Hey instructors! "Personal brand" has been a pretty hot topic in the marketing world these last couple of years, especially with the boom of social media where everyday people are developing their own brands and becoming influencers.
Do you think it's important to have a personal brand as an online instructor?
Though I have been struglling with this. Not konwing how to do it. I think it's very important to have a personal brand and even a respectbale website.
I think that the Branding part is very important for anyone that has an activity online, people can recognize your product, they know where to find you (website, Fb, etc.) and this brings you more sales and more success. But I also think that for someone that is just starting this activity it is not so important for now... I think he should concentrate more on building a solid course catalog and a base of at least 1000 paying students, after that he can start spending time for branding his image and his work.
I think that you are your brand and your 'brand' improves as you produce high quality courses.
When your name becomes known as a good, or even great instructor people will start looking out for your name in the emails that come from Udemy announcments.
Quality 1st, 2nd and 3rd = Personal Brand
I think having a personal brand is important and helps with marketing. Having a brand specifically as an online instructor can’t really be achieved unless you have created good quality courses which people like and which you can build a brand as an online instructor around. Building a brand around being an expert and knowledgeable in your topics is very important and can be done from as soon as you have the opportunity to start building your reputation online. It can be done by interacting in forums, groups and on courses, through being interviewed on podcasts, writing guest articles and blogs, creating YouTube videos, etc. By being helpful and demonstrating your knowledge and being consistent in how you do this, all helps with creating a personal brand. By having the same pictures, consistent social media and website names etc, people instantly recognise that guest blog post was by you, you are who that podcaster is interviewing, that Twitter post or Facebook post is yours, those forum posts are yours etc, even before you say (or they read) a word.
It may be that you work on your reputation first, but at some point you will want to flesh out the brand to include consistent logos, images, colour palette, username, the way you word things or say things etc so that you are instantly recognisable just from the profile images to videos you have shared and so that people easily know how to find you and can easily remember your business name or tagline etc to Google you or search for you on YouTube or any other platform.
@MassimilianoAlf, yeah I think you hit on a key point. Branding is really important so people recognize your product and what you have to offer. But I think it's also true that it's more important to concentrate on creating a good base and good courses before spending a lot of time on branding.
Totally @GrahamNicholls! I think an instructor's brand could be that they have high quality courses, amont other things. I think it's also possible to have a brand that may not equate to quality. Some things examples that come to mind are Wish which has a reputation for selling super cheap things with questionable quality and some restaurants that might be dirty but have delicious food (or even vice versa, really pretty space but medicore food).
Really great tips on how to build a personal brand @Hypnodan! There are a lot of different factors that folks can leverage and really make their own.
I think its very important atleast for me.
I want to create an impression in the minds of students that I am a source of knowledge and be a "go-to " person when they want to learn something.
I feel ingraining this in the students mind is very important for long term success.
Once that trust is built then those who have been influenced will become a marketing channel indirectly through "word of mouth" and that is much more effective than ads or any other type marketing.
These are my thoughts on the subject.
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