Your Own Celebrity

Attention introverts: running a small business just got harder.

In small business, it’s no longer just about who you know and what you do, it’s about who you are. And who you are is pretty important! Today, it’s about actively managing your own celebrity.

I talk about this quite a bit in social networking circles. It’s all about you!

• Blogs and video give small business owners a publishing platform for expressing their ideas in short, concise bursts that reinforce their expertise. Why am I in this business? Why should anybody trust me?
  
• LinkedIn demonstrates the power of our connections and the recommendations other professionals have provided. Who can I refer back to? What do I know? What jobs have I held in the past?
  
• Scribd and Google Docs can help us manage and distribute our intellectual property. What are my big ideas? What more can I do to share and add value? How is what I’m saying important?
  
• Facebook helps extend our relationships and connect with community. What are others saying about me? How can I answer their questions? How can I help, participate, and contribute?
  
• Twitter allows us to share our most immediate thoughts. Here’s what I’m thinking now and why what I’m thinking matters to you.
  
• Foursquare and Facebook Places are like the paparazzi – oo! Look where I am! Where I’ve been! This is where you should be…!

Social networks allow small businesses to create a cult of personality around its owner or a figure of fiction (think: Old Spice Guy) that represents the product or company; we can extend ourselves, our ideas, and our convictions in a way that reinforces trust or piques interest in our customers. Social networking personalizes our brand and capitalizes on our own celebrity.

Further, as a business owner, you need to realize the power of trust and the important of social leaders. That’s the power of their celebrity. People who talk about your product, visit your store, bookmark their location, become a “Mayor” and tell their friends about it – in near real-time – are people you need to know! They’re the people who shape attitudes and opinions in their social circles. How can you “friend” these people and make sure they’re always saying the most positive things about your services?

It’s said that people do business with people they know and trust.  Social networks give us the ability to continuously build and reinforce trust. The more a small business owner can tap into that, the better off they’re going to be.

There are some wider-reaching lessons here, too, for artists of all kinds trying to build community around their work, a non-profit around their services, an author around their next book, the owner of a new restaurant down the street, or even the individual looking for work. Leveraging social networks as a self-managed PR campaign tool has become increasingly more important.

Now isn’t the time to tune-out and turn-off. Now’s the time to think “extrovert” and to start relating your brand to your own personal celebrity.

R

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