Do You Have a Personal Health and Wellness online Brand?

Have you ever thought about what people would find about you if they googled you on line. Have you ever tried googling yourself? Go on, try it now………..

Any interesting or surprising results?

I’m sure one thing you may have noticed is how frequent your social media pages pop up on google and other search engines.

It just goes to show that it is very important to develop your own online brand by controlling what people can find out about you online.

To get you started and providing some food for thought, here is a bullet point list of 50 hints and tips from the personal branding blog. http://www.personalbrandingblog.com/50-tips-to-brand-yourself-online/

In the health and wellness market where you are relying on people to buy and pay for “YOU”….and that’s in your day to day business as well as online business….it’s become increasingly important to look after your online brand.

Let’s face it, if people were thinking about paying for your day to day services they are likely to research you and the subject area online.

Social media has been the catalyst for creating online identities. As a health and wellness professional if you have not given time, thought and planning to your social networks and the image they convey then you risk damaging how people perceive you.

It is for this reason I am not a fan of using social media profiles, such as Facebook or Twitter for both personal and business use.

These are the three steps I recommend for ensuring you are in control of your online brand……

Social media design and monitoring
Your social media designs should look professional tailored to the industry niche you operate in. I always believe that social networks can provide the “human” touch to your online business. People can understand the human behind the website or product. This helps people to develop trust and confidence in your business.

However, just having a profile or being a ghost in social media is not going to get your online health and wellness brand very far either. It’s important to be active within your media niche and join the conversations.

It is for this reason I recommend focusing your attention on no more two or three key medias, obviously depending on the time you can allocate. But it is better to have a strong presence on one or two medias that have a small ineffectual presence on many medias.

Also, it enables you to actively monitor what is being said within your niche and allows you to join conversations and communities that can enhance your brand and network.

Consider which media is going to be most beneficial to you. Below are some considerations before engaging with social media:
Where is the majority of your audience online socialising.
What type of content are you engaging your audience with? Video? Podcast? Blog articles? Images? Etc
Which media suits your type of business?
Which media will attract the most traffic?

Tailored and valuable content
As stressed many times in this blog your content has to be relevant and be perceived of high value by your audience. Your content should remain focused on the niche within health and wellness you have chosen to operate your business. Mix the content up with all different styles from articles to interviews, digital content and interesting links.

Allow your audience to join your conversations whether it be through article comments, email feedback, social media comments.

If your audience feels part of ‘your online world’ they will feel a sense of belonging, but not just any type of belonging they will feel they exist in a community they are passionate and enthusiastic about.

Your online brand and expert status will be held in high regard if it’s your content that is the source and catalyst of discussion and networking.

Connections
Your social media networks grow through developing relationships that become ‘connections’. Re-read that last sentence one more time and think which is the important word you should take on board?

……….’relationships’……..

…….Is the term most important here. Why?

Too many people that use social media for business reasons place too much emphasis on the number of connections or followers etc instead of the relationship that exists between the two people or businesses.

Again, it’s the less is more rule that should apply.

You will get more from your connections (particularly to gain their trust if you want them to buy from you!) if you have built a foundation to the connection first.

Having a constant relationship with your connections will allow your online brand and reputation to spread. Having connections where either of you do not know or understand what each other do is as good as no connection at all.

What is your best tip for cultivating an online brand? Do you engage with many media or do you prefer to focus on one?