Global Public Articles - Aleen Zakka Blog

Global Public Articles / Stephanie Burns

You can’t stop checking their Instagram, you read every email sent, you login for webinars, or hoard their products. Friend, you are addicted.

Stephanie Burns Contributor / ForbesWomen I cover female entrepreneurship and personal branding.

Creating a brand is no small feat, but creating an addictive brand is harder. Even harder than that? Creating an addictive personal brand. Personal branding is very hot right now and not a lot of people are getting it right. A few that I am obsessed with: Rachel Hollis, James Altucher, and Brian Harris. I eat up all of their content, save their emails and take action on what they say. Rachel Hollis is like that super fun sorority sister you love, James Altucher stretches your brain because he thinks differently about absolutely everything, and Brian Harris has a clever solution for every growth challenge you could possibly encounter.

Hi, I’m Stephanie, and I’m addicted.

When you stop for a minute to really assess which brands you have totally fallen head over heels with – you’ll notice they are all completely different, however they are more similar than you think. I reached out to Bushra Azhar, founder of The Persuasion Revolution, to get her take on how to create an addictive personal brand. Bushra is quite possibly one of the funniest people on the internet and that shows up in her personal branding – making me totally addicted to everything she writes. I’m not the only one, Bushra has a legion of addicted followers hanging on her every hilarious word.

Bushra tells me that there are three things every brand must have in order to be addictive – the “tale of intrigue” is what she calls it. “Your tale of intrigue is all about what you stand for, what you believe in and what you fight for – not just in business, but in life,” she says.

So what makes up this “tale of intrigue?”

Perception

“This is what people think of (and feel about) you based on what you share publicly. A compelling moral code, an enchanting story and a collection of captivating anecdotes are what makes for the right perception,” says Azhar.

Getting a peek inside the life of someone is what sparks that first attraction and gets you noticed. You don’t have to go all in and show every nook and cranny of your life, but creating a personal brand is about showing your person. It’s the reason why we have good friends, we show them who we are – your personal brand needs to have the same thing.

Positioning

“If perception is how people think of you as a person, positioning is more so how people think of you as an expert. You need one to get noticed (perception) and the other to get taken seriously (positioning). Never worry about convincing prospects to choose you. Instead, YOU are the Chosen One — if you position yourself well.”

Letting people into your world do they start to get to know you is the first step. Then it’s time to impart your knowledge, provide value and set the stage for learning. If people like you and they can learn from you, you are well on your way to having an addictive personal brand.

Promise

“Your people have the right perception of you as a caring & decent human. They recognize your positioning as both relatable and credible,” says Azhar. “Now you have to offer them a promise. This is the final piece of your tale of intrigue. As a master persuader, it is your job to present a superpower promise to your market. A transformation. A better after. A brighter future.”

Get your promise as crystal clear as can be, so that your audience knows exactly what to expect. They’ll know why they engage with your brand and what takeaways they get when then spend their precious time with you. Not only that – it’s easier for them to relay why they are so addicted to your brand to their peers. And as we all know, word of mouth is pure gold.

Perception, positioning, promise: get these right and your brand will be an addiction too.

Global Public Articles / Malini Agarwal

It is abundantly clear that women’s empowerment is absolutely critical to the overall development of any society and economic growth.

Malini Agarwal

Founder and Creative Director of MissMalini Entertainment

As I sit here writing this piece, it occurs to me that I am completely a product of digitization. My entire career and identity have been shaped online for which I am extremely grateful and I have seen this increasing trend across the world, particularly for women.

It is abundantly clear that women’s empowerment is absolutely critical to the overall development of any society and economic growth. The good news is that information technology has exponentially expanded the opportunities for women, in India and across the globe. Here are six such ways digitization is empowering women.

Rural education

To seek real change we must build from the bottom up. In an enlightening case study conducted by Bridgewater called Impact of Digitization on Women’s Empowerment: A Study of Rural and Urban Regions in India, the authors make a compelling case for how mobile technology “has brought the world to [womens’] fingertips” which in turn allows them to stay ahead of current affairs and encourages financial independence by facilitating online transactions. These are trends we must collectively as a society encourage. Something as simple as teaching your domestic helpers to use a smartphone can go a long way in empowering them and their families.

Having a voice

Digital media has encouraged women to speak up and discuss issues that are crucial to their very survival. This has brought topics such as sexual harassment, domestic violence, female sexuality and the gender divide front and centre instead of hidden away behind closed doors with largely men deciding the narrative. Many campaigns have gathered steam thanks to this digital amplification, with the #metoo movement being a prime example of this around the world. Likewise for the “challenge accepted” where women globally posted black and white photos of themselves, an act that originated in Turkey to bring attention to the fact that Turkish people wake up every day to see a black and white photo of a murdered woman in their newspapers. This was not only a victory for awareness but a call for action that reverberated around the world.

Entrepreneurship

The age of the Internet and e-commerce has created numerous opportunities for women to come into their own and explore business opportunities they never had before. Small business owners are really flourishing online, including women with all kinds of unique business ideas they are executing to perfection from their own homes.

Bringing mothers back into the workforce

Many women voluntarily chose to give up their careers in favor of raising children, but in many cases, they are also left with no choice. There are very few businesses that take important facets of motherhood such as breastfeeding into consideration, let alone offer the space or comfort to do so. With digital becoming the primary mode of communication including in the business world, women can more readily balance the demands of motherhood and their jobs from the privacy of their homes. Imagine the amount of brain equity we are reclaiming as a globe in the process.

Building community

For generations, we have been conditioned to believe that women are always in competition with each other. For limited jobs, for the ideal man, the perfect face, the better body. But this is simply not true. This is a story we’ve been fed for far too long. In my experience, women are absolutely the best champions for other women. The hashtag #womensupportingwomen isn’t simply a trend used over 12 million times. I see it happening in so many ways across innumerable fields. One of the reasons I launched the Girl Tribe by MissMalini App earlier this year was to enable women to communicate in a safe, judgment-free space where they can actually flourish using social media to empower and inspire each other. That is what women want from the Internet. They want to make real connections, which sadly isn’t always possible in the unfiltered, unpoliced open Internet.

Gender equality

An Accenture report, Getting To Equal How Digital is Helping Close the Gender Gap at Work, assessed that, “If you are digitally fluent, it can provide a positive effect throughout your entire career lifecycle, and the effect benefits women more than men.” It goes on to state that, “if governments and businesses can double the pace at which women become frequent users of technology, we could reach gender equality in the workplace by 2040 in developed nations and by 2060 in developing nations.”

Unfortunately, India still has the lowest overall score of all the countries across the board for digital fluency for women. This is something we should all take a long and hard look at if we hope to make any significant progress as a nation.

Original Source: Entrepreneur

Global Public Articles / Divya Parekh

Writing a book builds your personal brand and brings significant professional advantages — and it doesn’t have to be as hard as you might think.

Divya Parekh

ENTREPRENEUR LEADERSHIP NETWORK CONTRIBUTOR
CEO

We’re living in the ever-growing digital information world. Billions of consumers log onto the internet and social media daily to access business, learning and connection-building opportunities. An entire world of knowledge is in the palm of our hands if we own a smartphone; information is easier to obtain than ever before.

Content keeps consumers in touch, and over the years, the means of content distribution have steadily transformed: YouTube has become the new TV, podcasts have become the new radio and written content is indexed for all to consume for generations to come.

A book is an excellent source of content, and it’s underutilized. A book can educate consumers about one topic or several. In addition, a book is a legacy form of content and offers an opportunity to create compounding value.

When you think about writing a book, it might seem overwhelming. However, I invite you to put that feeling aside for the moment because writing and publishing a book is much more manageable in the digital-information age.

Today, you can hire a ghostwriter to put your thoughts onto paper. Or you can use talk-to-text programs to tell your story out loud — avoiding some of the labor required. You can also take existing content and repurpose that content into a book. There are many cost-effective and time-friendly ways to create a book.

Whether you’re a professional or a lifetime entrepreneur, building a personal brand has tremendous benefits. The more you intentionally invest energy in your brand, the greater return you’ll experience in revenue and impact growth. An audience of tuned-in consumers gives leaders leverage that leads to growth.

Here are three fundamental reasons why every leader should consider writing and publishing at least one book.

A book helps demonstrate your knowledge and expertise

A blog post can be a few hundred words. A podcast episode is a certain length. A newsletter post or article has a word limit that consumers expect you to adhere to if you want their attention.

When consumers pick up a book, they expect to invest time and energy into a longer-form piece of content. They’re willing to make that investment. Since the consumer is committed to whatever you want to talk about in a book, it’s a significant opportunity to prove your knowledge and expertise.

Leaders can create a book and demonstrate deep knowledge about what they do. A career leader can think of this as creating a manual or blueprint for what he or she believes and how he or she leads. An entrepreneur can showcase his or her expertise on the topic(s) related to his or her business.

A book helps build a consumer base, and that gives you options

Since a book can provide extended value to consumers, that value helps bring more consumers to your brand.

In marketing, too many leaders try to go for a sale without having first added value. A book allows you to add value first, which is an approach that helps your brand stand out. It’s refreshing to experience value first. Building an audience of people who follow you and want to know more because of the value you’ve provided through a book creates options for leaders. With an audience, you can monetize the attention or leverage that attention for increased profits.

What you know has value, and consumers, employees and connections could benefit from your experience. Putting your wisdom into a book helps you build a loyal group of consumers that want to know more and are willing to invest in being part of your brand.

A book creates a legacy that forever adds value

Your goal, as a high-performing leader, is to create freedom and build a legacy. Writing and publishing a book develops an asset that will outlive you and your work.

Add value and help people understand the topics you’re an expert on; create awareness of a better way and show the path to success through your book. Your knowledge and expertise can build a legacy that impacts generations to come.

Use today’s tools, software and access to information to write and publish a book demonstrating your expertise. Writing and publishing a book is an excellent content-marketing strategy and an incredible way to build your brand.

Original Source: Entrepreneur