How To Build Your Brand Online
By Josh Bobrowsky
Quick background: This post is for both businesses and individuals looking to grow their brands.
Quick recipe for building your brand
Use the right platform: Think about what message you want to send and where you are strongest. If you are an attractive person (or visual brand) you may want to gravitate towards photos or videos. If you are a great writer, more of a focus on writing platforms may be appropriate. If you can craft an amazing story via video go with that. Lean into where you are strong, be self aware enough to stack the odds in your favor
Success story: Dollar Shave Club launched a billion dollar brand with a single funny viral video
Two Platforms: Once you know what type of messages you want to send out, try to focus on having at least two platforms to start. This will give you more of a chance to grow, and also give you some layers of protection against an algorithm change on a single platform
Note: Keep your focus to a few platforms, don’t dilute your energy trying to be everywhere at once
Avoid vanity metrics: Focus on who you connect with and have goals that extend beyond raw number of viewers. You must connect what you are doing to some end goal
Provide value: This is the key to longevity of a brand
As your brand grows you must think about how to build out the bigger picture. This means connecting what you do with your company and driving sales, revenue or brand awareness.
If you just have a personal brand think about how this can help you further your career or launch a business.
What platforms to focus on
X (formerly Twitter): My personal belief is that X has the most upside in the next few years, that said I could be wrong and I would not put all your eggs in one basket. For a full breakdown of why I believe in X please read my last Newsletter
Success story: Elon Musk: richest man in the world, used social to amplify large brands
YouTube: The largest video sharing platform in the world, if you are making videos you probably want to have them on YouTube
Success story: Mr. Beast: Largest YouTuber makes $10+ Million per year
Spotify/Apple: If you are building a podcast I would put it on Spotify, Apple and YouTube
Success story: Joe Rogan: Most successful podcaster made over $200 million
LinkedIn: Good for creating content that goes viral with a slightly older audience
Success story: Gary Vaynerchuk (all over all platforms) built many profitable businesses
TikTok: Young audience, easy to go viral, visual focus
Success Story Charli D'Amelio: Makes millions from successful brand started with dance videos
Twitch: Great for streaming gaming
Success story: Ninja Upwards of $1m per month in earnings
Instagram: Great for photos and visual
Success story: Kardashian family made billions
Newsletters: You are reading one right now on Substack. There is massive power in controlling an email list without having to worry about algorithms.
Success story: The Hustle: Newsletter sold for $27 million
Reddit: There are some businesses that can leverage a good reddit forum. Paypal got a lot of traction from Ebay and Reddit early on
Success story: Stardew Valley (video game generated $300 million in revenue with no marketing budget and super small team)
Website: As a brand grows the focus should be driving to a website within your control
Success story: Too many to list
This isn’t the total list of social media sites but these are the ones I find meaningful.
My background
Quick stats from my experience:
Grew fitness related YouTube channels for small chain of CrossFit gyms to about 80 million views. Led to substantial portion of new client acquisitions. Here is a video I made with 20 million views
Part of a small group of Carnegie Mellon students to help Adidas rebrand their online social campaigns in 2010
Recruited by VC firm to help with a turnaround of fuel additive company as their Head of Marketing
Leveraged leadership and marketing experience to raise $7m in a seed round to start a coworking space in NYC called Ignitia Office in 2016 (peak valuation $40m before shutdown). Named Top 7 Coworking spaces in NYC by Inc. Magazine
Currently getting 20-30 million impressions per year on “X” (formerly Twitter)
Why it matters
When you are growing your brand online you need to focus on two things:
Growing your reach in a thoughtful way
Creating marketing that drives business and revenue
Many people focus on vanity metrics, number of views, followers or engagements. This can lead to missing the bigger opportunities of connecting a brand to an audience.
It is crucially important to realize not all views are created equal. You want to connect in a meaningful way with the right audience.
Some of the largest companies in the world were driven by great marketers
Steve Jobs and Elon Musk have driven insane value to their companies by effectively building their personal brands and translating their storytelling to the companies they run.
Steve Jobs did his storytelling in an era before social media, Elon Musk has captivated the world with social media without spending any money on marketing for Tesla.
Every CEO should be considering if they want to be publicly facing and if so how to effectively build millions or billions of dollars in value to their brand using their personal storytelling.
Conclusion
Building your brand can 100x your growth as well as create a protective moat.
Many companies are under-estimating the power of brand and social media. If you are are building your brand (personal or business) you should be laser focused on your goals, connecting with the audience and providing value.
Remember social media has many ways of distributing content, some video, some written some photography.
Think about the right social media platform, the right social context for your brand and how to connect with people in a meaningful way that leverages what you are creating into something powerful.
Lean into stepping outside your comfort zone
P.S.
I just launched a new X (Twitter) account this week SkybrookX if you enjoy my content here I would love it if you follow me on there as well
Cheers
Josh Bobrowsky