The Branding of Guy Kawasaki

Now more than ever, personal branding is becoming more and more valuable. As an internet marketer, you already know the importance of being able to establish yourself and get your name out there. Not on does the exposure give you credentials, a ton of new networking contacts, possible advertisers, but also puts you in the spotlight… whether it be for positive or negative.

Let’s take a look at how one well known blogger/marketer/entrepreneur, and see how his name is generating millions! I first met Guy Kawasaki at Elite Retreat earlier this year, and will probably run into him again at BlogWorld next month. If you want to learn more about Guy Kawaski, you can do so here… but let’s instead look at the branding power around his name.

Google Search Results
As I was started to pull this post today, I headed over to Google to check out some recent search results and news on “Guy Kawasaki“. Of course Google already recognizes the name as a powerful search, but look how many other searches there are focused around his name. How many search results (suggestions) come up for your name or business? Just in these few search terms below, you will see over 3.5 million results.

Google has Over 3,500,000 Searches Related to “Guy Kawasaki“!

Bring on the Bad Press!
Guy Kawasaki’s latest project has been his AllTop.com web site, which he managed to throw together and staff for something in the area of less than $10,000 and with minimal hosting / management costs each month. Before creating AllTop.com, Truemors.com was another of his previous sites, which was estimated at a cost of $13,000 to create. The point here, is that these are somewhat simple/low cost sites. (keep that in mind)

On May 8th, TechCrunch wrote a post on the first screenshots of Truemors.com, then another post on May of 2007 about the launch of the site. Fast forward to March 11, 2008, TechCrunch makes another post on Guy Kawasaki going live with AllTop.com (saying the site is a “big pile of nothing”).

In addition to TechCrunch making SEVERAL posts about Guy Kawasaki and his “nothing” sites, take a look at all of the “ping backs” from other blogs that then wrote something about the same thing!

Because of Guy Kawasaki’s high profile and name, he was featured by TechCrunch multiple times… if anything else created these sites, TechCrunch probably would not have cared. Also, Guy spent under $25,000 to create both of these sites… the amount of exposure he got from the posts and “bad press” dwarfed is actual costs… making both sites a success! (Trumors was recently acquired by NowPublic)

Guy Kawasaki’s Twitter Entourage
Like Guy or not… he is here and making the most of his name and branding power. Just head over to his Twitter account and you will see that he had over 18,000 followers… many of them helping him with ideas, comments and suggestions for improving AllTop.com. Now, in addition to his onslaught of “free press exposure”, Kawasaki is now able to get free feedback and contacts from the thousands of users following him on Twitter and using his web sites.

Are You Following @GuyKawasaki? 18,519 Others Already Are!

Blogs, Books, Videos & YouTube
In addition to everything else going on, Guy also has a blog of his own, several books written and you can find videos of his keynotes, presentations and interviews all of the net and YouTube.

To finish it off… the name and branding power of “Guy Kawasaki“, also got him featured in today’s post. Now that you have seen just a small sample of how important your name and branding power can be, take a look at your current marketing/branding efforts and see if you are focused on the right path.

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19 Comments

  3. Very interesting post !

    This rise of "personal" branding is something that corporations should, to my opinion, take very seriously.

    It's important for them to have "real people" participating to conversations and bringing value there. It's as important for them to have their brand established in their target communities.

    Note that Garage Technology Venture only makes 150K results in Google.

    (https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=garage+technology+ventures&aq=1&oq=%22garage+techn)

    It might be a non issue for them but the story could be different for companies with a huge stake in social media branding.

  4. Good post. Their is a lot to be learned from Mr. Kawasaki. Why am I not following him on Twitter yet?

  5. Nice post about a great guy! (No pun intended)

    Guy also appears in public, on radio, and other appearances. He appeared on my ARRiiVE: Innovations In Business radio show and was an excellent guest. He has good ideas, fun content, and also is a down-to-earth person. I follow Guy on twitter and count him among my friends, too.

    ~ Scott

  8. Zac Great Post, i have heard of him and never really cared to look him up till now, wow he's pretty popular and has created alot of BUZZ around himself and his fame, Nice post. You heading to BlogWorldExpo?

  9. Thinking about blogging or small site building as a component of personal branding is an interesting case study — and maybe something for all internet marketers to think about — the personal element of any project….

  11. Zach, another really great post following the one you did on Perez. Guy Kawasaki has such a powerful brand because it's spread out between a blog, speaking engagements, his history at Apple, his company, the company's he's founded, podcasts and, more than anything, the relationships he's built with people. His network allows him to constantly promote his brand, again and again. When this happens, you never forget about him!

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