Branding You! Marketing your project / self to the world

Through various means, such as Jazzled, a youth oriented social networking site I'm working on as a Project Manager when I can, and just online banter, I get quite a few inquiries from young musicians, singers, actors, even visual artists wondering how they can either break into "The Biz" or would like to take the branding of themselves or their band / idea to the next level.

Recently, one such example was a person looking to develop her idea for a t.v. and needed " a business plan Writer for a TV show" as he put it. Her wording told me she was likely green to 
"The Biz", often a challenge, however I decided to take a look at it anyway. Ouch!@

Elvis was the ultimate brander!

I knew instantly upon glimpsing her attachments that this was much more involved than simply writing some plan if she truly wanted her idea to succeed, or at least have a shot at it, still I agreed to a fee for " Writing her business plan" all the while brainstorming on how to approach this. I wasn't about to just take her money and have her fail, so what I agreed to do was stay on the project until completion and act as adviser until then - in addition to agreeing to put together a production budget and marketing / distribution plan. To seal the deal, I revamped the marketing materials she sent me in minutes switching the format and lingo to read more in-line with the industry standards, although I still do need additional info to complete it. Below an excerpt.

Although the target market is a diverse, male and female audience between 26 and 40 years of age, anyone can benefit from the entertaining, informational stories "The Journey" reveals.

Part of today's plan for any marketable item - whether person, production or project, need also have an online footprint to increase the value to the search engines, and create awareness through "Online Branding". 

 The earlier you can an get entity set up online, whether through a blog, or website, or tweeting, or You tube etc - and they need all connect back to one another - the better, so when you launch you already have an internet search engine recognized product(ion), already serving those choosing to search the subject or company or entity to view it.

The wrong head shot can delay your image branding

You can then tailor FAQ's or solicit feedback through your easy to set up blogs and other social networking sites like Face Book where you can also post links to your blog and open a related profile page.

This is all standard advice I give, and sometimes it takes sitting down with people and physically helping them set it up, but once in place they can pretty much self- manage it by adding updates on occasion which , again, lends more credibility to the computer search engines.

That being said, I  can only take them so far as in the end the talent has to be there or the ability to get the job done. An old boss of mine, David Borg, an Executive Producer of feature films such as Hansel and Gretel, who was very into motivational speakers and the like used to tell me,

" All you have to do is get them excited about it!"

"You've already qualified them that they can afford the investment, now they need an incentive to act.
All you have to do now is get them excited about it!"

And that, my friends, is the key.Now here's a really cool original graffiti  / artists and band...Enjoy!

TP out