I’ve been considering this topic for a while because it’s something that has come up with clients and friends from time to time. I recently read “Crush It” by Gary Vaynerchuk, it’s a quick read about the importance of branding yourself as a business and person using social media like Facebook and Twitter. I was impressed at how many points he made that were relevant both to entrepreneurs and graphic designers. At one point he even highlights the importance of having a professionally designed website. I won’t get into that here but I think his main message is important for businesses.

Branding yourself using social media can be a crucial way to drive business and create new venues for you to interact with clients.

The thing is (as he describes in more detail), places like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube are great but you can’t just create an account and expect sales from it the next day (or even over the course of initial months). You have to spend a lot of time building relationships and creating a community. This doesn’t happen overnight. Social media works best when you are not shouting out your daily specials, it works best when you create a genuine face to your company. Let your sales and merchandising staff have an individual voice. Train your marketing team in customer care basics. If you are a one-person show, even better, people love being able to put a face to a profession and humanizing yourself is never a bad thing in this corporate world. Networking online is the same as networking in the real world, you recommend and follow people and products you trust, they in turn do the same for you.

The idea is that you are best at what you do, right? For whatever reason you decided to strike out on your own and build a business that does things different than anyone else. There should be a reason clients choose you so prove it to them! Being an expert in your field is what got you where you are today and letting people tap into that expertise allows you gain their trust and increase your value in their eyes. Soon people will be falling over themselves for your opinion and your business. So keep it simple: work hard, be sincere and treat people with respect. You’ll have social media down in no time…