Author: Mubbu
Compiled by: Felix, PANews
How can founders build personal charisma on the internet? This article discusses how to use promotional strategies to build a strong personal brand and follower base, and proposes a formula for attracting "die-hard fans." The full text is as follows:
Like it or not, the most successful personal brands use promotional strategies to solidify their audience.
They create words and phrases that their fans can intuitively understand and find meaningful. These words/phrases are repeatedly spread until the audience subconsciously agrees with them.
"A stimulus that is repeated becomes a habit; or rather, the repeated emphasis on an idea forms a belief." — Edward Bernays (Father of Propaganda)
Repetition creates belief. Creating words (a meme) that your followers can understand, that have their own meaning, and that can be repeatedly spread is how you build a stronger audience. We transform founders from mere content creators into cult leaders with fanatical followers.
If you are a founder, this is your method to gain followers, engagement, and most importantly, potential customers.
Some call it marketing, but we call it bluntly: propaganda (it's more ethical).
This article will explore: symbols, hypnosis, propaganda, and how they are used to influence the minds of the audience.
Marketing is just a form of propaganda, only with a shorter channel. Just as you guide your audience through the top, middle, and bottom of the "funnel model" with content and ads to facilitate a purchase as quickly as possible, politicians, governments, and cults do the same, except their process takes years rather than days, weeks, or months. They achieve this through targeted messaging at every point of interaction.
If you understand this, you can change public opinion as you wish. 95% of public opinion is influenced or entirely determined by 5% (or possibly even fewer) of people.
On the internet, influencers and KOLs (Key Opinion Leaders) are sweeping across the web, shaping public ideology.
Influencers refer to people like YouTubers, celebrities, streamers, etc.
KOLs refer to people like political activists and public speakers.
Influencers can be KOLs, and KOLs can be influencers. In this example, influencers and KOLs make up 20%. The two are not mutually exclusive.
How does this manifest on social media? You most likely belong to that 80% right now.
As a business owner, marketer, or anyone with influence, your job is to break into that 5%, the group that can actually sway people's thoughts:
- Craft your own narrative. The message conveyed by your account should be unique and different from other accounts in your niche.
- To be seen as an authority, you need to connect with accounts in your niche and get them to endorse you.
- Having the support of a group of large accounts around you makes you seem unstoppable.
Social media thrives on highly controversial emotional content.
Everyone jokes about those trying to "fish for attention" with baiting/trolling posts, but the fact is, every piece of social media content serves this purpose.
When we use our brand image, mission, and common enemy, and use our message to provoke controversy, we create reactions that work in our favor.
If we delve into a product or service, we find that "positioning" is what truly evokes emotion.
Positioning itself establishes the brand's mission and common enemy.
- Do you solve a long-standing pain point?
- Do you turn their dreams into reality?
- Are you a niche expert within a niche?
- Do you propose a new way of doing things?
- Do you have a winning secret formula?
Positioning is how you leverage the following elements:
- Narrative/Storytelling
- Emotional Appeal
- Symbolic Imagery
- Social Proof
- Uniqueness
All of these touch people's deep subconscious.
Memes (Consistent Branding)
Memes refer to specific content, designs, colors, symbols, words, etc., associated with your brand.
All this consistency aims to make you / your brand more easily recognizable.
- For Twitter and LinkedIn: If someone reads your content without looking at your name and profile picture, can they immediately recognize it as your post?
- For YouTube / TikTok / Instagram: If someone closes their eyes and just listens to your video, can they immediately recognize it as your content?
The more eye-catching you are, the more memorable you are (obviously). This is the ultimate goal.
The key to building a fanatical follower base is to always stay within people's attention span.
When people encounter details related to your brand, if you are the first person they think of, it shows you are an authority figure.
- If you hear "Make America Great Again," you think of Donald Trump.
- If you see a cross, you think of Christianity or Jesus.
- If you see a national flag, you think of that country.
A meme I created for my brand is "LLU," which stands for "Long Live Utopia." Since Utopia is a community that has changed many people's lives, they are willing to support the spread of this concept.
Another meme I use for "Utopia" is getting people to add "Utopian" to their X (Twitter) usernames to represent the cause.
Outsiders don't understand, but insiders do. This creates a cult-like mentality. It's all about creating an atmosphere of "those who know, know."
Another purpose of the word "Utopian" is to bind identity. Humans always crave belonging to something. This is the whole point of giving them a meme that acts like a flag.
- People don't say "I believe in the principles of the Republican Party," they say "I am a Republican."
- People don't say "I follow the teachings of Islam," they say "I am a Muslim."
- People don't say "I do masculine things," they say "I am masculine."
They don't just believe in these ideas; they internalize them and become part of these ideas.
We want people to feel like they are part of a collective. Identity + Meme = Mission
An MK Ultra study suggested it takes 2500 repetitions to change a person's mind. You need to repeat your successful memes over and over again.
My slogan is "Become a Micro-Authority." I repeat it so much that in every sales call, potential clients proactively say: they want to become a Micro-Authority.
(PANews Note: Micro-Authority, in essence, means you don't need to be a big influencer with millions of followers to establish极强的 professional authority and commercial monetization能力 within your sufficiently细分 field, becoming the most trusted and highest-earning person in a small circle.)
People champion ideas that can change lives. Ordinary people might not understand, but that's okay. Once the right people understand, they will flock to join.
Identity + Mission = Common Enemy
Every catchphrase you use must contain profound meaning. You can test and launch different slogans extensively to find the most effective one.
I used to run campaigns where many people supported them, and many opposed them. Although you might not want to make enemies, having an enemy is necessary for cultivating fanatical followers.
The "us vs. them" opposition is the root of conflict in politics, religion, and business.
When I promoted the "Micro-Authority" concept, influencers with large followings became the common enemy, because "Micro-Authorities" can earn 6 to 7 figures monthly without:
- Selling their soul
- Catering to the masses
- Working for social media
Many people are unwilling to do this, so they stick to their stance.
Identity + Mission + Common Enemy = Fanatical Followers
Related reading: Founder's Playbook: Story is Leverage, No Product is Just Self-Indulgence
