So you want to build a brand on social media, but you feel like no one is
listening, and that no one can actually see you? Well, in this video,
I'm going to share five steps to creating an uncopiable brand. Now more than ever,
there's a huge copycat culture online, and so it's really important to understand
how to build a brand that stands out and lasts longer than just 15 seconds of fame.
Your brand isn't just one thing, and I talked about this in last week's video, where I broke
down how social media really works, and you can check that out here and in the description below.
But what I've come to realize after a decade of working in the online space is that it really
is this simple formula of intent plus relevancy plus you equals success. And to remind you, when
you're building a brand, it all comes back to this flywheel concept that I shared also in last week's
video, which really creates the momentum for you to grow an audience online, so let's review that.
So it all starts with your viewer, and truly understanding exactly who you want to reach,
then creating relevant content for that viewer based on their interests and what they value.
From there, the algorithm on any platform is going to categorize you and understand
how to use its internal traffic sources to reach more viewers,
followers, and subscribers just like that, and that creates this
forward momentum that helps build a really valuable, really loyal audience online.
Before I get into the five steps to creating an uncopiable brand,
I want to share a few things that are just straight up lies and myths when it comes to
building an audience and building a brand on social media. Number one, size doesn't matter,
it's all about quality over quantity. There is a serious rise in what we call micro-influencers,
which essentially means that you don't need a big audience, but you need an audience of dedicated
followers, subscribers, and fans in order to truly create opportunities and monetization online.
Number two, going viral doesn't necessarily build a brand. I spoke about this in-depth in last
week's video. Your brand isn't just one thing, it's your story. Number four, the biggest myth
is that you're at the mercy of the algorithms, it's just not true. I recently mentioned a concept
called manufacturing fame, and essentially what that means is that it doesn't take a big audience
for you to build authority and truly become an influencer, it really depends on two key factors.
Those factors are who are you trying to reach, and what do you want to be known for? And then
it's your job to create content that's relevant to those two factors to feed any algorithm in
any platform with the right information so that they can help you reach more of those people.
So today's video, this is what we're going to cover. Number one,
identify your standout story. Number two, find and align with your community. Number three,
pick your core platform. Number four, think like an advertiser. Number five,
strategize your content. Quickly, before we get into it, this channel is dedicated to
making entrepreneurship available to everyone, so a little thing you can do to help me out to
reach more people is give this a quick like so we can reach more people in the algorithm.
Number one, identify your standout story. The thing about the online space, and truly anything,
if you really want to stand out, you have to understand that authenticity is your greatest
advantage. People can steal what you look like, what you sound like, and what you do,
but they cannot steal who you are, which is why I said that your brand isn't just that one thing,
it's actually your story, your experiences, and what makes you
you, that's what ultimately makes you stand out in a very crowded marketplace.
And if there's one person, love her or hate her, who knows how to build an uncopiable
brand on social media, it's Kim Kardashian, and she recently shared a post on Instagram,
and I have to share this with you, because it really sums up what we're talking about here.
She posted this and said, "They can steal the recipe, but the sauce won't taste the same,"
and that's what I am talking about here. People can try and copy everything about you,
or copy your information, or copy your content, or even what you look like, but they cannot take
away your secret sauce, and this is going to get to the root of what your secret sauce truly is.
I want to share a quick example to truly illustrate how powerful this can be. I
was recently speaking with a client in our Authority Accelerator program as she was
building out her online course idea, and she said, "I just don't know. I'm not sure
the niche direction I want to head in. I have so many experiences and so many stories I can share."
And I said, "Okay, what do you want to do?" And she said, "I want to motivate people."
And I said, "Well, so does everybody else in the world, that's a really broad topic. Tell
me your story." And she said, "Well, I was in a really bad relationship, a really bad marriage,
and I was able to create financial independence for myself by publishing books online, and that
enabled me to be able to leave the marriage." And I said, "That is an incredible story that is
so unique to you, and so empowering to so many people out there who may be in the same spot,
and ultimately your audience is going to be a mirror for your experiences,
your values and what you've been through, so you have an audience right there."
So that's the difference between going from broad, which we talked about,
broad equals broke, specific equals opportunities, monetization, and sales, and I'm going to dig into
this deeper in a later step. But what you need to understand is you have to really identify
that thing that makes you tick, that makes you different, and that makes you relatable to other
people who are just like you, and going broad and taking a subject like inspiration or motivation
makes you lost in the sea of people who are trying to do the same thing.
And if you just go onto social media, posting inspirational and motivational content without
any clear intent of why you're actually doing it or who you're trying to reach,
it's very confusing for the algorithm, as I mentioned, because if you're posting random
content that's all over the place, and broad content, the algorithm doesn't know where
to categorize you, and therefore it doesn't know how to use its internal traffic sources
to help you reach more people just like that, so it keeps you really small and it keeps you
hidden essentially, which is not doing you or the people you want to serve a favor.
When you get super clear on your story, you then have a clear intent,
and you then can make relevant content, and it's all based on you, which as I mentioned,
equals success on social, and really in life. So as a quick reminder, I've talked about
this before, but when you're thinking about a niche, remember it isn't just that one thing,
and your brand isn't just one thing, and it's all about identifying your unique micro niche,
because the old way of finding a direction for your business and your brand was to pick one
big broad category, beauty, dating, mindset, et cetera. Now it's all about identifying what
you bring to the table and your secret sauce that nobody else can truly copy.
That comes down to what we call micro niching. Micro niching is all related to your story,
and when it comes to this, to identify what your unique perspective is, it's really digging
deep and thinking about the long-term game. So I prepared a few prompts for you that I want you to
think about in terms of figuring out the mark you want to leave, because essentially a brand is the
mark you want to leave in the world, it is your legacy, so let's think about these questions.
Number one, if you were to die tomorrow, what's the legacy you want to leave behind? Number two,
if you could stop future generations from having to go through something you went through,
what would that thing be? And finally, the most impactful,
if you were to write the story of your life and position yourself as the hero,
and share all of the things that you've overcome to become the person you are today,
what would that story sound like? And the reason that's so important is because there is
a beginning and an end to every story, and there is a zero and a hero state in every single story.
So in your own story, if you identify your zero state, which is your most challenged, toughest,
most difficult state that you've ever been in, and your hero, which is the desired outcome that you
really wanted, everything that is in-between there becomes the content you share online,
becomes the message you have to share with the world, becomes the impact you're going to make,
becomes your brand and your legacy that you're going to leave on the world.
So the simple sentence that I share often is, "I went from blank to blank so that I could blank."
If you can fill out those blanks with your zero state, your hero state, and your desired outcomes,
you have a really good idea of the entire foundation of what you're meant to do in this
world, what kind of content you're going to make, what kind of opportunities you want to create for
yourself, and ultimately the foundation of a really successful, really impactful business.
Number two, find and align with your community. The biggest mistake you can
make is being the cool kid, the laid-back kid at the house party. You don't want to do that,
because then you're waiting for people to come to you, and that just isn't going to happen, there's
plenty other people people can go to. So you want to be the friendly, helpful kid at the party,
and simply put, an entrepreneur is somebody who provides value and solves problems.
So how can you solve someone else's problem, and who do you truly want to serve and make an impact
on, and how can you find them? In order to really figure out how to find them and how to speak to
them, you need to understand your ideal audience's true core values. There are a few questions
you want to ask yourself and truly dig into to understand who is it that you serve, and how you
can best show up for them, and create content that truly resonates with them and is relevant to them.
What kind of brands, companies, and influencers does your ideal audience
love? What does your audience absolutely hate? What are their core values?
Where do they spend time online? And the easiest thing that you can do, a little trick here, is
everything that I just asked about your ideal audience, flip it and ask it about yourself,
because your ideal audience is a mirror for you when you were seeking answers, when you were
trying to solve the problem that you are now creating your brand and your business around.
Not only do algorithms categorize you on who you want to serve and what you want to be known as,
they also categorize you on human behavior, so truly understanding how your audience interacts,
where they live, where they hang out, what they like to spend their time doing,
what they're engaging with, really helps you understand what kind of people you're
serving and what kind of content to create for them that's going to resonate the most.
A few things you can do to really understand who you're serving and what that ideal audience looks
like is go online and start doing research. You want to type in the problem you want to solve,
or the value you want to provide, and things that are related to the transformation and the
story that you have and your own experiences, and see what blogs come up, see what books come up,
and also see what influencers and accounts come up. And when you find those,
I want you to dig deep. I want you to go into comment sections, I want you to check
out reviews on places like Amazon, and I want you to understand what they love and what they hate,
and I want you to know what they engage with most, what kind of content they're engaging with,
the topics that they get the most fired up about, because that is going to inform you what kind of
content you can create to really light a fire, and to truly get seen and heard by the right people.
And to take it a step further, like I said, don't be the cool kid, actually engage in conversation,
and very simply put, start adding value. So if you find an account that has a very similar
audience to the audience you want to attract, get involved in the comments section. Respond
to comments that are questions, and that haven't been responded to. Provide value,
provide service, and all of a sudden, people are going to start to take notice that you actually
really know what you're talking about, and they're going to want to be a part of your community,
that is how you start to grow a really healthy, really loyal, really value-based community.
Number three, pick your core platform. My core platform is YouTube. Why do I love YouTube so
much? Because it works for me when I'm not working, and no other platform truly works
the same way in the same effect that YouTube does. So I love YouTube because it creates
what I call evergreen traffic, which means that I can create a video, spend an hour making it,
and it will serve me and bring in new audience members and be discovered by new people through
search and through suggested on YouTube for years to come. I have videos that are five, six years
old that are still bringing in new subscribers and new leads and new clients every single day for me.
And when it comes to platforms that are on-demand, as I refer to them, like Facebook, Instagram,
LinkedIn, Twitter, et cetera, you do get a burst of attention and urgency with your content,
but it doesn't last very long. So I love the return on my time spent on YouTube, and what I
continue to get from it in return in the long run. But when it comes to picking your core platform,
it's really important to play to your strengths. You don't want to create more friction than is
necessary, so if you hate being on video, maybe YouTube is not the platform for you. If you are a
really great writer and that comes naturally to you, or you take really amazing photos,
or you're a really talented artist, a more visual on-demand platform is probably best, so play to
your strengths. Double-down on what works best for you and what comes most naturally to you,
because that's how you're going to build a brand that feels totally authentic to you.
And the beautiful part about this is when you pick a core platform,
which means you're spending about 80% to 90% of your time,
and creating 80% to 90% of content for that one platform, it's going to help grow everything else,
particularly YouTube, because you are discovered by new audience members every single day,
it allows you to reach more people, and those people then follow you across platforms, and
it makes it very easy to diversify. When you're creating video content, you can take little clips
and repurpose them onto Instagram Reels, you can create TikTok videos out of them, you can turn it
into content for other platforms and spaces really easily without having to reinvent the wheel.
Number four, think like an advertiser. Take a second to think about some of the brands that
you really, really admire, and if you could describe their audience and who they serve
and what they do, how would you describe it? This is a really great exercise to do, and I challenge
you to do this as homework after you watch this video, because it's going to help you understand
how important those factors are, because any business that has grown to a substantial amount
knows that you have to get really clear on who you are actually serving, and truly
understanding them and knowing them, and creating products and services that are of value to them.
So not only does the algorithm get confused by broad and random content,
and not knowing who your audience is, so you really can't grow,
but also just from a monetization perspective, it's hard for an advertiser to figure out if
they should even run ads on your channel or do a brand sponsorship if they don't know
who you are serving. So your goal is to fill in a sentence that states, "Oh, people need
to work with me because I talk about this and I have an audience full of these kinds of people."
You want to be able to fill in those blanks very specifically so that it becomes super obvious
to both the algorithm, to help you grow, and to brands, advertisers, to know why they would even
want to work with you, and to make it clear to your customers and clients and audience members
how they can work with you and why they would hire you. I'll say it again,
broad equals broke, specific equals sales, opportunities,
monetization, and the deep impact that you want to have on your ideal audience.
Number five, strategize your content and understand that there are
levels to this. So let me just do a quick recap on something I shared in last week's video,
talking about the three core kinds of content that I have identified that you need to be sharing,
regardless of the platform. Let's dive in. Number one, evergreen.
This means that this content will never go out of style. It will constantly be valuable,
and it will allow your current audience members and new audience members to find value
from the content that you're sharing. It creates steady growth and long-term growth.
Viral content. This can create an immediate surge in views, but it's really difficult to
control and actually know if you're truly going to go viral. This tends to be on trending topics,
it tends to be emotional content, and more beginner/surface-level content. It has a
shorter shelf life, but a wider audience. It doesn't carry a lot of long-term benefit
to your brand or business, but it can carry a short-term burst and benefit of brand awareness.
Number three is depth. This will provide average momentum, average engagement on your content,
but it builds huge depth, loyalty, and community with your audience and with your core viewers,
subscribers, and followers. It humanizes you and it differentiates you from your competitors
because it is truly based on you, your story, your experience, and you're sharing authentically.
Having a mixture of all three kinds of content creates this cadence that allows you to create
steady and consistent growth. They all serve different purposes, and going super
hard on just one kind of content is going to create some stagnation, and let's say you just
only ever do evergreen content for the rest of your life, you're going to attract an audience
that's interested in learning from you, but they don't really care about you or your brand. They
just want to watch your videos for what they came for, and that's about it. So you have to have a
nice mix of adding value through evergreen, going viral, building brand awareness, and creating
depth and loyalty with your depth content. And remember, the easiest thing about creating content
and building your brand is that it all comes back to the foundation of sharing your story, sharing
your experience, and sharing the lessons that you have learned to create an impact on others.
So the simple recipe for creating super powerful content online is this. Get very clear on the
intent and the impact you want to have, and who you want to reach with your content. From there,
create relevant content that is catering to the people that you truly want to serve, which are
often a mirror for you. And finally, to monetize, in your free content that you share online,
make sure that you include a call to action for people to connect with you further. Whether that's
buying your product, enrolling in your program, subscribing to your email list, becoming a lead,
be sure that you have some sort of call to action so people don't just forget about you after they
consume your content. This creates loyalty, and it creates a legacy business, which is something
that I define as a business that creates an income and an impact long after you're gone.
Remember that your brand is the mark you're leaving on the world, it's the legacy you're
leaving behind, so take some time to really dig into what that impact looks like for you
and how you want to show up, serve, and make a difference. Are you with me? I can't wait
to hear what your takeaways are and how you're going to put this into action, so let me know
in the comments below. And like I said, if you really want to figure out your secret sauce,
I do have a free master class that I encourage you to check out, it's going to help you get to
the root of it, at workwithsunny.com, and you can check that out in the description below.
Thank you so much for being here. Like I said, this whole channel is dedicated
to making entrepreneurship available to everyone, so a small thing you can do to
help us reach more people is just hit that like button, be sure to subscribe for new videos
every single week. Be sure to check out this video next, all about how social media
really works. I hope you enjoy it, and I'll see you in the next one. Bye.