Beyond The Content: How To Be Strategic With Your Brand Presence

When I started on YouTube in 2011, the natural hair movement was in full effect. Everywhere you turned online, as a black woman, it was all about natural hair: how to care for your hair, reviews of hair products, and so much more. When I decided to enter the space, I recognized that there were already enough voices, but I knew I wanted to become another voice in that space. I had just gone natural myself and was taking time to document my journey. Before I knew it, I had pivoted from simply documenting my journey to treating my platform as an educational space for other women to learn and care for their natural hair.

Eventually, I ran into the issue of how to separate myself from others in the natural hair space. I didn't have high-quality videos like everyone else I saw; I was using my grainy Dell laptop webcam to record my videos. I didn't take the time to learn how to design my brand visuals, so my YouTube thumbnails were just as cringe-worthy as my videos. But I knew I wanted to reach people, and that I wanted to provide them with information. So, I took the time to get clear on what I wanted to accomplish through my platform.

At first, I thought standing out online meant I had to come up with cute and clever titles, phrases, and sayings for my content. I thought I had to have the best visuals and stay on top of all the trends. I learned that the key to standing out online is staying true to who you are and what makes you unique, and that’s the power of strategic positioning.

Why does strategic positioning matter?

If you were to search the term strategic positioning, you would read information about how to identify your customers, what marketing channels to use, and who your competitors are. You might also come across information that says strategic positioning is knowing the price, product, promotion, and place. There’s also a positioning matrix that has categories of high quality, low quality, low price, or high price. Without doing the research yourself, you can get the idea that strategic positioning has a lot to do with how well your brand compares to others.

Here at NTC, I use my IMPACT framework. The letter "I" in that framework stands for internal approach. When you and I work together, 1:1, we take an internal approach to help you get clear on your impact. We start by identifying the unique qualities and attributes that can influence the solutions you provide and how you serve your ideal audience and community. To make it plain, it’s about drawing from your experience/expertise to provide solutions that create real results and real transformation. With this approach, you build up the confidence to show up and position yourself to create a high impact.

So, how do you strategically position yourself without assimilating to what’s happening around you or comparing to the brands that already exist? You leverage the 4Ps of positioning, which is the letter "P" in my IMPACT framework. The 4 ps are perspective, problems, process, and product. Let’s start with perspective.

4Ps Of Positioning

Perspective

I’ve discussed in enough detail what your perspective is and how to embrace it as a solopreneur. In this online space, it’s easy for you to be perceived as something that it’s not, and that's why developing your perspective is important to make sure that you are creating a specific narrative around the brand you are building and the mission you are pursuing. Your perspective consists of your experiences (personal and professional), your values, your vision, and your reasoning for why/how you approach the work that you do.

There are a few ways in which you can tap into your unique perspective in your online presence, but one way that I want to hone in on is your ability to break strongholds. From a spiritual perspective, this looks like breaking down negative and limiting mindsets, but the same can be applied to the work we do. When you share your unique perspective you can help someone adopt a different mindset and potentially change the trajectory of their life. This is what makes therapy so powerful, because you take your current experiences, reflect on them, and adopt a new outlook that will influence your future experiences.

Take a moment, and reflect on the industry that you’re in or the niche that you are trying to nail. What are opportunities and gaps that you can fill with your perspective? What are areas in your industry where a new or fresh approach is needed? What ideas have already been introduced into your industry, but you can expand on them with your uniqueness?

Problems

When you start with your perspective, you can identify the specific problems you can solve and opportunities where you can make your mark. One of the most memorable stories in the Bible is the story of David. The young shepherd boy who was prophesied to become king. David’s found himself fighting against lions who came up on his herd to kill his sheep. He found himself chasing after any sheep that got lost from the herd. David, the youngest of Jesse's sons, didn’t look like someone who would become king, yet he was anointed in front of his father and brothers.

Years later, David found himself, supporting his brothers in battle against the Philistines, tall giants from the land of Gath. It was only when David came to provide his brother’s food while in battle that he felt called by God, to go against Goliath, a 9 ft giant. David, the shepherd boy in the end won, not using battle equipment, but what was in his pocket, a slingshot, and a few rocks. You likely know where I am going with this story.

There are certain problems, situations, and issues that only you have the qualifications to solve. There are opportunities, right now, in your industry where you can fill the void or the gap. David didn’t know what it was like to be on the “battle-front”, but he knew he could face a giant because of the battles he had already faced. His experience as a shepherd boy qualified him. He had the heart of a lion (figuratively, the lion he defeated); he viewed his brothers and his land as his herd, and a shepherd would do what it takes to defend his herd.

I encourage you to go where you feel you don't belong, opportunities you believe you don't have the qualifications for, or feel you can't lend your expertise. People are looking for you to show up there, to give purpose & hope to their situation. Start with what you already know and know how to do, and build from there. 

Process

The beauty of embracing your unique perspective is that you can uniquely address certain problems your audience/ideal community has. I’m sure you can point out a few brands or experts who have a “unique” approach to solving common problems. That is only the result of embracing their own unique experiences, tapping into the many lessons they have learned on their journey; and the same applies to you.

I enjoy working 1:1 with clients in helping them pull out parts of their experience and expertise that they can create a framework with and then use that framework to get someone else a result or help them experience a transformation. When you’re able to draw from personal experience to create solutions for your audience, you can easily cut through the noise online. Not only that but you’re able to build on that authority and become a go-to, or what I like to call, “voice of value”.

And one of my signature frameworks is called, A.I.M, it’s a process of simplifying your marketing strategy as a solopreneur to help you cut through the noise online and become attractive to and aligned with your ideal audience/community. This process was a result of me tapping into my previous experience from blogging, vlogging, and building a presence for myself as a natural hair educator.

Product

Finally, the last part of strategic positioning is product (produce). What are you able to produce as a result of providing perspective, addressing specific problems, and leading with your unique process? The outcome of that will and can look different depending on who you are serving, but you should be able to find common results from the work you do. From previous experience, the women that I have worked with came to NTC for strategic direction, for clarity on how to define their impact and build their authority in the online space, and for simplified strategies and frameworks. And I leverage my experience of teaching and administering to help them achieve their goals and work toward their desired results.

When you have clarity about the results and transformation that you can produce for yourself and others, standing out becomes simpler. You don’t have to overwhelm yourself with exhausting strategies and complicated “frameworks”. You can simply show up in the spaces you are called to be in, and you will naturally attract and align with the people you are called to serve and impact.