How to Create an Entrepreneur’s Personal IP That Will Attract Traffic and Boost Sales

In the era of industrialization, products are king, and most entrepreneurs are reluctant to stand in front of the camera. We can only learn a little or two about the entrepreneurial process of entrepreneurs from the biographies of celebrities.

With the advancement of mobile technology and the rise of social networks, online shopping has become an important way of business transactions. Consumers are paying more attention to online interaction, and more and more brands have to enter the ranks of traffic competition to attract consumers with all their strength.

For some traditional brands or emerging companies, it is not enough to rely on the product itself.

Many founders began to try to create personal IP, hoping to use the popularity of IP to attract brand and product traffic, so as to gain the trust and favor of the public.

In the past, Ma Yun starred in “Gong Shou Dao” to help the “resurgence” of Alibaba Pictures’ big entertainment, and then Gree Dong Mingzhu live broadcasted the goods, Shu Congxuan, the chairman of the fellow chicken, “became popular” in a word, and then the brand of “Xiaomi=Lei Jun” Value recognition. The founder uses his personal IP to bring huge traffic to the brand and realize commercial realization. The brand value effect behind it is self-evident.

This also makes more entrepreneurs believe that the higher the exposure, the better to be a personal brand.

However, this is a misunderstanding.

Misunderstanding of “brushing face”
Exposure is not the same as reputation. In 60% of the scenarios, the key point of personal brand management is to reduce exposure and make every display effective, so as to create a sense of scarcity of value.

Of course, the degree of exposure is also related to the company’s attributes and development stage. Design the exposure objects and exposure frequency according to the actual situation of the enterprise.

Entrepreneurs “swipe their faces” and automatically label live products with “quality first, product first”. Internet celebrity live broadcasts focus on sales and the atmosphere of the live broadcast room, not on product quality. For consumers, products brought by entrepreneurs will pay more attention to product quality and user experience.

Taking Laoxiang Chicken as an example, it is not difficult to see from the inventory of its marketing strategy in the past two years that the public relations team is working hard to make Chairman Shu Congxuan an “entrepreneur IP” and serve as a living sign of the brand.

During the epidemic, many companies were “crying for being poor”, and Laoxiangji did the opposite, promising employees that “even if it is selling a house or a car, we must do everything possible to ensure that you have food and work!”. This conflict of positive energy quickly accumulated a good reputation for the brand, and also allowed the company to successfully expand its traffic pool.

Later, Shu Congxuan appeared on the workplace reality show “The Great Worker”, and the team used a budget of 200 yuan to arrange an unprecedented “Village Press Conference” for him.

Many netizens said that the chairman of Laoxiangji was “forced” to open again.

When encountering a founder with a very charismatic personality, consumers will naturally transfer their cognition of the character to their cognition of the product and brand, increasing their recognition of the brand. This is the reason for Shu Congxuan’s frequent high-profile expression, and it is also the key to the Laoxiang Chicken brand’s “passerby popularity”.

However, the founder’s IP marketing can’t be done mechanically, but by going along with the flow. If the founder’s mentality is not open enough, and he doesn’t have social genes, marketing will be full of “embarrassment”.

A powerful, valuable, and sustainable IP must be an IP that can “integrate” with one’s own genes, abilities, and soul.

The personality influence of entrepreneurs cannot be improved simply by shooting videos and giving speeches to increase public exposure, but by putting personality first, output following, and products following.

Rollover scene
To create an entrepreneur’s personal IP, remember to fall into the misunderstanding of flaunting personal success. It is always a three-dimensional and warm “person” who can penetrate the public’s psychology, rather than an untouchable “big boss”.

If entrepreneurs do not have a comprehensive assessment of themselves and the company before building their personal IP, and build their personal IP overwhelmingly before setting the right direction, such “excessive force” behavior is not only cost-effective, but also self-defeating. Labeling “hypocrisy” and “artificial” by the outside world is even more harmful than the gain.

Taking Luo Min, the founder and CEO of Qudian as an example, it only took 16 days from the existence of bringing goods to the invitation of the media to hold a press conference, and finally leaving the venue sadly due to public opinion.

At that time, Weibo was emptied, Douyin was renamed, and more than 100 short videos released about Qudian and Luo Min were deleted to only 3 product promotions and comments were turned off after one operation.

Douyin’s “Boss Luo of Qudian” disappeared, the fanfare “CEO of a listed company” live broadcast plan was stranded, and the shrewd partners staged a show of cutting seats, and the hustle and bustle of real money came to an abrupt end.

After a few days of silence, the two young men and women who made up the live broadcast continued to be madly attacked, and the number of fans on the account did not increase but decreased.

Undoubtedly, Luo Min underestimated the power of netizens’ trampling and overestimated his ability to control. And all of this is obviously based on his understanding of the current dividends of live broadcasts, and his judgment on the time window to become a top streamer on Douyin.

Although entrepreneurial IP can bring extra attention to the brand, we should also be alert to its inherent risks. No matter which end has a problem, the other end will face the threat of a rapid collapse of trust value. Another example is the negative news of Dangdang.com founder Li Guoqing’s impact on Dangdang.com; Chen Ou’s frequent appearances in variety shows caused consumers to question the lack of work of Jumei Youpin’s management.

Whether you are a brand founder or a company CEO, once you make up your mind to be a company and a brand, you are no longer an independent individual, because you have become a public figure in a certain field.

At this time, your image represents the image of the entire enterprise. Entrepreneurs should consciously manage their own image, behavior, trajectory, and even some details of life. Only by creating an effective personal image management system can the overall image be better maintained.

balance and management
“The world has entered an era of high sensibility from an era of high rationality in the past.” It can be said that the personality charm of entrepreneurs is like a penetrating emotional force. Every time they export their personal values ​​and thoughts to the public, they will affect the judgment of consumers to a certain extent.

Of course, in the process of building the founder’s IP, the company must also follow certain guidelines. After all, when entrepreneurs are deeply tied to the brand, they become a community that prospers and loses.

First of all, identify the correct positioning, highlight individuality, and create characteristics.

Counting those successful personal IPs, all of them have distinctive style characteristics.

For example, Lee Kai-fu, who is labeled as a “Youth Entrepreneurial Mentor”, is always refined and refined, maintaining his rigorous, intellectual, and knowledgeable mentor style; Dong Mingzhu, a strong woman, uses her independent and courageous image to enhance consumers’ trust in Gree products Spend.

Secondly, transfer the personal IP traffic to the brand in a timely manner.

In the fast-paced Internet era, the popularity cycle that a single person or thing can maintain is extremely limited. If it cannot be integrated with the brand in time, it will be difficult to carry out subsequent monetization transformation. It’s a flash in the pan.

The most important point, the product. No matter in any marketing mode, the product is the cornerstone of everything.

There are many brands with good stories, but there are very few brands with good stories and good products. Therefore, how much traffic brought by entrepreneurial IP can be retained will ultimately depend on the hard power of the product.

Famous management scientist Tom Peters once said, “The rule of survival in the 21st century is to build a personal brand.” For many companies, how to give new vitality to the brand through the creation of entrepreneurial IP is indeed a question worth pondering.

However, the core of a leader is always strategy and management, and “face recognition” is just icing on the cake.