Mind on Marketing

The Wharton School publishes a weekly e-mail newsletter, Knowledge@Wharton. It includes many interesting articles on the results of research conducted by professors there. (Full disclosure: my Dad was on their faculty for many years, my brother-in-law, Pat Harker, was Dean there until he  recently became president of  University of Delaware, and my brother John has a Wharton MBA. I’m biased.)

A recent edition included an article on using social networking to build a personal brand. Marketing professor Eric Barlowe has a forthcoming book on social networking as a tool for financial professionals to use for building their businesses. He says:

“It is critical for a worker in the financial sector — especially those who are sole practitioners or run a small business — to develop a brand identity to convince would-be clients to choose them over a large field of rivals. He advises business people to come up with three simple words to define a personal brand — words that could describe a specialized skill set or simply community involvement.”

Marketing professor Jonah Berger comments that

“Building an online identity also takes patience…  at first, it is usually helpful to build a following by giving away something for free — even if it’s just nuggets of information or personal wisdom transmitted by blog postings or through commentary on Twitter. ‘People might enjoy that, and find that they’re willing to pay for it in another outlet.””

The concept of giving things away for free is part of the core of social networking and online marketing. The Web has shifted expectations, and we look for substantial content to be available for free. Clearly it works–look at the volume of white papers, special reports, podcasts, webinars and other media now offered on web sites, in blogs and on Twitter. It’s part of personal branding–establishing yourself as an expert in an area and sharing your knowledge in a variety of ways, over time, to allow potential paying customers to get to know you and become confident that you bring real value to the table.

We’re already seeing how journalists, photographers, musicians and other creative professionals use social networking to build a following and sell their output. Consultants should be able to make good use of these new channels too, where they are the brand. I’m working on that in my own business. I’m the brand (I need to come up with those three words), because although there are lots of other people who do what I do, nobody else has the same background, experience, interests, etc.

Here in Charlottesville, the Chamber of Commerce has been offering workshops on how to use the Web more effectively in building a business and attracting new customers. The SEO and Social Networking workshops sold out fast and had waiting lists. It’s a white-hot topic, and time for wallflowers to jump in and dance.

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