Summary: Developing your personal or business brand on YouTube is one sure-fire way to stand out from the crowd. Learn more about the art of branding in this week's TubeTalk podcast.
We hear all the time about branding but is it really that important? Turns out it is! In this week’s episode of TubeTalk, the YouTuber podcast, we’re joined by Phil Pallen, a UK based strategist who helps people and companies position, build, and promote themselves. We discuss why have to position yourself or re-visit the positioning of what you're doing, who you are, and why people should care.
Phil’s work has been featured in CNN, Access Hollywood, Entertainment Tonight, and The Daily Mail, and he's worked with brands across all industries, including one of the sharks on Shark Tank, a number of politicians, and even a Nobel Peace Prize winner. He speaks at conferences around the world, including Tokyo, Dubai, Auckland, Helsinki, and LA.
How Important is Branding for a YouTube Creator?
Everyone defines branding differently, which makes it a valid question to ask, and a potentially confusing one to understand or to answer. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos says your brand is what people say about you when you're not in the room, whereas my definition is a combination of things: branding is your control over the first impression you give others online, and the best branding re-creates the in-person experience. There should be nothing artificial about it. All we're trying to do is take what makes you in real life so great, and re-create that on the web, so it feels like technology is not so much sitting in the way between you and me. Very simple.
If you're a YouTuber or if you have some sort of an online personality, whether that’s on Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, whatever the platform is, it's you, and you have to remove any of those barriers between you and the audience.
It's much easier to connect with someone in real life than it is online. People who understand YouTube or understand social media as a means of growth, who are building a base or becoming an influencer are amazing, because it's much harder to do that online than it is to do it in person.
Phil confirms that the resource that YouTuber’s are chasing is people's time and attention span. Building out your brand based on your personality then becomes your competitive advantage. It's your secret sauce.
Humans love familiarity and routine. How can we inject personality into everything we do so that it feels more familiar and exciting? That's what anyone who's had success on YouTube, they are masters at that. They are masters in keeping us coming back for more, and wanting more, and making us feel like we know you even though, honestly, we'll probably never meet you in real life. If we do, great, but it's that ability to re-create the in-person experience.
How to Brand Yourself on YouTube
The prospect of branding yourself on YouTube can be overwhelming but Phil’s advice is to either re-visit the positioning, or start from scratch. Sometimes people are building a brand new idea, concept, a product, a service from scratch. That's great. Or we're taking something that already exists and re-visiting the positioning.
The most important thing is looking at your goals. What is it you're trying to achieve? You’ve got to be crystal clear on what your goals are. Phil’s formula is to pair up something you love to do with something others need and are willing to spend money on. Because if it's something they need and they're willing to pay for, then you're going to have a lot easier time growing and marketing yourself without having to actually pay to get eyeballs to you.
Branding is all about your overall image. It's what you want to achieve, where do you want to be, what's the road map to get there, will they spend money and buy your stuff, whatever that stuff is? This is all part of the branding process. Even if you’re building a YouTube channel or a brand around a hobby, Phill thinks it's incredibly important to think of yourself as a business - and every good business satisfies a need.
Tune into the podcast to hear more tips on building a brand on YouTube from Phil Pallen. Huge thanks to Phil for his time and invaluable insights around personal and business branding. Learn more from Phil by following him on Twitter or checking out his website.
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Liron Segev, aka TheTechieGuy, is the Director of Customer Success at vidIQ, an internationally celebrated Digital YouTube Strategist working with some of the largest brands and YouTube influencers in the world. Over the past 20+ years, his work has taken him to South Africa, the UK and the US where he frequently speaks at conferences and provides expert tech commentary for various print publications, radio, and TV while actively running his Tech YouTube Channel.
