When you’re starting a business, collaborating with other brands who have a similar target audience to yours, or who have services or products that compliment yours, can be an amazing way to get in front of a wider audience and show the world just who you are!

Not only that, collaborating with others, (in my opinion) is a great way to get to know others in your industry and can make the business journey a whole lot more fun.

Recently, I sat down with Nat from The Collab Hub to uncover just how powerful collaboration can be when building a brand, here’s what Nat, a true expert had to say on all things collaborations.

So, Nat. Can you please tell us what exactly is a collaboration?

Collaboration, in a nutshell, is when two or more entities team up to create something together that will have mutual business value for everyone involved. It’s mostly used as a type of marketing where you work with another brand or individual to create something new, interesting or more valuable than you could create on your own in order to reach more people, grow your brand and credibility, create content or straight up generate sales (there are more types of value than this but these are the most common, broad umbrellas of collab goals).

So how can you use collaboration to build a personal brand?
When I think about a personal brand I think of it as the vibe you (the person behind the business) bring to that brand. You might offer pretty much the same services or product as hundreds of other brands but it’s the specific way you do it, the ‘personality’ you bring to it that makes it different to all of the others. That’s your personal brand. 

Collaboration is a really great tool for growing your personal brand for a couple of reasons;

• It allows you to work with like-minded people that your ideal audience will love, thus reinforcing what your personal brand is and who your brand is for and attracting those people.
• When you team up with other reputable brands and individuals, even on a very small scale like having them on your blog, you essentially get to share their reputation which makes collaborating a great way to build a strong reputation.
• Collaboration automatically puts you in front of a new audience (the one your collab partner has) which helps you to grow your reach and build your audience and personal brand over time.

What types of collaborations do you think work well for building a personal brand?

Any type of collab where you get to showcase your expertise or be associated with other reputable figures in and around your niche (complimentary but non-competing is the key) are going to be the best types of collaborations for building your personal brand. You want to use collabs to become known for what you do well. This includes doing guest blogs, interviewing other reputable figures in and around the industry, podcasts, co-creating ebooks and resources, guest speaking at events, providing special offers for your service/product through reputable sources etc.

Another good collab option is one that creates new, high quality content for you to use - whether that’s photos, design or a podcast episode you can share. People consume your brand through content so you need to have lots of it and it needs to be good. This also includes blogs, interviews and co-creating resources as well as working with photographers on personal branding shoots, designers for web and social media design and other content creators. You might provide different types of value in exchange for content depending on what you have to offer.

And how to identify a good collab? What’s the best way to tell if it’s the right collab for your brand?

To identify a good collab you first need to know what your goals are, which is essentially all the things I spoke about in the previous questions.

• You want to look for collabs that serve these goals and provide you with the kinds of opportunities that showcase your expertise and reflect your personal brand well.
• You also need to make sure you team up with brands and individuals who have an audience that will be interested in what you do because their audience become like warm leads for your service or potential buyers of your product. If it’s not relevant to them, then it’s not relevant to your brand.

And lastly its super important to work with brands and people who are really genuine, supportive, collaborative partners. Do your research and ask questions to get a feel for their vibe and their intentions before committing. 

If you’d like to use collaborations as a way of growing your brand I strongly recommend you head over to The Collab Hub website and socials and start following along with Nat if you’re not already. Nat is building the most amazing and supportive community of business owners in her private pages, all of which are open to new and exciting collaboration opportunities.

Visit The Collab Hub website here.

Check out The Collab Hub on Instagram.

Follow The Collab Hub on Facebook.

Join Nat on her personal / business journey on Instagram.

And while you’re here, check out the below BTS video Nat put together of our shoot!