To achieve ultimate success, personal brand building should be a daily exercise for not only founders and CEOs, but everyone else on the team. My experience in the NBA taught me the power of personal brand growth, and this carried over to my the company I founded.

Following are five tips to help build your personal brand. Make it a point to not only build your personal brand but to influence others within your business to build theirs.

Identify and Highlight What Makes You Unique

All entrepreneurs have something that makes them truly unique, whether it’s a story of hardship in upbringing or the ability to remain positive in any situation. Think about what makes you unique, and identify the top factors. Highlight them every chance you get to make your personal brand stand out.

My time in the NBA has helped build my brand, though I don’t outright discuss teams and seasons. Rather, I compare the dedication it takes to make it in the NBA with the dedication needed for success in business. I actually think it takes more dedication to be successful in business than it does in the NBA.

Educate Others

Think of thought leaders like Tony Robbins in personal development and Jim Cramer in investing: Their personal brands are giant within their respective industries. Much of their success can be attributed to how well they educate others. Both have written books and educate through their social media presence, helping them build personal connections.

Educating others builds an emotional connection that helps strengthen your authority in your space, which naturally builds your brand. You don’t have to write a bestseller, either: Speaking at conferences and writing for third-party publications has worked well for me.

Model Others With Powerful Personal Brands

This will help you save time in your brand-building exercises. Find out what has worked for these influencers, and implement those strategies into your own process.

I’ve learned from giants like Richard Branson, who made one of the boldest moves in business by buying an airline under the Virgin brand, rooted in music. During this deal, there was much adversity, but Branson pushed forward and Virgin Atlantic became a huge success. Part of the success came from his ability to rally his employees through his energetic ways. At my company, I always try to keep the energy high to get my team rallying behind me. It creates enthusiasm and an anchored devotion to the brand.

Create Your Career Narrative

Everyone likes a good story, so tell yours. Entrepreneurs across every industry have a story to tell, and the more personal, the more others will feel connected. Exploit your career’s narrative whenever possible, whether networking at a conference or on the “about” section of your business’s website.

I can attribute my personal story directly to my success. I grew up in Nigeria and worked hard in many different ways. I was abe to develop the skills needed for my future business endeavors and help others connect more closely to our brand.

Make the Most of Social Media 

Social media is the lifeline of any personal brand, so use it to your advantage. Connect with others on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, and always strive to offer content that educates, adds value and entertains. Offer leadership tips and share unique stories from within your business. Inspirational quotes from other thought leaders work well in this scenario.

Remember to keep your social media presence clean as well. Social media is the ultimate extension of modern-day attitudes. Make sure yours is a positive one.

Personal brand building doesn’t happen overnight. It can take years, but it’s well worth the efforts for you and your business. The more personal brand exposure you get, the more brand exposure your business will get. 

Over the past few decades, brands have begun to get a voice. Companies have started focusing on the brand instead of just the trademark, which meant more time and effort could be put into messaging, content and imagary.

Now, we’re in an age where everything your company does is considered its brand: Brand is community, real-time engagement, content, story, charity, inspiration and so much more. Founders, employees, pets, offices — everything can and will be considered “your brand” by your audience.

So it makes sense to put some effort into it, right? A lot of business owners believe that the “culture” side of branding will take care of itself as long as you hire the right people and rent the right office space. But this is not necessarily the case: A good, holistic brand takes work and commitment from your entire team. The only place to start, then, is to get everyone on the same page on how you want your company to be perceived.

Here are a few fun, engaging and insightful exercises you and your team can do today to help define your brand. Don’t be shy — let your creative juices flow!

1. ‘This, Not That’

You might already have an idea of what you want your business to be, which is great! For this exercise, we’re going to take that a step further: Instead of just making a list of words that you want to define your company, make a list of word pairs to help define what your company isn’t.

For example, you might want to be fun, but not childish. You could be smart but not complicated, simple but not boring, or transparent but not chatty. Once you make your list, make sure to get it in the hands of your team — especially those in charge of your content and messaging. The more your voice is dictated by these decisions, the more clear and cohesive your brand will be.

2. The Personality Challenge

This is my personal favorite, as it allows your team to get a little abstract and creative. Think of your company, and then try to make it into a person. Think of as many traits as possible — male or female? Tech-focused or artistic? What celebrity would play it in a movie?

Once you have a little profile going, start to think about your company’s relationship with your consumer. Are you a friend, partner, advisor or something else entirely? Think of State Farm’s famous slogan, “Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.” Your brand is more than just a supplier of a product or service: You’re a special and important part of your consumer’s life, so make sure you’re defining that and creating content to support it. 

3. What’s Your Story?

Lastly, take some time to define your story. Consumers are more apt to connect with a brand with an engaging story, not just a good product. Break it down to all of the traditional components of storytelling: the main character, villain, desire and conflict.

The answers to these questions might not be what you’d expect. Is your villain your competition, the problem your company is trying to solve, or something more abstract? For a gym, the villain might be laziness, and your company is trying to overcome the conflict of lacking motivation by bringing your main character, the gym member, to their desire — a more exciting workout!

Whether you run through these exercises with your team or come up with a few of your own, put some time aside on your busy schedule as a business owner to really think about and define your brand. Once this information is shared with the rest of your team, you’ll start seeing a more cohesive, engaging brand story take hold in no time. 

But how do you know if your company needs a rebrand? It’s a question I get asked a lot.

Sometimes the signs are obvious: One of our clients was ready to expand beyond the San Diego region, but the city was integral to the company’s positioning. It was even part of its name! In a situation like this, there is little choice but to rebrand.

Other times it’s just a gut feeling that a change is needed — or is long overdue. Another client, a large regional healthcare provider, had been serving its community for over 40 years before finally admitting that its brand could use an update. In cases like this, it’s remarkable what rebranding can do to reenergize a stalwart yet stagnant organization.

If you’re wondering whether your brand needs a refresh, take a look at the following six signs. Each is a good indicator that the time is right to rebrand.

1. You’re embarrassed to give people your card. This is one the most common signs I see. If reaching for your business card makes you cringe, or if you feel the need to explain why your website is outdated when you share your URL, it’s a good sign you’re ready for a rebrand. You should be proud of your brand: When you’re not, it shows. Take a moment to assess your business card, website and other marketing collateral. Do they inspire confidence in you as a brand ambassador, or do they make you cringe (even a little)?
2. Your brand’s name no longer evokes its vision. What’s in a name? When it comes to branding, a lot. Sometimes what seemed like a great name 10 years ago is no longer aligned with what your brand is trying to accomplish. Other times a name takes on a whole new meaning due to cultural happenings outside of your control. More common still, a company expands (or flat-out moves) its geographical reach. “Southern California Finance” doesn’t resonate as well with audiences on the northeastern seaboard. Spend some time considering your company name in and out of context. Does it bring to mind the positioning and personality you’d like your brand to embody?
3. Your brand doesn’t stand out from the crowd. Among the primary goals of branding is competitive differentiation. If your positioning doesn’t separate your brand from the competition, then your brand is failing you. Now, that doesn’t mean being different just for the sake of being different: Neon colors and brash messaging don’t help a corporate law firm compete for business. True differentiation is authentic and rooted in the promise only your brand can offer. You can get a better sense of your brand’s differentiation by performing a mini brand audit. Take a look at some of your brand’s collateral alongside that of your top competitors. Does it stand out or just get lost amongst the sameness? Where are there opportunities for differentiation? These might include color, messaging or imagery.
4. Your brand has become too complicated. Many companies that were able to weather the Great Recession came off as inauthentic brands: In order to survive, they had created new service offerings, lowered prices, expanded into new markets, or had gone after less-than-ideal customers. Essentially, they tried to be everything to everyone. These tactics may have got them through the short-term, but when it comes to long-term branding, increased complexity means decreased effectiveness. Any opportunities to simplify, focus, or develop a unifying brand narrative will benefit your business for years to come.
5. You’re undergoing (or have recently undergone) a merger or acquisition. One of our clients is a large, publicly traded healthcare company that was continuing to acquire smaller companies as it expanded nationwide. This series of acquisitions led to serious misalignments in culture and values. Too often, executives don’t fully think about the repercussions of M&A activity until it’s too late, resulting in diminished performance for both the parent brand and the acquired brand. If you’re undergoing (or have recently undergone) a merger or acquisition, take a big-picture look at the implications for your brand architecture. It can be helpful to sketch out a diagram of the various brands and sub-brands involved. Look for logical ways to configure your brand architecture so that each brand and sub-brand derives value from the others.
6. You’re not attracting top talent. It’s simple: The best talent wants to work with the best brands. If you’re unable to recruit quality personnel for open positions, it might be because your brand seems mediocre to qualified candidates. If you suspect your brand is preventing you from attracting top talent, brand research can provide the answer. As part of your research, consider crafting questions for surveys that elicit how likely the subject would be to work at your company, and why. The answers to such inquiries might be surprising.

Often, the first sign you need a rebrand the fact that the thought of a rebrand even crosses your mind.

What’s the best way to use the Instagram Story tool for your brand? The most important thing is to just dive in and give it a try. I mean, what’s the worst that could happen? It disappears in 24 hours, right?

Here are a few pointers to get you started. Always remember that every brand and account is different. Analyze your own data (views and clicks) to see what content resonates with your audience the most, and adjust your digital strategy accordingly.

1. Make it consecutive and consistent. They’re called stories for a reason. When you’re thinking about what content you want to post on your Story, don’t think about it as a bunch of random separate posts. Think about what message you want to convey your audience. It’s like a television series: Each “episode” needs to stand on its own, but there should be an underlying theme across each piece of content. Whenever my company is on site with one of our clients at a concert, we try to do everything we can to capture the entire essence of the event. We start with the content of the artist and fans getting pumped up before the artist hits the stage. We make sure we get the opening and closing songs (plus some good stuff in between), and then maybe post a video and video from the after party. It really captures the essence of the whole day, rather than just a few random posts from the concert.
2. Think about your first impression. When it comes to Instagram Stories, the post you upload to kick off your Story matters a lot. If your first post doesn’t catch somebody’s eye, they’re not going to watch the rest of your Story. I highly recommend adding a video as the piece of content in your Story, as this is often the best way to grab somebody’s attention. When analyzing data, we’ve found that more people go on to watch your second post within a Story when the first thing they see is a video.
3. Switch it up. When you’re putting together a Story, a good way to keep it interesting is to alternate between using different types of media. Keeping your Story all pictures or all videos can make it a little monotonous. Kick it off with a video, but then add some still photos, Boomerangs, and maybe throw in a slow motion shot to keep it interesting.
4. Find the sweet spot. How many pieces of content should you put in your Story? This is a question I get a lot, and I always recommend 8-12 pieces of content per day/Story. This can vary slightly depending on what you’re programming, but it’s important to always remember quality over quantity. Don’t ever post a piece of content just because you’re trying to reach a certain number of posts.
5. Use links sparingly. A lot of people don’t realize this, but if you have a verified account, you can actually link out to an external website from your Stories. You don’t want to use the link tool in every single post, but this is a great way to drive people to watch a full video, read a full article, or purchase a product in your store. Make sure to make it clear to your users that they need to “swipe up” — or they won’t know there’s a link integrated into the post. This link tool is magical though. I’ve seen it bump a single up on the iTunes charts several times even within the last 30 days. It’s been great for boosting sales in our client’s online stores as well.

Instagram Stories have already proven to be such an incredible tool for our clients, and this is only the beginning. Imagine where it will be in the next few months! I’m highly anticipating what tools are going to be released next, as each one will inspire us all with an endless list of new ideas on how to better connect with and monetize a digital audience.

With statistics like these, I’m surprised you haven’t stopped reading this article and started filming. As an agency CEO, I often hear that many business owners aren’t sure what to film or they simply do not have the time. Therefore, I’ve created a list of five different video ideas and ways to incorporate them into your own marketing strategy. Bonus: They won’t take up hours and hours of your time.

Video Blog

I actually find creating video blogs can be more time-efficient than writing them. This gives business owners the opportunity to share their knowledge on film. My suggestion is to write out the five most common questions you get from your customers and create one video per question. The videos do not have to be long; they simply have to answer the question at hand.

Film six or 10 questions at a time (maybe even more). This way, you can schedule a video blog once a week and you won’t have to film so often. (Hint: Just make sure to bring a change of clothes so it doesn’t look like you wear the same thing every day!)

Make sure to upload all of your videos on your business YouTube channel. Include a headline, a detailed description and tagged keywords. This will assist with your SEO efforts. Additionally, when posting on Facebook, be sure to include captions on your videos. Eighty-five percent of videos viewed on Facebook are watched without sound. In order to add captions, you need to make an SRT file and upload the file to your video. Facebook provides an easy-to-use tutorial for this.

Facebook Live

You’ve probably heard about Facebook Live. It’s exactly what it sounds like — a live video on Facebook. This is a great platform to showcase your business in an authentic light.

Prepare ahead of time. Before going live, think about your goals. What do you want to accomplish with this video? What do you hope your followers will take from it? A restaurant owner, for example, might showcase a behind-the-scenes look at what goes into prepping meals. In this case, it’d be important to discuss the details of the recipe and provide viewers a tour of the kitchen.

Additionally, to increase video traffic and engagement, make sure to communicate with your audience when you’ll be going live. Set a date and time so that followers can watch as the video is being broadcasted.

Instagram Stories

Instagram stories allow you to share moments throughout your day and can be done with both video and photos. Using your creativity, add video snippets and/or photos to your existing story throughout the day. As a business owner, this is a great opportunity to showcase the day in the life of you. Show us behind the scenes of what makes your company so great. Because Instagram stories disappear after 24 hours and won’t show up in your profile or in the general feed, you don’t have to worry about overposting.

Cover Photos

Christmas came early: Facebook recently released the ability to change your static cover photo to video. The Facebook cover page is the most viewed area on your page. Therefore, this is a great opportunity to showcase your business.

Some things to keep in mind:

• Videos must be between 20-90 seconds.
• The suggested video size is 820 x 312 pixels.
• The video will continue to loop.

The feature is in its early stages but is expected to roll out to a wider audience soon.

Out Of The Box

This requires a little more time and effort but the results are worth it: Get your team together and brainstorm ways you can showcase your business in an entertaining light.

For example, think about parodies, music videos, car karaoke, or what’s trending to get ideas flowing. There is no such thing as a bad idea.

One of our dentist clients did a music video to the song “Can’t Feel My Face.” The video received over 150,000 views and hundreds of comments from people saying how they hated the dentist but wanted to go to this one because they seemed so fun.

Start small with one of these ideas and slowly grow to include other video options. By incorporating video, you will see an increase in click-throughs, shares and retention. Lights, camera, action!

In a recent press release, Adam Mosseri of Facebook explains, “As we make these updates, Pages may see their reach, video watch time and referral traffic decrease. The impact will vary from Page to Page, driven by factors including the type of content they produce and how people interact with it. Pages making posts that people generally don’t react to or comment on could see the biggest decreases in distribution. Pages whose posts prompt conversations between friends will see less of an effect.”

How can you then ensure your content is engaging? I’ve outlined some steps you can take to put your best foot forward in your Facebook business posts.

Use Facebook Live (and Make Them Long)

For many of us, jumping on Facebook Live means stepping out of our comfort zones. My best advice is to think of Live as a webinar. Or, if you have a more outgoing individual in your marketing team, put them in charge of being the face of your Facebook page.

In the past, videos that were only a few minutes long were OK to post on Facebook, and it was fair to expect that they would receive engagement. In 2018, however, Facebook recommends that videos be 10 minutes long. You can even stay Live for up to four hours. By staying live longer, you are creating more opportunities to capture the attention of your followers. And to boost engagement, try saying hello to new followers and asking for listeners to leave comments and ask questions. The more frequently you run these longer Facebook Lives, the more your followers will engage with your brand online.

Run Ads

Unfortunately, one way to increase your brand’s views online is to spend money on advertisements. Rather than just clicking to boost a post, we’ve seen lower costs and more engagement stem from utilizing Ads Manager. One of the benefits of this is the fact that you have more control over the target audience.

Additionally, now that you are running more frequent Facebook Lives, try boosting one that has already received decent engagement. If people are already liking what you are talking about, you can be fairly certain that the ad will provide engagement as well. As a bonus, within the ad, place a link back to your website or a call to action.

Focus on Quality Over Quantity

By now you should be focusing on quality in all aspects of your digital marketing, but this is just a friendly reminder that you need to be conscientious about every piece of content you produce.

Engage With Complementary Businesses and Influencers

Facebook’s goal is to create a community. We recommend emphasizing this in your own marketing strategy and reaching out to complementary businesses and influencers to help support one other. It’s the old, “I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine” philosophy. We all want our content to be viewed by our followers, so take the time to comment, like and share content from other pages that your target market will enjoy. After you’ve done this a few times, reach out to the page owners and ask if they would feel comfortable doing the same for you and your business.

Consider a Facebook Group

Now, I don’t recommend deleting your page and only having a Facebook group, but groups tend to have more engagement between members. Additionally, your members will receive better notifications when you post. I like to view groups more as forums, especially for B2B businesses. This is a place where you can provide software updates, answer questions and engage your prospects.

From the perspective of an average user on Facebook, these new changes may seem welcome. When you sign on, you will see top posts and not be bombarded with self-promotion from businesses. How do the changes to the news feed make you feel for your business?