Learning how to build a business brand through social media to help boost visibility and revenue seems like a regular conversation within the marketing industry, but what happens when the brand is a person?
Personal branding is a genuine representation of you and your expertise, and with the right strategic tactics, can be very effective.
Growing your own brand can increase ideal client connections, greater credibility, create leadership opportunities and give you recognition.
Learn how to create and grow a powerful personal brand through social media with these 5 simple tips!
5 Top Tips for Building Your Personal Brand
1 – Narrow Your Expertise
To help focus your content and style, we’d recommend you identify 1 – 3 areas that separate you from your competitors within your industry. Creating a focus for your accounts will keep you on track when developing your brand in the early stages, and help you streamline curating and writing content.
Choosing these specific areas will push you to stand out compared to your competitors which in turn will help you grow your social accounts faster, and help your audience perceive you as an influencer. Ensure the areas are something you are passionate about as being genuine is the foundation to personal branding.
2 – Set Goals
Now that you have narrowed your expertise what do you want to be known for?
Do you want to be paid for speaking at conventions?
Do you want to be an influencer?
If you aren’t sure what direction you want to take your personal brand, identify accounts you admire to see how they present themselves, and what they are achieving with their online presence.
You can also use your goal(s) to guide you when writing your social profile bio’s. Your bio should describe who you are, be concise, as well as, be flattering.
If you want to be a paid speaker then you should ‘brag’ about your ability to speak on your expertise.
3 – Create Consistency
It’s important to create consistency across your social profiles.
Consistency is key.
Controlling the perception of your brand through consistent imagery, content, and effort will help people search and learn more about you.
If any of your accounts misrepresent your personal brand it can cause confusion and deter followers. Make consistency part of your overall personal brand strategy and practice it constantly.
One tip to help is, before starting and if you haven’t already, research your desired username to see if it can be consistent across all platforms.
You can use an online tool called Knowem to easily search through 500 popular social networks to see if your username is available. Along with content and imagery, ensure your colours and style are the same across your brand.
4 – Engage
Looking outside your own accounts, engaging with others is the best way to build awareness and connect with new people.
First, find the right groups, pages or accounts that are focused on a topic or industry that align with your area of expertise.
Next, ask questions, participate in discussions, or leave comments.
Expressing interest and providing information will present you as a subject matter expert, and through these organic efforts, you will grow an audience that will be interested and engaged in your brand.
5 – Connect
Identify, connect, and begin to build a relationship with key influencers as they have already built up an audience that you would want to connect with.
You will want to find an influencer who has established credibility within your industry using social media platforms.
They usually have a large audience that value the content shared, and have great engagement. First, you will want to create a contact list of people you admire and are an influencer to help build your brand.
Research each influencer to see what social platforms they are on, and identify what they are really into.
Next, show appreciation by commenting and asking questions on their content. You can also mention the influencers within your blogs, and send them an email describing your blog and that you will be mentioning them.
In return, he or she could be persuaded to connect with you and start sharing your posts and/or content.
Establishing your personal brand through social media is just as important as a company growing its own brand. Much of our time is spent online, and today, lots of our connections are made through our social platforms. So, why not spend time developing a brand you want broadcasted to the world?
This article was contributed by Alexandra Sutton.
