"Each of you can build your own success by becoming aware of your abilities and by finding a way to let the rest of the world find you", this is what Marika Lion says after a life spent between art and business.
Marika has worked for years in the world of institutional relations and cultural communication, and this has given her the opportunity to meet thousands of people, each with different stories, and to understand what is behind the presentation of those stories that most of us just read in glossy magazines.
We met Marika at Marsiai, a small area of Cesiomaggiore, a village in the province of Belluno, where a year ago she opened a ‘Petit Hotel’ but did so by applying the same logic of the big chains of luxury hotels: the brand is the game! And success came.
"La Maison Lion", which takes its name from her surname, was actually the brand of ‘her game’ a few years earlier, as a blog dedicated to the lifestyle in which Marika recounted, especially with images, stories of people, objects and magical places in the world: all united by elegance and charm.
Marika, how did you become a consultant for "personal branding"?
It was a natural path after my professional experience, the blog has made me realize that the credibility is based solely on the quality of content offered. I could personally experience the effects of a professional attitude by starting our Maison with my husband. Internet and saturation of the major brands provide incredible opportunities to small players as long as we know what to do and act to build our own image.
And in all this I found my model when one day I realized that my strong "corporate" experience made the difference: the possibility of applying a synthesis of the rules of corporate communication and marketing skills to the creation of the image of a small brand or of a single person.
What would you recommend to a small artisan?
First we would recommend that you have an awareness of your own work, but also recognize the need to communicate in the right way in the world. On the web you have to be professional and communicate in two ways: you have to know how to excite through pictures, how to draw positive elements that are able to fascinate and how to communicate in English.
There are over a billion websites and today you have to know how to use this powerful tool. You must have reputation, third parties and articles that speak to us from influential portals or international bloggers and then you need exciting photos so that the viewer is moved to read more or to purchase one of your products.
And in this era of visual communication: power is in the photos!
Art and photographs are the only universal languages that enter directly into people's hearts. But if you want to use the internet you have to do it in a professional way: right photos, right portals, right words, a lot of PR and accurate work – if you want to be known and appreciated.
Perhaps there have never been so many opportunities for small players as in this historical moment, we are witness every day to new successes of "unknown" people, but to be really successful you have to know the technology and communication tools; or to rely on a professional able to custom tailor the right strategy for the web.
Building credibility is a talent, that's why there are few success stories and many other cases that could reach it ... but often they have not because the net is very severe on those who meet it unprepared.
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