Marketers and people responsible for communication care about their brand on social media and is willing to try several solutions to find out what performs best. This is obvious. What is not obvious, but it should be, is the huge power of personal branding that they should make the most of it – although, they sometimes give up trying. How to rock your personal brand and build not only an expert appearance, but also a straight way to increase desired conversion?
But first, let’s answer the question…
What is personal branding?
Long story short: personal branding is a set of tactics leading to creating a strong personal brand, basically meaning that people become brands themselves.
Why should you care about personal branding?
There are at least four reasons for which you should invest some time and money into personal branding.
- Expanding professional network – by personal branding activities, you can be more visible to those who are your target audience, but not only! If you pick the right strategy, you can reach those who may be interested in collaborating with your brand for PR and buzz purposes. Some media coverage never killed anybody. You can become popular enough to be added to professional network of others in your industry for your experience, skills and professional resume, and therefore you can increase your business opportunities with a resume that stands out. What is not to like?
- Building credibility and a brand image – if you make yourself look like an expert who always has valuable insights to add, you speak for your brand or a set of brands you are in charge of. Leaving your social media footprints can impact your business’ condition.
- Standing out of the competition – the thing with personal branding is that not many C-level managers keep an eye on it or have time to do so. By implementing some small organizational tips & tricks, you can start building your brand from scratch and take your competitors over. People seem to interact easier with other people than brands.
- Also if you’re a freelancer, your personal branding will be the foundation of your client base. To create a strong personal brand as a freelancer, you need to be offering your services in the most professional way with contracts, proposals and invoices for your freelance work.
How to skyrocket your personal branding?
Content marketing & PR
Some people mistakenly regard content marketing with soulless copywriting. However, you don’t need to be included in the group of “some people”. Unlock the real power of content marketing for your personal brand by:
- Expert insights, comments and posts: here is where case studies’ content can play a really important role. By sharing your business story, you can get some attention from your
- Try to appear as an expert in some round-up posts. It can help with building enough credibility to be invited to a separate series of interviews afterwards.
- Prepare a content strategy which reflects both your brand’s business goals and your own personal branding aims.
- Connect with several editorial teams of popular websites in your industry and ask if they are not in need of another contributor. You can deliver some content from time to time, building another branch of your trust.
- You can also test some forms of gated content if what you share is extremely valuable and unique. To make the most of it and use content for lead generation, tools like Pay By Share can come in handy.
- GOLDEN TIP: if you don’t have enough of your own content, you can use some external articles and still turn them into your own goldmine, adding pixels and your own elements like pop-ups or videos with RocketLink
Social media
To be frank, some entrepreneurs and marketers know well how to use social media for promoting a brand, but not their brand. It is vital to share some activity on social media – and keep track of privacy settings when it comes to sharing some personal or controversial content.
- Redistribute content or PR mentions on your social media. Keep your audience interested and engaged by involving them in numerous discussions and being active where they are.
- It is not enough to post on LinkedIn once a month or on Facebook profile once a week. You should be like a good CAR: Consistent, Active and Regular. Check out LinkedIn Social Selling Index to find how you’re doing on LinkedIn, it can indicate some areas for improvement.
- Apply also other forms of social media presence to your strategy: Facebook groups or niche social media like Quora, Tumblr, Reddit or GrowthHackers to your tactic.
- GOLDEN TIP: use a shortened and customized link in your bio on social media to get a transparent and professional look. Internet users might then be more willing to click it because they’ll be sure where it’s going to take them — a similar effect is achievable by placing such a link in your e-mail footer.
Marketing automation for personal branding
Can personalization go together with automation, like hot cocoa goes with marshmallows? Yes! By finding a golden mean between customizing your strategy and automating some processes, you can work more effectively.
What tools can you use to automate your efforts?
- RocketLink – retarget any link you share. Especially on Linkedin profile.
- Kontentino – schedule social media posts.
- MailChimp – free e-mail marketing automation tool which you can use to get in touch with generated leads.
- Whitepress – find the best publishers for your sponsored content.
- Pipefy – automatically manage your contacts.
- PayByShare – let people get your content in exchange for a social media share.
You may find fighting for your personal branding difficult or cliche: the border between being influential and helpful, and being just another life coach on social media, is very thin. However, after combining some tools with your own style of communication, you can win the personal branding game.
