As of late, I’ve had a lot of business owners ask me about how building an online brand can help them in their businesses. They understand the importance of having an online brand, but they are having difficulty executing everything that needs to be done.
Here are some of the biggest mistakes I see business owners making when they are building an online brand for themselves.
Not having any patience.
Brands are not built overnight. Building an online brand takes patience. Lots of it. It’s something that’s built brick by brick with every tweet, every blog post, and every podcast episode. It’s built with every client one step at a time.
One of the biggest mistakes I see is when business owners have only been trying to build an online brand for three months are complaining that they aren’t seeing any traction. Here’s some real talk: It takes years of consistent effort to build an online brand, which actually brings me to my next point.
Not being consistent.
You can’t build an online brand without consistently putting a message out there. This looks like building a social media following and actually participating with your followers. It looks like actually putting content on your website on a consistent basis. It looks like constant content creation.
If you’re having difficulty being consistent with your content creation as you build an online brand, try automating your social media needs and creating an editorial calendar for your site. The more organized you can be the better.
Neglecting your brand to cater to clients.
Another huge mistake I see business owners making as they build an online brand is not building a brand in the first place. Usually, it’s because they think they need to prioritize client work.
In reality, if you prioritize your business, then you’ll become the expert who gets hired by corporate clients, gets hired for influencer campaigns and gets hired to speak. This level of expertise is what allows you to earn a lot more money in the long run. If you don’t focus on building your brand, you’re just another freelancer out of millions.
If you’re having difficulty dedicating time to building an online brand, consider dedicating one day a week to prioritizing the growth of your brand. I personally dedicate Fridays to this task. This is the day I record podcast episodes, create content for my website, send PR pitches to editors and focus on building my own community.
It is not easy to focus on client work while simultaneously building an online brand, but it is imperative that you learn how to balance the two for the sake of your bank account. I get hired for projects easily because I have a brand. I also don’t have to work as hard to find clients because I have a visible brand online. They simply search for financial writers and I’m everywhere.
Final Thoughts
Don’t sleep on building a brand online. It will make all the difference between mediocre revenue and a very good pay day. Also, don’t get discouraged if you see it’s taking a long time. Build a brand online does take time and effort, but it’s worth it when you see the revenue coming in.
