The Future is BrandYou – Julian Summerhayes

Q. How many of you have a personal brand strategy?

A. “You what?�

If you haven’t yet worked it out, the future is not bound up with your firm. Yes you shelter under their umbrella but what your clients are attracted to is … YOU.

Look at those long-standing members of the profession. They, not the firm, have a loyal following.

Inadvertently they have built a brand out of delivering consistent results. In short, showing up.

Your strategy should be focused on leveraging your persona, expertise, professionalism, results and client recommendations.

Step back and analyse the position.

Have you checked your firm’s website lately? Do you like what it says about you? You sure? Think like a buyer.

Have you asked for a video to be uploaded? No. Why not?

Is your LinkedIn profile (or the icon) shown on your profile? Surely, with the amount of information on LinkedIn it would be better to cut down on the website material, and simply put up the LinkedIn profile.

What about a group on LinkedIn? Or the comments you have made in some of the bigger groups? Don’t these all have a bearing on how you are perceived?

Have you sorted out Twitter? Just looking at your time-line can tell your potential client a whole bunch of stuff about you.

YouTube – I wonder how many lawyers have embraced this SEO rich platform. Please don’t tell me you couldn’t think what to say. You are not thinking hard enough.

Facebook – of course you are keeping this for friends. But how many have thought of creating a Facebook page to grow their brand? If you look hard enough there are a few lawyers already doing this? Of course you will have to get the lock-down policy sorted.

And what about platforms like J D Supra, Slideshare, Scribd, Tumblr, Posterous or a WordPress blog?

With the abundance of outlets to promote BrandYou now is the time to start planning. Of course, first and foremost over delivering and under-promsing will get you a loyal following but don’t think that is the end of the story. In the new Web 2.0 world you need to connect with those people who may not be in your circumference of influence.

~ JS ~