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In this article, Black Nova Designs co-founder Danielle Homes talks about the reasons why your digital presence is so important for growing your equestrian personal brand. Danielle reveals more about establishing and growing your personal brand and what tools you can use to help improve your visibility and appeal.
Why a digital presence is important for establishing and growing your equestrian personal brand
Whether it’s sharing a photo of our beloved equines online, curating emotive reels of our horses and ponies, jumping on to the latest TikTok trend or sharing relatable memes about our (sometimes questionable) lifestyle choice, we use social media and digital mediums every day in our personal lives; we’re here to tell you that your professional life should be no different, whether it’s for yourself as in individual or your equestrian business.
Perhaps you’re a groom for a professional rider, or maybe you’re an aspiring or professional rider yourself, the online world has opened a vast amount of, mostly free opportunities to help you establish and build your brand.
By now, most of us are well accustomed to using social media personally, but in a sea of social media profiles, a well curated professional account can help you to stand out from the crowd and attract potential employers, customers, sponsors, owners and limitless opportunities.
Establishing and growing a personal brand is an efficient way of marketing your accomplishments and what makes you unique, by developing your own personal brand you are giving yourself the competitive advantage.
Anyone looking for a new team member or searching for someone to work with will be more likely to choose the individual with a strong personal brand over someone who doesn’t, regardless of your field.
People’s attention spans are rapidly diminishing in this era of instant-information and results, and so the need to make a solid and memorable first impression has never been so important.
Another reason for establishing and building your personal brand is that people will always search and screen you online before working with you, and in many cases before even interacting or connecting with you.
Whilst social media is one of the key ways to build your personal brand, a professional website should be the foundation of your personal brand.
Websites for personal brands don’t need to be complex or cost the earth. A simple, well branded and clear brochure site which is information and image based, and often consists of 3-4 pages is perfect. Tools such as SEM Rush can help with errors and understanding how your website is performing in the search engines.
We’d recommend a Home/Landing Page, an About, Portfolio or Testimonials where you can include images of you in action or examples of your work, a Blog or News page for you to post regular updates and a Contact page, that one is pretty self-explanatory.
You control the narrative on your website, and if BND design it, you own it and if social media disappeared overnight for whatever reason and your accounts (which you don’t own by the way) along with it, your website would still exist, working 24/7, 365 days a year for you.
Here at Black Nova, we specialise in WordPress websites. You are in full control of your website, with full admin access once it is complete. We also offer website user training and regularly create YouTube tutorials on how to edit or update your WordPress website.
Our website design services are insured, accredited and award-winning, feel free to give us a call on 01793 210 045 for a no-obligation consultation or send us an email on sales@blacknovadesigns.co.uk
Suzanne Ashton, Founder of Everything Horse (Est, 2012), has a BA Hons in Marketing Management and a Diploma in Equine Science. Suzanne has ridden and owned horses all her life and has twelve years of experience in marketing, writing, design, SEO, and website creation.