the time. And so giving people your best sometimes means, ‘OK, it's not going to be exactly how I feel in that moment. “

How to get inspiration

Roberto sheds some great insight into our next question: “What do you do when you're not in the mood to create content, but you have to? How do you find inspiration when you need to create content, and what tools you use that help you out with that?” 

Roberto’s saying is, “‘When motivation fails, your discipline won't.” You might not always have an idea for everything, but Roberto always plans everything out. When inspiration comes, he’ll move on that. But he moves more on planning and designing, meaning he’s already mapped out what's going to happen rather than waiting for that inspiration.

Roberto also creates the opportunity to be motivated and inspired. He does that by building the perfect office that will help generate inspiration. He has inspirational quotes everywhere, and posters about patience, ambition, failure, happiness, persistence, and success. Building his office this way makes it a very motivating place to do work!

Find Roberto

Check out Roberto’s YouTube channel at youtube.com/robertoblake. He’s also @RobertoBlake on most social media (he’s most active on Twitter and posts to Instagram stories pretty much daily). And, of course, you can work with Roberto via AwesomeCreatorAcademy.com.

Thank you so much to Roberto Blake for his incredible insight on building a brand, not just a channel! To watch our Let’s Talk About Brand show, join us live on Facebook every Friday at 12 pm. 

Julie Cottineau on Building Your Unique Brand

BY KIM HANNA

This week we’re talking about building your own unique brand with Julie Cottineau of BrandTwist, a brand consultancy that helps entrepreneurs and corporations build stronger and more profitable brands.

Julie is also the creator of Brand School by BrandTwist, an online master class that helps small business owners and entrepreneurs develop more focused and distinctive brands. 

Julie was previously the VP of brands at Virgin, and before that, she held executive positions at Interbrand and Grey Worldwide. She's also the author of the incredible book, Twist: How Fresh Perspectives Build Breakthrough Brands.

What is “brand” at its most basic level?

Before diving into the topic of branding, we asked Julie how she defines brand. She says, “a brand is a story...and that story should have who you want to talk to. You want to tell the story too. What conflict are you overcoming? And then, importantly, what's your twist? Great books, movies, every kind of story, podcast that we listen to, they always have something different, something unique, and a Twist.” 

...and that is why her book is titled Twist. A twist is your unique point of difference. How do you stand out? When thinking about your own brand, think about what makes it unique. 

Others may define brand as how people would describe you, or maybe your reputation. What does brand mean to you?

Personal brands vs corporate brands

Julie has worked extensively with both personal and corporate brands. And they actually have a lot in common! The biggest similarity is that at the end of the day, both personal and corporate brands have a story that they want to tell. 

The main difference, however, is how people approach them. While corporate brands always seem to have a plan with clear goals and accomplishments, personal brands are looked at based on personality. Julie explains that a personal brand is not just your personality, but a more curated version of your personality.  

“You probably don't put up the pictures where you look your absolute worst or where you're doing absolutely nothing for the weekend, right? You tend to put pictures on social media and comments that help people understand what you're about and present yourself in the light that you want to be presented in.” 

Julie emphasizes that whether it is a personal brand or a corporate brand, keep company values at the core of everything.

Social media & personal brands

Since personal brands are based on your personality, social media platforms have been life-changing for personal brands around the world. For those starting out, you can simply create an Instagram, Facebook, or LinkedIn account for free.

 “It's made us all professional branders with free tools at our fingertips,” says Julie.

This might sound easy at first, but the challenging part is to remain consistent because most people engage in more than one channel. Think about your own brand for a second. Does it have the same look and feel on LinkedIn as it does on Instagram? Do viewers get the same message? 

Brand consistency

What are some things that people should keep in mind when they're defining their personal brand in terms of making sure that they're able to show up consistently?

To maintain a consistent overall look and feel of your brand, Julie’s biggest tip is to “own a color!” The color that Julie uses is purple. But she makes it meaningful. “Purple is a twist of red and blue. My business and my approach to branding is about looking at different things from different places and twisting them together.” Julie stays consistent with her brand by incorporating purple into her book, website, and even clothing. 

What color do you think of when you look at Christine Gritmon, Inc? Hopefully, you think red!

Another way to stay consistent is with a consistent tone of voice. “We defined our tone of voice and we made sure that whether we were writing a piece of copy or we were hiring somebody to do it, they had tone of voice guidelines,” said Julie. Figure out your tone of voice and then set guidelines in place for yourself and other people that might be helping you such as a ghostwriter or social media person.

Finding your “Twist”

With Julie being the author of Twist, we had to ask her, “how do you find your twist? Here’s her answer:

• Start looking outside of your category to brands that you admire and you learn from them. 

• Pay attention to the storytelling of people that you admire and then twist those lessons into your own brand. 

• Try new things. Julie spends one day a week where she does something she’s never done before. She calls it Twisting Tuesdays. That might be taking her dog to a new park or watching a documentary and Netflix on a subject she knows little about. Making time in her calendar to experience something new helps her stay inspired. 

Work with Julie

Julie is the creator of Brand School, an online master class that is great for solopreneurs, nonprofits, or just anybody who feels like their brand is getting a little bit stale and wants to learn! It’s an eight-week program starting on October 8th, 2020, on Thursdays from 12:30 to 2:00 Eastern time.

Brand School will help you figure out who to target, your brand promise, and how to raise your prices when you get clear on your story. This semester, Brand School will focus on COVID and the specific challenges of how to market and how to be sensitive during these times. You’ll go through an interview process where you'll get a 30 minute Brand Booster session where you get immediate feedback on your brand. To get started, email julie@brandtwist or go to brandtwist.com and click on Brand Booster session. 

Thank you so much to Julie Cottineau of Brand Twist for her incredible insight on building your unique brand! To watch our Let’s Talk About Brand show, join us live on Facebook every Friday at 12 pm. 

FAQ: Livestreaming programs

Some frequent livestreamers (myself included) prefer to use external programs - such as BeLive.tv, ecamm, or Switcher Studio - for their live broadcasts. But should you be using one?

That depends, as always, on your needs, your wants, and your comfort level.

Most programs allow you to “schedule” your live (so you’ve got a link to provide in advance for promotional purposes), and allow you to brand your livestreams with logos, colors, special frames, and even virtual backdrops. Programs can make adding guests to your livestream easier. Some programs allow you to livestream with a DSLR camera, switch between multiple feeds, and even utilize a remote producer.

But is there any advantage to using a program, in terms of reach? No. Simply hitting the “Live Video” button will do everything you really need for your live video to work. I myself use a combination of programmed lives (for my weekly Friday show, Social) and native live video (for more on-the-fly content).

Do what works best for you.

Social: who are you?

Those of you who follow me on social media know I spent this past week at #INBOUND17, soaking up insights from HubSpot's assembled team of experts from both within & outside of the marketing realm.

You likely also know that I tend to live-tweet the hell out of these things - which is how I met Jessie-Lee Nichols of Impact, whose thumb is apparently even more limber than my own. We discussed our favorite speakers (a list which includes Michelle Obama, Rand Fishkin, Piera Gelardi, & Brene Brown) and how their recurring messages of culture and identity spoke to each of us.

I'll be putting my own tweets from the conference into Storify threads, which will, in turn, be presented in a series of blog posts next week - keep your eye out for them!

I'd also be remiss if I didn't remind you all to register for Strike Up The BRAND - my eCourse on finding your personal brand, then rocking it out - ASAP! Course begins October 2. #tootyourhorn

Social: Go update your LinkedIn!

For years, LinkedIn was basically a static place to park your online resume and stay in tentative touch with former colleagues and others in your "network"; updates only really happened when you were applying for jobs or got a new one.

In recent years, however, LinkedIn has really upped its game, becoming an active and vibrant place to nuture community, establish thought leadership, and to find and be found. Social media strategist Karen Yankovich recognized the power of this revamped platform early on, and has emerged as an established LinkedIn expert. (Clients: if I've helped you strengthen your LinkedIn, it's because Karen taught me how!) 

In this week's Social, Karen discusses, among other things:

- If you should bother having a Company Page (yes!) and why;

- What parts of your profile matter most;

- What you should and shouldn't do in order to be sure your profile stands out

Rock Your Personal Brand workshop at #MRCCSocial

I attended the first ever Mahwah Regional Chamber of Commerce Social Media Day in June 2016, shortly after launching my own social media business. It was the first time I had been in a room full of people who geeked out about social media as much as I did (if not more!). I learned some incredible lessons that I use - and quote! - on a near-daily basis, with full awareness of where I got them from. And I made some great connections that I've kept up...some of which resulted in my spot as a presenter at THIS year's Social Media Day conference!

I submitted several abstracts, and the one that the organizers chose was "Rock Your Personal Brand." While this was the one I was shakiest on, it's also a topic I'd already been conceiving an ecourse about, so this was a great opportunity to strengthen some of those concepts and see what needed more work. Consider it a rehearsal for the intro section of the course, which I plan to develop and release this summer. And of COURSE I live-streamed it. ;)