Building your brand and your community
Date: August 2, 2017
Name: Building your brand and your community
Presenter: Danielle Wiebe
It is important for entrepreneurs to create a brand and a community that communicate with their business values. Entrepreneurs in Health and Fitness Vancouver invites Danielle Wiebe, a multi-passionate entrepreneur, to discuss the importance of creating an effective branding. In this presentation, Danielle Wiebe will provide branding and community tips for entrepreneurs to implement in their business. In addition, she will reveal actionable steps to help entrepreneurs to use branding and community strategies to build authentic business relationships.
Danielle Wiebe is a multi-passionate entrepreneur in Vancouver. She is the Founder of Vancity Business Babes, a community for women in Vancouver to connect and inspire in entrepreneurship. Danielle Wiebe is currently a consultant for Arbonne International. She was a Marketing Manager for LVZ International. Her empowers many young entrepreneurs. Her personality is her greatest asset and many young entrepreneurs inspire by her commitment and determination.
Branding with Danielle Wiebe
It is common for young people to start their entrepreneurship journey with just a small vision. It all start with something called “passion”. For Wiebe, as her passion grew, she saw the needs in the market and took the opportunity to brand it. Her leap of faith took her life to an unexpected turn.
Wiebe reveals there are two types of branding: personal and business. Both types do overlap. She defines branding as “what people say about you or think about you”. Moreover, it is how entrepreneurs show up in person. Many entrepreneurs are using social media to build their brand, but they often understate the power of present. The importance is to be authentic.
Entrepreneurs need to find their top 5 values in their businesses. When they use social media, Wiebe wants entrepreneurs to remember to align their social profile with their top 5 values. In other words, if strangers visit their profile page, they need to pick up their top 5 values instantly. Entrepreneurs need to self-check their social media profile to ensure they are aligned with their values.
Wiebe shares 3 branding tips.
- Content
- Quality
- Consistency
Content is key in branding. Content needs to align with the values. Often entrepreneurs will model other success entrepreneurs; however, they tend to lose their personal values that make them unique from other competitors. Wiebe believes value recognition is the first step, and attract target market will follow. Everything entrepreneurs post will reflect on branding. The right value leads to better and faster decision making. In this society, people will judge others from what they see on social media. Therefore, Wiebe suggests entrepreneurs to conduct social media audit every month. They should schedule their time monthly to ensure their values aligns with their content.
Quality is important. All photos and posts should be in high quality and appealing. It is an investment to branding. Furthermore, entrepreneurs need to check their spelling before posting. Many people often forget about editing before posting, which impact their quality. For business account, many entrepreneurs will hide behind their brand, but people are curious of who is behind the brand. People are looking for it and they are thinking about it. Wiebe suggests entrepreneurs to avoid posting emotional posts. They often post in the heat of the moment and regret afterwards. People will notice and will remember it. Wiebe has many different social media accounts and each account serves specific purposes and goals. In fact, all accounts revolve around her branding.
Consistency is essential. People will get confuse when entrepreneurs jump all over the place in every social media platform. Quality is always over quantity. Wiebe will post 3 times per week with great quality materials. The key for entrepreneurs is to stick to what they can keep up. It is not necessary to over post.
Wiebe shares that she finds more success in paid advertising with Facebook than Instagram. Paid advertising in Instagram can be hard to track. The broader entrepreneurs target, the most expensive it gets; therefore, Wiebe suggests entrepreneurs to narrow the target for maximum result. Facebook Advertising can be used to boost events, drive traffic and create engagement. Based on statistic, people usually look up on Instagram first, then Facebook for branding. Facebook Page and Facebook Group are a great way to create relationship. The problem with Facebook page is that people will not get to see all the posts. Facebook Group is different. It is hard to ask people to join, but their engagement is huge. The key is momentum.
Community with Danielle Wiebe
Being an entrepreneur can be lonely, and being a part of a community is powerful and supportive. It will enhance every area in life. To build a community, it is all about relationship and authenticity. Wiebe believes community is not about getting the most business card, it is to develop great relationship and connection with people who have similar values. Building a community is not an overnight thing. It takes commitment. It usually takes a year to see the impact on others.
“Share your passion, not just what you do”
Community can open up more information about others. People get excited and they have passion to help others. It gives other a chance to participate. It brings people together and allow others to be heard. It provides options for small talks. Nevertheless, Wiebe believes a community is a wonderful way to discover people’s pain point.
Wiebe shares some great tips to build a community. The first one is to create confidence in people. In the community, when people see great things, they recognize it. They often compliment and support others. They also challenge others to step up to their next level. Wiebe suggests entrepreneurs to act as a connector. When people see entrepreneurs as connector, they will share their connections with them.
In a community, people are on the lookout for others. Giving away is not taking away from business. Entrepreneurs should not make friends to make friends; instead, they should share their interests and add values to others.
“Recognize confidence in others, they will thank you later”
Questions and Answers
To create a balance in a community, Wiebe suggests entrepreneurs to be active as much as possible. They need to get to know all the members and provide them a chance to be a part of the movement.
For branding, Wiebe recommends entrepreneurs to think about their caption for their posts. Great caption can show authenticity, especially vulnerability. Entrepreneurs need to be comfortable on what they are sharing online. When they have doubt, they should leave it out.