Build a personal brand with Local Facebook Ads
Personal branding is the combination of who you are, what you are doing, and how you are doing it. It is your purpose and your character; and how your audience perceives you.
Usually, local businesses think they have a good idea of how to build the local brand. Whether you own a corner pizza shop, a general merchandise store, or some music training or educational service, you’d think that local outreach is the way to go.
You basically would join all sorts of local community groups. People would talk and network, you’d pass out your business cards, and sooner or later, enough people will find out what you have to offer. This is how a lot of businesses start; itís all based on one-to-one, person-to-person interaction.
It should also be obvious what this approach’s key disadvantage is. I’m sorry to report, but not everybody is social. Some people would like to keep to themselves. It’s perfectly okay to be an introvert. If you’re shy, there’s no shame in that game.
Unfortunately, local business and brand identity is geared towards socialization. If you’re a shy person, I can understand. Sometimes, interacting with strangers feels like you are gouging out your eyes. It can be quite physically uncomfortable.
Most people don’t take a social situation like a fish to water. It is no surprise that a lot of local businesses don’t do all that well. Their owners have a good idea of what they need to do, but for whatever reason, maybe it’s personality. Maybe itís time, maybe it’s other resources. They just donít get around to doing it. Not surprisingly, they don’t build a local brand.
The importance of building a local personal brand
So what’s the big deal about building a local brand anyway? After all, there are lots of businesses out there, not all of them are brands. They’re successful enough to make it to the next year. So what is the big deal?
Your business already has a brand simply by virtue of being in business. And in this case, perception is reality.
Simply ask 5 people (preferably customers, not family members) to close their eyes and think of your company. Ask them what the first words that come to mind.
These adjectives – Elegant? Laidback? Edy? Conservative? Fun? – constitute your brand.
You must proactively define your company’s brand before others do it for you.
“All businesses have a brand , some by design, most by default”
Rather, branding encompasses everything you already do, from your store’s name, logo, and signage to its Website, decor, and social media campaign.
Well, here’s the thing; when you run a business, you’re investing your time. You’re focusing on that one business, or a couple of companies, and nothing else. What if you could’ve been getting more money doing something else?
Your personal brand is, in part, the relationship that your audience will have with you and your endeavor. It is what you want to be known for and how people will recognize you.
Your personal business brand is essentially the same thing; you wish to your clients and customer to remember you by, to keep you relevant. To have people talking about you for referrals, the go-to business when they think of one of the products and services you have to offer.
Think of the big-name branded companies like Amazon, Apple, and Tesla, Not one of those companies has to explain what they do in their companies for you to know what they do. These branded companies spend millions each year on different forms of advertising to get you to know who they are, and the funny thing is we don’t even realize it.
I understand we need to build a personal brand, but how can we compete on such a small budget.
- How do they find your business locally?
- Is your business impactful with brand identity?
- What kind of advertising have you done for your personal brand?
The situation you find yourself in is you set up a local business that’s not going anywhere. Sure, it’s making enough money to pay the bills. It’s breaking even. It gives you a salary that is a couple of notches above minimum wage. But is this really the life you want for yourself? Don’t you want to operate a business that lives up to its fullest potential?
At the very least, you would want to operate a business that serves as many people as possible. Right? You want to have a socially impactful business. Maybe it is a local business or an online business that you want to reach nationally or internationally.
If that’s the case, you definitely have your work cut out for you if you’re going to do this on a purely local one-to-one, person-to-person basis.
I’m not saying it’s impossible because businesses do this all the time, but for every business that can pull this off, 99 other companies don’t. And to make matters worse, roughly 50% of those businesses end up going belly-up.
I know that sounds depressing, but that’s how important branding is. The good news is there’s a shortcut. Using Local Facebook Ads that are hyper-targeted to your local area, you can build a local brand.
Local Facebook Ads can help with your personal branding.
- Local Facebook ads are great for all budgets.
- Get in front of specified audiences.
- Retarget local FaceBook ads when users visit your website.
- Easy to use Facebook ads interface.
- Quickly Build your personal brand locally.
Now, you’re probably rolling your eyes, and you’re probably skeptical about my claim that local Facebook Ads can help, and I can’t blame you. After all, based on what you’ve seen, local businesses in your area have probably become local institutions precisely because they’ve been networking for so long. A lot of these businesses have been referred on a generation by generation basis. People look at them as local landmarks. But the problem is they have a competitive advantage that you cannot pick apart. It’s not like you can quickly reverse engineer what they’ve done and somehow benefit from all that goodwill that they have built up over the generations.
The new and better way to do this is to use local Facebook Ads. I know what you think you need big budgets and a tricky platform to advertise on Facebook. You don’t have to be an expert to start advertising on Facebook locally. Create and run campaigns using simple self-serve tools, and track their performance with easy-to-read reports. More than two billion people use Facebook every month—so no matter what kind of audience you want to reach, you’ll find them here.
People can see that you’re a local business. People can see that you offer the kinds of products and services that fit their interest. Now, does this mean that the first time they visit your ad, that they would automatically click? Of course not.
This is called the Rule of Seven. According to many marketing services, prospects have to see an ad at least three times to feel that they “know it” enough to want to click it. Once you give them that impression, they would then click on your ad and then find out more about what you have to offer.
Still, when you run these ads, you become a known quantity in your local area. It’s only a matter of time until people show up to your business.
Once a user visits your website, you can retarget them on Facebook, building your visibility as a local brand and build your client base. Building your brand has never been easier or economical for small businesses to get in front of the right people. Before Facebook and Internet Marketing, companies would have to shell out thousands of dollars for prints and Tv ads that went out to people that were never going to buy for them. The internet has leveled the playing field for the little guy to get in with the big guy and get their name out there.
That’s how you create a personal brand with local Facebook Ads.
