How to Take Control of Your Online Presence
Name: Lauren V. Davis
Name of Business: Lauren Davis Creative
Lauren Davis will help you create memorable personal branding messages that convert to engagement and life-long clients. Originally (and still) a record store owner since 2006, Lauren learned early on how to transform one-hit tactics into a personalized brand that drives legendary visibility.
The leadership and drive Lauren found building an iconic staple in her community and nationwide inspired the creation of Lauren Davis Creative in 2010, a marketing and branding consultancy that works closely with entrepreneurs on aligning, developing, and encouraging the Real Personal Brand inside them, making them highly visible, to become the authority in their industry.
Lauren has received senate recognition for her support of small-businesses through her non-for-profit that helps educate Local Businesses and is a featured marketing expert in Reader’s Digest, HuffPost, and on global top-rated podcasts. Finally, Lauren host’s her own show, The Real Personal Branding Podcast, where she uncovers the secrets of personal brand building online from some of the top thought-leaders, speakers, authors, and coaches in the world.
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ldaviscreative/
Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/understandsocialmedia
Lead Magnet: https://lauren-davis-creative.ck.page/aca6b3a010
Podcast: https://laurendaviscreative.com/show/
I work with people building a personal brand…as well as small brick and mortar businesses…
What I always truly believe is that businesses should try and take as much control over their online brand as possible….in the most minuscule way, building your social media platforms on the ones where you’re serving your customer…
If you have the ability to take ownership over your name..on a certain platform, you should probably do it. That doesn’t mean you should let accounts sit there and die and not have any movement…there are simple ways to keep them active…
I would recommend…Googling yourself…ask yourself, ‘How am I showing up to other people online?’…I put all the different ways my name could be spelled or listed..and I also set up Goggle alerts. That way when my name gets mentioned…Google is going to send me an email.
We have a lot of control honestly.
You can take advantage of all of the free social media platforms, you can build your website and it takes a little bit of effort to really dive in to what will bring people to your website first.
You can control the narrative of how your presence shows up online and you might as well do it because it’s going to help your particular unique audience find you better.
The one thing you always have control over, the one thing you can constantly do is create more content. So continue to create good content.
If you find something you don’t necessarily like, maybe do some deep digging into what you don’t like about that article and see how you can truly correct it from the inside out.
..Show up as the real person that you are. As the genuine person that you are…there’s gonna be no ability to be fake or be disingenuous anymore. No hacks, no bought growth. That kind of stuff is out and conversations and real genuine relationships with your audience are in in a big, big way. If you’re not taking advantage of that, if you’re not holding that dear to your heart, then my recommendation would be to start getting serious about that.
It boils down to knowing who your audience is….and let me tell you how I would recommend getting to know your audience. If you think of a networking event…you show up…maybe a person comes up to you and shoves their business card in your face and they do their elevator pitch at you and your eyes kind of glaze over…we’ve all been there where this person is just pitching you right off the bat…who is this person? I’m never gonna do business with them. This is so off-putting and so annoying.
Situation 2…they come up and ask you a very directed question…and as your answering, they’re looking over the top of your head…and looking for the next best person to talk to and not even listening…at the end of that interaction, you don’t feel good.
Situation #3..you spend time connecting with someone..this has been so great getting to know you. You both ask questions back and forth. And you feel…this is someone I want to get to know. Then you set up a coffee date…and then you decide maybe we can do business together. That feel much more real and aligned.
If social media is feeling strained and forced to you…it might be because it’s not aligned with how you get to know people in real life.
You can use social media just as you would be yourself in real life.
Start with those 15 people that always come and watch your posts or like your posts…there’s a reason why those people always like your posts..Don’t ignore them. Pay attention to the people that are already at your party.
Thinking about our audience, many time we just thing about the demographics. (what gender, where they live) But there’s also psychographics….the values your customer’s hold, their beliefs, their lifestyle..
Behavioral psychographics…why are they loyal to your organization? What are their patterns of past support?…that’s how you get to know your audience on a much deeper way.
If there’s somebody that you really want to get connected with? Go back to how you’re really feeling in real life. How would you open up a conversation with that person?…Would you compliment them on something they’re doing?
I think online we think everything should be so fast….In what world do we do business with someone after the first thing they say to us? This never works.
Figure out why you want to get to know them….Is it because I want to do business with them? Is it because I want to learn more about their business? Is it because I love their podcast or I love their shoes?…Whatever it may be…and then find that common ground….What about this person that I can connect with them on? It goes back to that psychographic piece…
Ask yourself ‘how can I really bring value to this person’?…How am I going to improve this person’s life by being in it?
When I was starting…we knew nothing about starting a business…people started paying attention..we started putting ourselves everywhere online that we could….Everytime there was a new social media platform, we leaned into it…How do we build a legendary brand? …We needed to get some national attention…we would reach out to different organizations…we would ask them to share…we would Tweet them…we did this from the inside out….we are constantly asking ourselves, ‘How can we be that legendary record store that people talk about later on?’…What stories will people tell?…our receipts ask people to share things online…doing little things to help our customers take ownership in creating this legendary story.
For every business…brand…it’s a different path. But, asking yourself ‘What do I want to be known for later on?’ That can help solidify your path…and move in the right direction.
What stuck with me is the ability to look beyond what’s in front of me and say ‘What do I want to be known for? How do I want to be remembered?’
People are 16 times more likely to read a post from a friend than from a brand.
Your job as a…business owner is to be the face of your brand and to connect with people and be their friend. When people believe their friends, it’s because they believe that their friends have their best interests at heart….we can use that for the good of our businesses and…the purposes we stand behind.
Adapt quickly. Lean into new things and be excited about the future.
There is always enough business to go around. Don’t worry about competition.
Go have an extended stay in Latvia.
A little dog. A MacBook or a cup of coffee.
Audio: Ariza Music Productions