Issue De ‘Quillo: A Personal & Social Commentary Multimedia Blog

“!=” is a programing operand for “Not Equal”

We live In a Fantastic Time

How many of us are excited about the time we live in now? I’m amazed at all the cool things we, as a society, get to partake in. I’m excited by the opportunities that are presenting themselves to people who otherwise wouldn’t have had them.

So it goes without saying that I enjoy the social media era and the platforms that support it. Ok, so why am I writing this post? Well, with all the advances and excitement that exists here for us artists, business people and entrepreneurs, I do have a beef with how all these great tools are being used as more and more “common” folks are signing up.

Work That Goes Into Building a Brand

Building a brand takes finesse, strategy, an understanding of what’s going to make someone trust and feel good about you and it [the brand]. Building brands takes time, requires redesign (not necessarily literal redesign) till it’s just right and persistence. Now persistence is often a good thing but can quickly lead to a problem that turns a good healthy brand growth into a complete and utter obnoxious slow growth brand experience.

Building a Relationship

If you’re an entrepreneur you want to start building your brand by having the first line of people you know (most likely co-workers and family) be the word-of-mouth army or bugle horn singing your praises to others they know, right? This is where you learn the art of relationship building. Understand that what you do in the beginning of the relationship building process will set the tone of your brand’s growth potential. Be careful and be full of care!

How To Anti-Build (is that even a word?) Your Brand

Here are some of the quickest most effective ways to alienate and guarantee your brand is tarnished, with little to no possibility of repair, before it even has a chance to grow.

• Allow yourself to incorrectly build your brand by harassment tactics, social media bombardment (sending “become of fan of ____” on Facebook more than twice) and lack of personal relationship building. Using social media tools allow you to broadcast your service or product to more eyes and ears but it doesn’t allow you to inundate your friends, family & co-workers with messages and friend requests on a daily basis.
• Let ‘em go! You know a friend, family member or colleague has chosen to NOT add you to your social platform of choice so build the relationship another way, they know who you are and when they need you they will call…or maybe not, you can’t make everyone happy.
• Don’t assume commitment or force it; because you may be friends with someone that does not mean they are obligated to add themselves to any endeavor you are involved in. It’s a tough pill to swallow but it’s something people new to social media and small business builders don’t seem to realize. It may not pertain to a person’s daily life so if they don’t accept your “fan” requests it’s nothing personal.
• After repeated failed harassing attempts, having another family member, colleague or friend “guilt” you into accepting the invite. This is wrong on all levels and rude.

So with all that said, how do you feel? I’d love to hear what your feelings are about this or if I’m off the mark.

Related articles

• 13 Things I’ve Learned about Successful Blogging [My 5000th Post on ProBlogger] (problogger.net)
• Using Social Media to promote your brand- Steve Rubel (Brand All Stars) (webmetricsguru.com)