Why Personal Branding is Important

There’s just no escaping it; branding is everywhere. Of course, you’ve heard of Nike, Apple, and Tesla, but there’s another type of branding on the rise: personal branding. While there seems to be another marketing trend every new moon, personal branding is here to stay and can take your business to new heights if approached correctly. So, what is personal branding anyway? Why is it so important? How can you start developing your own? Read on to learn more.

WHAT IS PERSONAL BRANDING?

Think of some of the biggest brands you know. Chances are they’ve clearly established their beliefs, values, goals, and purpose to their target audience. Now take that idea and turn inward. That’s how you should be approaching your personal brand. Rather than focusing solely on the products or services you provide, personal branding refers to your public persona and how you communicate with your target market. Looking for more on personal branding? Watch this 5-minute personal branding rundown.

PERSONAL BRANDING EXAMPLES

Let’s take Elon Musk for example. While he’s best known for his innovative work with Tesla and SpaceX you can’t ignore the outlandish stunts that have made him a public figure in his own right. By bending societal norms in his personal life as a visionary albeit eccentric individual, Musk is associated with his brands that push the limits of what humanity is capable of.

Want to see more personal brands in action? Check out this list of 18 personal brands done right.

 WHY IS PERSONAL BRANDING IMPORTANT?

As credible information is getting diluted with sensationalist content, personal branding is now more critical than ever. Communicated by the EAT algorithm used for SEO, sharing your expertise with an audience allows you to be perceived as the go-to authority in your arena. In turn, you gain the trust of your target market, who will come back to your company anytime you release new products or offer unique expertise. Just by putting a face to your company via your personal brand, your recommendations may be 92% more trustworthy than recommendations from your company as a whole.

HOW WILL BUILDING A PERSONAL BRAND BENEFIT YOU?

If curated effectively, your personal brand will be memorable and tell the world that they should choose you over your competitors. By putting your best traits and strengths out for your audience, you’ll be exposed to new niche opportunities relevant to your most substantial assets. Through these unique experiences, you’ll also be able to build relationships with well-known brands in your industry.

By taking the reins and building your own personal brand, you control your public perception. Rather than allowing mystique and possible misinformation to dictate your persona, which is becoming increasingly frequent in the age of social media, you can consciously present yourself in alignment with your values and goals.

5 WAYS TO start BUILDING YOUR PERSONAL BRAND

Now that you know what a personal brand is and why it’s crucial to build your own, here are five tips to help you present yourself effectively online.

1) Find your niche

To build your personal brand, you must identify the arena in which you want to operate. By setting a clear area of expertise, you’ll be able to focus your energy on specific content rather than providing lots of low-quality information for variety’s sake. Sticking to what you know will save your time and energy and ensure your audience receives quality information from you. Want to learn more about finding your niche? Here’s a 5-step guide to get you there.

2) Be authentic

Although curating your public persona involves putting forward your best traits, you should never feel pressured to act like someone you aren’t. Putting on a character hoping to seem like an expert in your field will almost always backfire as you may fail to keep your brand consistent. Also, the chances are that your audience can see through the façade, lowering your overall credibility. Instead, consider using your weaknesses to your advantage to set yourself apart.

3) Work on your online presence

With 65% of people seeing online search results as the most trusted source of information about companies, working on your online presence is essential. Ensuring you have a consistent personal brand image through a logo and communication style is a good starting point for your brand. Also, consider making a website for your brand in addition to your social media accounts. If you want a website like this one, feel free to reach out. We have worked with many clients, making effective websites that can help your brand grow! Creating a website for your brand ensures that you own the information you share as opposed to Instagram or Twitter, which are platforms that limit the ownership you have over your content. Through a website, you can also start a blog and tap into email marketing which can increase customer retention.

4) Reach out to other well-known brands

Although one of the primary uses of personal branding is to set yourself apart from the competition, working with other companies in your niche can be immensely beneficial. Interacting with well-known brands online through social media, blog posts, or direct communication can also help others see the value in connecting with you, thereby building your network.

5) Believe in your brand

Personal branding is, without a doubt, a labor-intensive process and can take a few tries to get right. Like most things, however, consistency is key, and it’s essential that you don’t lose sight of how your company will benefit from your personal brand being perfected. Even if it seems like your efforts aren’t paying off, it’s important to recognize that making a lasting impact on your audience takes time. After all, it takes five to seven impressions for someone to remember a brand.

6) BONUS TIP: Let Jony Studios help you build your personal brand

Whether you need help getting started or want to fine-tune your existing personal brand, we can help. Our brand consulting services can help you with brand identity development, positioning, brand videos, podcasting, and even audiobook creation. At Jony Studios, we recognise that building a personal brand is no small feat, and we want to help you every step of the way.

CONCLUSION

Taking charge of your personal presence is an essential step in helping your brand reach new heights. The moment you put a face to your company, you have the chance to extend your reach through interactions with your audience and other brands, stand out in the sea of competition, and increase your credibility. Although it can take some effort, this guide can hopefully help you build your personal brand and help your company grow.

Written by Midhat Mujaddid

Did you learn a new tip about building your personal brand? Was there anything that surprised you? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below!

Best Type of Video Ads to Grow Your Business

Video marketing as a strategy should be considered by all business owners. Advertising your business through video is one of the most effective and preferred ways of advertising. With that being said, having your video advertising campaign stand out from the rest is critical. Here below is a catalog of some of the best types of video ads to grow your business. In each section, we’ll focus on a key factor to keep in mind when you plan and create your next video ad!

The first few seconds count the most!

The first 3 seconds of your ad are the most important. You want to grab your audience’s attention and instantly create brand awareness. Those first few seconds will be the deciding factor on whether someone will be focused on your ad or be completely distracted from the video.

Start your video with a statement that will grab your audience's attention and visuals that spark an interest in your target market. You could use those first few seconds to hook your audience by addressing a common problem, asking a relevant question, or by sharing something about your brand that makes it stand out from the rest. 

This Facebook Ad from Colgate is a great example of asking a relatable question and connecting it to your brand whilst addressing a common issue. The goal of the EveryDropCounts campaign was to attach the authority of Colgate as a brand to bring attention to a problem that relates to their brand. 

Keep it short

The majority of ads online are 30 seconds or less. You’ll want to definitely avoid turning your ad into a short documentary. The 15-second ad is the new commercial break.

Because of this, you’ll have to be creative to stand out from the pact of 15-second commercials flooding platforms such as YouTube or Facebook. Choose a unique format or style that will allow your brand to promote itself. Put together a robust plan and create a script and storyboard that includes the most important components you would like to include in your spot. 

This 15-second commercial from Ember used creative sound design to hook their audience. Their soundtrack and sound effects added character to their ad and increased memorability which is a powerful tool for brand image and recall.

Keep them watching!

If you want a viewer to engage with your video, design your video in a way that prioritizes viewer retention. By doing this, your viewer will be less likely to hit the skip button once they’ve “got the message” and instead be willing to watch the video all the way through to see the video's resolution. 

You already have the upper hand here if you plan to create a 15-second or less commercial but starting out strong only to transition into a sales pitch won’t do wonders for your brand standing out from the rest. The video should not only hook someone at the beginning, but it should compel someone to keep watching!

Take this short ad from Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams on YouTube. They used the product demonstration approach to advertise their “Build Your Own Ice Cream Sandwich” service. By doing this, they aim to keep their target audience salivating-ly watching until the end of the demonstration to see the final product form. 



Tell a Story

Your ad shouldn’t just be to advertise your product, brand, or service. There should be a reason why a person should choose you rather than someone else! A great way to leave such a lasting impression through advertising is by telling a rewarding story to the viewer. 

In today’s busy world, getting someone to invest even 15 seconds out of their day to watch your advertisement can be a challenging undertaking. If you want great engagement with your ads, get the viewer intrigued by your story. 

Canadian Tire and Cleansheet Communications used creative and engaging storytelling to great effect in their spot titled “Wheels” in 2017. During that time, the ads response was incredibly positive and even garnered 138 million collective views at one point. 



End with a Call to Action

Just like the first 3 seconds, the ending of your video is just as important. Having brand awareness and a strong Call to Action at the end of your advertisement is incredibly important as it can often be the deciding factor for a potential consumer. 

Encourage your target market to take some sort of action at the end of your advertisement. This can be either done with creative text, a graphic, or even a filmed scene specifically for the call to action. An example of a strong call to action is to show viewers how they can visit your website for more information or show viewers where they can purchase your product or service. 

This 15-second ad from Choice Hotels used their tagline for their commercial to advertise their service in their call to action at the end. Using a memorable piece of their advertisement such as “NeedaBreak” as part of the call to action is an effective way to engage the viewer at the end of your commercial. 



Conclusion

Video ads are one of the most powerful tools any business can use to increase their brand awareness. Remember that the first and last few seconds of your ad are the most important. Keep it short, easy to digest, and engage with your audience by motivating them to keep watching through with a rewarding story. Keep all these key points in mind and look through our curated list above when you need some effective examples!

Written by Zeeshan Khamis

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If you need help creating your own videos, we offer video production services that will help you grow your business!

We look forward to being a part of your success :)

The 5 Best Stock Video Sites of 2024

Stock footage comes in handy as it’s a time saving and cost-effective solution for videographers and filmmakers to access footage they would not be able to shoot themselves. But finding the perfect clip can sometimes be a stressful and frustrating process without the right resources on hand. If you are looking for high quality stock video at a variety of budgets, here are 5 of the best stock video websites. 

Pexels

For many, Pexels is the go to site for those looking for truly spectacular free stock videos. 

Every video is all under a Creative Commons 0 license – a license where the original creator has dedicated the work to the public domain! You are free to use footage found on Pexels for personal and commercial use without attribution. 

This is where Pexels shines. Being able to provide high quality stock footage absolutely free that you can use for both commercial and personal use is truly a blessing. But Pexels acts more as a jack of all trades when it comes to it’s selection. Finding the perfect clip to use in your next project isn’t always easy as Pexels lacks curated video collections for specific themes. There may also be cases where the footage you find can be limited to 1080p which can be an issue if 4K and above is what you need. 

Shutterstock

Shutterstock is an absolute titan in the online stock footage scene. 

Of their entire collection of images, videos and music, they advertise over 370 million items to offer. It’s quite literally limitless and Shutterstock also makes it easy for the user to seek out the perfect clips for their next project with important search filters such as maximum resolution, frames-per-second, and if the footage contains people in it. They also provide regularly updated corrected collections that are relevant and trending that offer high quality footage in a certain niche or theme. 

But such a collection doesn’t come without a price. Shutterstock offers 3 subscription plans that offer limited downloads per month as well as clip packs that expire after 12 months that offer you a way to pay for a set amount of videos you may redeem at a later date. All of these options are pretty expensive and somewhat convoluted but offer a standard license that covers web usage and live performance. For a larger budget, Shutterstock is a great choice for videographers. 

Storyblocks

Storyblocks specializes in video and audio at an affordable price for videographers. 

Like other stock footage providers, Storyblocks offers a large selection of stock footage available to use for subscribing members. They offer curated collections and easy to use search filters to narrow down the perfect clip. But unlike their competitors, story blocks also offer a wide selection of motion graphics templates to use. What is also new to offer is Maker – an online based video editor that is integrated with their library. 

Storyblocks aims to be a one-stop shop for videographers and their pricing reflects that. They offer their unlimited download plan for individuals at $39.99 a month which comes with 4K & HD footage, Motion Graphics Templates, as well as Music and Sound Effects. The footage you use as well is 100% royalty free and yours to keep forever under their individual license as well. 

Artgrid

Artgrid aims to be the stock footage site for filmmakers.

Artgrid selection differs quite a bit from other offerings. Each clip has a cinematic quality to it that makes it perfect for filmmakers looking to tell emotional and powerful stories. On Artgrid you can search by video theme that offers a similar experience to curated collections but also by shot type. Search by shot type allows for you to narrow down clips by their framing, what type of camera movement is done, the time of day and location, and speed of the clip. These search filters are a game changer for filmmakers. 

Artgrid’s pricing is similar to Storyblocks’ as they offer both an unlimited plan and a limited plan for affordable prices. Artgrid takes it one step further by offering a Professional plan where you can download footage that is in RAW/LOG format which makes all the footage on offer incredibly versatile. All plans include lifetime use and all plans also include a 14 day money back guarantee. 

Envato Elements

Envato Elements aims to offer unlimited access to stock video and audio at a very cheap price.

With a $16.50/m individual subscription, you get access to Stock Footage, Motion Graphics Templates, Music and Sound Effects, Print and Product Mockups, Powerpoint Templates, Photos, and even Fonts. Envato Elements is really trying to be the go-to place for creatives to flock towards and with an incredibly affordable subscription plan, it’s hard to say they haven’t done that.

Envato Elements offers simple licensing terms for all their products. Each item you download is registered for one specific use but you can download it again to register a different use. Each item has broad commercial rights so you can use their offerings with confidence in your project. And each time is covered even if you choose to unsubscribe from their services later.   

Conclusion 

All of these websites have a fantastic selection of stock video to offer that is licensed or royalty-free and safe to use both commercially and for personal use. They all tailor for a specific kind of videographer or filmmaker so choose the right site for you! Also, if you need help editing/color grading your videos, we would be happy to help. Contact us here to learn more about our video production services.

Written by Zeeshan Khamis

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If you’re a filmmaker wanting to learn more about improving your audio, sound design, and business, we are developing a course called Producer Launch that will take you from beginner, all the way to knowing how to become a successful producer for a living!

Sign up here to be notified when it launches for an exclusive 50% off!