There are many benefits of using social media to grow a business and to craft an online persona that showcases a brand’s values and services. A defined social media strategy can help businesses be more profitable, establish credibility, and gain a strategic edge over the competition. Social media has become a powerful tool in marketing as it’s accessible anytime, anywhere, and is a fun, engaging way to share and collect information.
According to the most recent data from Statista, as of 2021, 82% of the U.S. population has a profile on social media, with the most popular platform being Facebook. In 2021, nearly 92% of U.S. marketers were expected to use social media for marketing purposes.
Planoly consulted research from social media influencers, brand managers, and marketing agencies to compile 10 of the best ways to start building your brand on social media.
There are various strategies for companies and brands to up their social media marketing game. It can be something as simple as taking more time getting to know your audience and creating content accordingly, or following and engaging with accounts that may be similar and relevant to your brand. It also helps to include relevant hashtags—though you don’t go overboard with them in posts. Be sure to include hashtags that will be of interest to your target audience.
A copy-and-paste approach may seem ideal when posting content across various social platforms, but sometimes it helps to take the time to curate and differentiate content for each respective platform. What draws attention on Facebook may fall into the ether on Twitter and vice versa. Giving your social accounts a more authentic feel may require a more unique posting method based on your target audience.
Continue reading for 10 strategies you can use to build your brand on social media.
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Determine your specialty
Influencers on social media tend to specialize in a certain area—whether it’s the beauty, parenting, or financial coaching spaces, specificity is key. Finding a niche can sometimes be challenging for one with myriad interests, but it helps for an influencer to hone in on a specific audience and establish authority. Your niche is what you’re genuinely interested in and what suits your personality.After deciding what you want to focus on, begin creating your posts around that topic. It helps to tag other accounts closely related to your topic of interest.
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Know your audience and demographic
What does your business know about its customers? What are their age groups? Where are they located? These are questions that companies need to ask in order to learn about their customers.In terms of selecting influencers to represent their brand, companies will want to partner with influencers followed by the same group of people who purchase its products and services. Influencers who are authentic, engaging, and who have an understanding of the brand will be key to the success of the company’s social media campaigns.
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Target the right social media platforms for your brand
It’s important for a business to know the demographics of its target market when deciding which social media channels to use. Brands that are more visual may lean toward Instagram and TikTok, while brands focused on real-time events may find Twitter to be more suitable.It’s beneficial to define social media goals and to figure out the social media channels the company’s audience uses in order to develop a receptive audience. Take time to analyze the type of content the business is posting on its channels and how the content works for each social media platform.
As of 2021, for business-to-business companies, Facebook and LinkedIn tend to be the preferred social media platforms. For business-to-consumer companies, Facebook and Instagram were the most popular platforms.
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Define your brand’s voice and tone
A brand’s target audience is the most crucial aspect of developing a voice and tone. Put yourself in the shoes of your audience and consider what would inspire them to take action to buy your company’s product or follow your brand.Often, companies take more of a general approach, directing social media posts to a broad audience, but catering to more niche users may work better. Brands need to think of what it is they wish to accomplish—when the dust settles, what is the primary purpose?—and how the answer to that question can resonate long-term with its audience.
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Connect with influencers in your industry
Networking on social media has been a way for many companies to get their name out there and build brand recognition. It’s no different when influencers decide to join forces, even if just for one specific event. It can be highly beneficial to collaborate with fellow industry influencers, whether it’s launching a cross-promotional giveaway experience or appearing on another influencer’s podcast.Whether you’re looking to expose your business to a bigger audience, generate leads, or boost traffic to your blog, partnering with fellow influencers with a similar target audience can be impactful. Collaboration can diversify an influencer or company’s possibilities, build connections, and create more opportunities overall.
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Identify which products or services you want to promote
For the most part, influencers work independently and generate their own content while integrating a brand’s marketability. For relevant influencers, creating content takes time; therefore, a brand must recognize and value the work required in growing that influencer’s following and establishing their voice.When it comes to promoting products and services, in-demand influencers tend to lean toward companies that offer paid partnerships in addition to complimentary products. This is not to say that influencers will only work with a company that gives away free products, but the pull of a partnership arrangement is certainly a more attractive, mutually beneficial arrangement. Canva
Pay attention to trends in social media and video content
Companies should focus on trends to better hone their marketing efforts. Some trends include the rise of short video content shared on platforms, such as TikTok, or via Instagram Stories and Youtube Shorts, all of which have resonated with marketers and brands, notably throughout the pandemic.The e-commerce option for social media platforms has also taken off as brands can connect their online store with their brand’s social media account, removing the need for a third-party website. Paid advertising on social media also gives brands the opportunity to showcase content in front of a target audience.
Be consistent with your social media posts
It can be challenging to post consistently on social media, especially when managing several social platforms or multiple accounts across platforms. But consistency is key when it comes to audience recognition and follower growth and retention.Posting strategically and consistently maximizes your organic reach, which is the number of people you reach without paying for an ad or boosting a post. Scheduling your content ahead of time with news or upcoming events can make it feel more timely. Planning in advance also allows you to keep a steady stream of posts in front of your audience at times when you may not be online.
Kaspars Grinvalds // Shutterstock
Engage with your consumers and followers
Engagement develops customer relationships, builds trust, and helps businesses reach a larger audience. It’s also a quick way for companies and influencers to receive feedback on what’s resonating with their target audience. Some ways that companies and influencers engage on social media is through responding to comments, sharing content, responding to direct messages, and creating polls to generate responses on insights for particular topics.In most cases, engagement is often more important in terms of impact than the number of followers, as a business can have 20,000 followers on social media with zero engagement. This results in a low return on investment. But if there are, say, 5,000 followers with much higher engagement, a higher ROI makes the business appear more credible and not like there’s a bunch of ghost followers.
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Define your metrics of success and use them to inspire future content
In recent years, social media has served as a major tool for businesses and influencers to have a better understanding of their audience. There are ways to analyse social media data through built-in insights and analytics that are provided by most social platforms. These findings show information such as demographics, impressions, and reach, all of which are essential metrics for building an audience.Analytics and metrics help to track progress, such as the speed at which you’re building an audience and which posts are performing better than others. The posts that do well can be an example of what may work for similar future posts.
Social media engagement can be a war of attrition, so weeding out content that is not engaging your target audience will result in a stronger overall profile and present an image of brand authority.
This story originally appeared on PLANOLY and was produced and distributed in partnership with Stacker Studio.
In 2021, 4.48 billion people will use social media on a daily basis. This means that almost half the world’s population has some form of online presence. So, it is very likely that your brand image will depend on the social media presence that it commands. And in this article, we will look at the best tips for building a brand on social media.
1. Update Your Profile
The first, and most basic step in building a reliable brand online is to fully update your online profile. As a brand, you want to be visible and accessible. So, people should be able to find accurate information about your profile on every social media platform. You should also ensure that every detail that visitors would want to know is filled in and available.
Lastly, remember to remove any controversial content that you might have posted in the past. This can result in a bad reputation in the future, and will be harmful for your growth.
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2. Setting S.M.A.R.T goals
A concrete social media branding strategy, going by the acronym S.M.A.R.T, it stands for:
Specific: You need to decide on a specific goal before you put your time and energy into achieving it.
Measurable: The goal you set out for your brand should be measurable. Metrics such as follower count or engagement count is key in this case.
Achievable: Ensure that the goals you set out for your brand to accomplish are do-able in the near future.
Relevant: You should have a clear idea about how the plan will impact and benefit your business.
Timely: Always set out a timeframe to achieve a particular goal. This promotes accountability and encourages you to push your limits.
3. Identify Your Target Audience
Every person in the world cannot be your targeted audience. You need to be specific in the type of people that will benefit from the content you post or the services you offer. This will help you identify hot leads, and deliver better service to customers. As a result, you will have better customer satisfaction and retention.
In the long run, having a target audience in mind will help you spend your money effectively and market your brand to the relevant people. Check out the dos and don’ts about getting an audience here.
4. Create Engaging Content
Once you have identified your target audience, and have updated your profile, it is time to create. Branding on social media is best achieved through great content.
People respond better to visual content than text. So, create infographics and images to maximize your reach and impressions on followers. Use attractive colours in your graphics. Remember to use the popular hashtags based on the genre of your content so that people can access it based on their preferences.
If you’re promoting a product or service, have compelling product photos to showcase your brand. This strategy is not only used by the established companies, but also the smaller businesses. Overall, it makes your profile look much more professional and appealing to a customer.
5. Build Relationships Through Social Media Brand Marketing
Keeping an engaged audience is key when you’re building brand awareness through social media. In many cases, having an engaged low follower count, is better than having a high count with no engagement.
Answer questions and reply to comments whenever possible. Mention people using the ‘@’ tag when you’re posting as well. Lastly, share other people’s content, especially when it applies to you. Reply to their mentions of your brand, and ensure that you’re human in your approach.
Don’t try to hard-sell people about your deals and offers on your page. Instead, give them nuggets of information that they can use. This way, you’re building a positive brand image and people will be more likely to use or recommend your services.
DISCLAIMER: Branded Voices features paid content from our marketing partners. Articles are not created by Native News Online staff. The views and opinions expressed in the Branded Voices are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Native News Online or its ownership. Any content provided by our bloggers or authors are of their opinion and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual or anyone or anything.
Content is the king of any type of marketing; there is nothing new here. However, creating a perfect plan for your next content marketing is the key to success. Almost anyone can create content but making it perfectly suited for your business is the key.
Long ago, before 2005, B2B and B2C businesses usually did not care about creating fresh content regularly. However, because of the audience’s ever-increasing desire for fresh and engaging content, search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc., also give priority to fresh and engaging content.
Create a Perfect Content Marketing Plan for Your Business
And this is where it begins; from personal bloggers to big brands, all are racing to create fresh and engaging content regularly for their business website to get their share of organic traffic.
Because only by creating fresh & engaging content that their audience love, a business can increase not only sales but also build a brand name among the crowd. Thanks to social media, audiences can share content among them that creates a massive awareness for a business. Which, in turn, helps to increase revenue by many folds.
A recent study says 69 percent of B2B businesses have documented content marketing strategies. And 76 percent of marketers judge the success of a business by measuring their organic traffic statistics. As you can see, in this new digital marketing era, content marketing is the key to drive more organic traffic to your business.
In this article, I will discuss how you should build a perfect plan for your content marketing.
Step 1: Build Your Brand by Creating Mass Awareness
If you want to get success in the long-term, then branding is essential. Look at the big brands; their audience knows them for their brand name, not the product itself. This is a smart way of marketing that your audience will purchase because they trust you more than they trust their judgment.
Let me give you a perfect example of this. You may have seen many of your friends buy an iPhone without even a second thought. Even if they have seen recent bad reviews about that phone.
Why does it happen? Well, it does not happen in one day; it took them years to gain trust from their audiences. Now people buy iPhones from day zero when they get released.
This is a vital reason why you should focus on building a brand among your audience using mass awareness. However, before you do that, ask yourself the below questions to identify the right approach.
Who is my target audience?
What type of content is my primary focus? Text, visual, audio, or a combination of all.
Who are my competitors? What kind of content are they using?
How do they create mass awareness? Which online platform are they using?
Step 2: Tweaks Your Existing Marketing Campaign
Again, I am saying this; nowadays, it is a highly competitive era. It’s not 2000 where people are just starting to get along with online content & bloggers are just emerging from the womb.
It is 2020 & to date, more than 500 million blog posts exist & 1.7 billion websites all over the globe. In recent statistics, almost 80 percent of people do not even read your entire post, only read the headline and pass it. According to MOZ, 92 percent of Google searches never visit the 2nd page.
These statistics only tell us one thing. Content marketing is becoming harder every day. You have to focus on your target audience by creating highly engaging & relevant content. Otherwise, all your efforts will go in vain.
So, the question is – how are you supposed to tweak your existing campaign? Well, it is simple. Take a look at the below table. I have presented 3 of my favourite content & keyword analysis tools for you to get started. If you plan for long-term business, then you must have to use a tool like this.
Best tools for Content & Keyword Analysis
Best tools
Costing
Free Trial
Ahref
$99 per month
7-days for $7
Semrush
$99.95 per month
7-days free
Ubersuggest
$12 per month
7-days free
Step 3: Set Your Marketing Goals & Stick with It
Before you do anything, it’s always better to create specific goals of marketing your content and stick with it. Set your goals and synchronize them with your entire team for better collaboration. This is the digital era — do not forget that.
You do not have to arrange a meeting every single time you update your decision. Use the power of management tools to collaborate with your entire team, including sharing files, photos, and videos on the fly. Use a secure channel to share classified information without using third-party applications like Gmail, Facebook messenger, WhatsApp, etc.
Once you can collaborate with your entire team securely & on time, it is time to set specific goals that can be achieved within a specific timeframe. Do not target a goal that cannot be achieved or too hard to get desired success.
Also, you need to focus on time management. Look for your competitors’ weaknesses to identify the untapped opportunity to seize it. For example, if your competitor is Microsoft, you can still beat them without directly targeting their focused objective. Instead, find the hole to get into the market by searching for an untapped opportunity that even Microsoft didn’t see.
It’s so obvious, you cannot fight head-on against a powerful opponent, but as they are your opponent, you have to find their weakness and hit hard to beat them.
Find Content Gap using Ahref “Content & Keyword Analysis Tool.”
It’s so obvious if your competitor is strong, then there is no way you can beat them head to head unless you have a large amount of funding to back you up.
So, what to do? Here is the answer for you. I have given you 3 of my best content & keyword analysis tools to begin with. For this example, I have used the Ahref tool. Take a look at how I find more than 2,000+ keyword gaps in their website.
If you want to beat your competitor, then this is the chance. Find their weakness by using “content gap” to find out which type of keywords they haven’t ranked yet. Now, create powerful content on that keywords & start to win the market.
Step 4: Plan for Your Target Audience
Always remember that the audience is the ultimate success key. Without them, no business could exist because they are buyers & the lifeblood of any business.
Every business’s target audience could be different. It is a vital task to identify the customer’s interest, habit & lifecycle. If you do not analyze your audience and build the correct content, then even if you have high quality and engaging content — your target audience may not be interested in those.
Some audiences may be interested in video rather than simple text content. Some may be interested in audio content but feeling bored with video & text. It can vary from the audience. Thus you should find out in which type of content they have an interest.
You may face that some group of the audience does not buy products right away. They always research first and take a decision after a while. Your task is to convert them before your competitors convert them. To do that, analyse your target audience and build a perfect marketing strategy.
How to Identify Your Audience Interest?
Using Google analytic, you can easily do it. Visit Google analytic, then click on the audience tab. Here you will find all sorts of information regarding your existing audience. Their age, location, gender, interest, income level, etc.
Visit Google Analytic – Audience
Step 5: Create a Plan for Content Creation
It completely depends on your business brand & target audiences. Some content creation strategies may work for my business. However, the same strategy may not suit your business.
For example, my target audience always searches through Google and research by reading the blog, article, forum post, social media post, etc. Therefore, my content creation plan is – highly engaging, helpful & fresh content that is built with text & images.
Because search engines like Google love text & images, which is perfectly suited for my business marketing plan as well. Now think very carefully what type of business you have, thus building your content creation strategy. For example, if it is a cooking course, then you should focus on video rather than text & images.
Step 6: Leverage Social Media to Create Mass Awareness
Though you can spend thousands of dollars on your business to market it. However, this is not a cost-efficient method. Better to focus on social media like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc., for online marketing.
If you use Google ads service for marketing your business, then for a single visitor, you may have to spend $1-2 on average. Most businesses from small to large spend $9,000 per month on average for online marketing.
However, if you can build a community on social media platforms, then you may get millions of visitors to your website without spending a dime. Though, not all social media may suit your business. For example, if your business is cooking-related or furniture-related, you may get massive visitors from Instagram & YouTube.
Step 7: Analyse & Track Your Business Performance
This is the final stage of success. After you have planned for your audiences & build a powerful content marketing strategy now, it’s time to focus on the result. By analysing your website visitors, subscriptions, sharing on social media & purchases made by the audience. It’s so obvious; not everyone gets their desired result without trial & error.
You may create an excellent strategy, but it will only become perfect when you test it out and get the desired result. If you do not get it — then find out the errors and fix it & again test it.
There are several metrics to test your business performance.
Audience Behaviour: bounce rate, visit duration, etc.
Revenue: subscription, conversion, etc.
Mass awareness: sharing, comments, backlinks, etc.
Organic Traffic: visitors from search engines, fewer advertisements needed
These are just sample metrics you could use to measure your performance. However, there are many CRM software out there you could use to handle these complex analysing tasks automatically.
Conclusion
How you should market your content completely depends on your business & audience. I can only show you a general way to get success. However, you have to walk by yourself. Analyse your audience & learn about them.
Then build a content-making & marketing plan. Finally, analyse your business performance to see if it works. Remember, every big brand once struggled many years to get the desired success. But they never give up.
Arif Chowdhury is the founder of Cliobra. An active digital marketer specialized in both search engine marketing and social media networks. With more than 10 years of practical experience in small to large organizations management, he provides consultancy on how to manage both sales & marketing departments.
When it comes to building a brand and marketing a business, social media is a powerful tool that all businesses need to be taking advantage of. Because 70 percent of Americans have at least one social media account, according to Lyfe Marketing, and because social media is considered the most relevant advertising channel for half of Gen Z and nearly half of millennials, social media marketing’s benefits for growth are obvious.
Not to mention that, according to the Sprout Index,58 percent of consumers prefer content that focuses on the visual, making social media the perfect place to advertise and build a brand.
Although social media marketing understandably gets a lot of focus when it comes to building a brand and business, it’s not the only way to build a brand, so it’s not the only tactic businesses should be using. In fact, it may not even be the most effective brand building tactic for your business, depending on the type of business you run, your industry, your target market, and so on.
When it comes to building a brand, the more diverse your strategy is, the faster, better and more effectively you’ll be able to build the brand you want to. So, in addition to social media marketing, you may want to consider one or all of the following effective brand building strategies:
1. Really know your target audience.
Although knowing your target audience well doesn’t by itself build your brand, it is extremely important if you want to be able to build that brand effectively. So, whether you’re drop-shipping phone cases and other accessories or selling your personally designed, handmade clothing line through an online store, knowing your target audience can help you market more effectively and get a better return on investment in ads and other strategies.
To really get to know your audience, first consider who your ideal customer is; but just knowing that teens ages 14 to 19 tend to have cell phones isn’t enough.Instead, you should basically build an entire imaginary “persona” for your ideal customer — from where this person lives to what he or she likes to do for fun. Then you can really narrow down your marketing and start building and establishing your brand with the people most likely to purchase from you.
2. Build a blog.
Blogging helps build your brand; and not only is it easy and free, but when done right, t it can also be extremely powerful (businesses that make serious blogging efforts are 13 times more likely, according to Hubspot, to see a positive return on investment).
You can use your blog to do everything from notifying customers of an upcoming or ongoing promotion and educating customers on how to use your product, to improving SEO and, of course, establishing your brand and persona with your business’s own unique voice and value. Blogging does so much more than just act as a journal, and if you aren’t blogging already, you should start now.
3. Create an email subscription.
Offering an email subscription is a great way to build your brand, whether you want customers and potential customers to receive a monthly newsletter or simply get regular updates on sales, promotions and giveaways.You can not only interact with and engage customers but also personalize messages to establish a strong brand connection with customers on an individual basis.
4. Focus on customer service.
Customers are what make any business a success — without them, no business would make it past the first few stages of development. Although quality products, effective marketing, a good active presence and a likable content “voice” are all important aspects of a brand, customer service plays a part as well.
Customers greatly value positive experiences with a company, and less-than-great ones are enough to cause them to never shop with a company again. After a good experience, however, not only are they more likely to stay loyal, they’ll likely tell their friends and family about your company, helping you gain more customers and an enhanced brand reputation.
5. Make your brand visually memorable.
Many people think of logos and slogans when they think of branding, so visuals can be important. Your logo, including the colors and fonts you choose, all have an impact on how your brand is viewed and how recognizable it is. It only takes 10 seconds for a customer to form a first impression of a brand’s logo, so it’s important to do all you can to make your brand visually memorable.
In addition, you can make your brand more visually memorable by selling or giving away custom-branded merchandise. The more you can get your name out, the better. The goal is to make your company’s name recognizable at a glance, and creating a memorable logo and other consistent visuals can help build your brand.
In conclusion
Brand-building consists of many different aspects; however, a lot of focus is placed on social media marketing. Although social media marketing plays an important role, there are other things that you can do that are just as effective in building your brand.
Which of the steps outlined above are you currently following to help build your brand?
One of the most crucial activities a company can do is focus on building their brand. Creating a cohesive, recognizable brand which is illustrative of the company itself is paramount, especially in current times where customer loyalty can be much harder to achieve. A solid brand can help a business connect with existing customers while also drawing in new ones, as well as inspire brand loyalty and media sharing.
Yet, building a brand is no easy feat as it requires detailed planning, strategy and implementation. To help you plan the best brand-building strategy for your company, eight members of Forbes Communications Council weigh in with their preferred methods or approaches. Here’s what they advise:
1. Understand Your Customers
The best way to improve your brand is to fully understand your current customers. Know why they use or love your product and leverage those insights to further reinforce your brand benefits by highlighting them in marketing by coming back to them as clear differentiators between you and your competitors. Keeping a pulse on your customers is critical to success. It can be done through regular check-ins with customer service teams, social media feedback and organized market research. – Todd Daum, Dentistry.com
2. Keep Branding Consistent
Designate brand standards champions within your organization — whatever its size. Keeping your brand’s voice and tone consistent across departments and copywriters is key to delivering an authentic and unwavering experience that ultimately strengthens all of your messaging. – Brett Dunst, DreamHost
3. Assess Current Position
The best way to improve the brand is by first truly understanding and assessing your current brand position. For example: What is our brand? Is our entire team aligned with the definition? How is our brand perceived by our customers, our partners, our employees and our competitors? Be honest about your answers and ask questions! Never assume. – Syed Hoda, Sight Machine
4. Be Transparent And Authentic
Full disclosure: These two words are overused and cliche but it really is the foundation of a brand. Ultimately, it’s also what will improve your brand the most — they are transparency and authenticity. There is no short cut, no storytelling, no creative that will have more impact than establishing transparency and being consistent with it. I view a brand as a living organism, and I build it with the thought process of how I build human relationships. What makes a strong human relationship? Use those attributes in how you establish and build your brand. Also, a strong narrative and storytelling are a close second. – Andrea Hurtado, Protis Global
5. Make It The Focus
If it’s not at the center of your organization’s culture, then it should be. Each member of your team is a brand champion (or the opposite!) every single day and you want them to authentically live your values and messaging. – Ellie Duffus, Elixirr
6. Open Up Through Your Branding
Poor branding can be the downfall of a company. Messaging is a big part of branding, so don’t just focus on the visual aspect. Let your consumers know who you are, why and how your products support that. – Indre Deksnyte, CUJO AI
7. Write Well, And Use Powerful Images
The best way to improve your organization’s brand is with good writing and powerful images that reflect the values of your company. Be consistent with this on social media, on proposals and on your website. I can’t tell you how often clients will fire an agency because of repeated poor grammar or the overuse of stock images. – Erica Hicks Anderson, PR VEIN
8. Tailor Your Messaging
A recipe to enhance your organization’s brand: Understand your reader, tailor your message accordingly, conduct keyword research to optimize content and ensure it aligns with your brand. People gravitate to what is authentic and human. Therefore, your content should be meaningful, humanized, educational and engaging. Propel brand awareness by promoting your content on social media. To expand your brand’s reach, encourage employees to share, like and comment on company posts. – Katie Sloane, Align Communications
What do you want people to think of when they read or hear your name?
More and more professionals are asking themselves that question. Why? Because they realize that a strong personal brand is the ticket to new and exciting opportunities in both private and professional life.
Strategically, personal branding is a no-brainer. On average, employees spend about four years in any single position. When you know you’re going to be looking for a new job in the next several years, there’s something intensely valuable in having your reputation precede you.
More than that, personal branding gives professionals the opportunity to pursue their deepest passions without having to ditch their day job. The trouble, of course, is figuring out how to build a brand when half your day is spent at work.
How To Break Free Without Breaking Out
Workers often feel as though their current employer has taken them hostage. Especially for those who are interested in crafting a personal brand, the idea of building and maintaining a persona outside the office seems daunting.
Worse, personal branding can seem downright disloyal. It’s important to remember that this isn’t a zero-sum game. Personal and corporate branding don’t have to be at odds with one another. In fact, the stronger an employee’s own brand, the better they’re able to strengthen that of the company.
That one insight will pay dividends in creating time and space to develop your brand. If your management can see how your brand impacts their bottom line, you’ll find all the support you need. All that leaves, then, is the work. How do you hold onto that 9-to-5 and build a personal brand at the same time?
Here are 5 tips to get you started:
1. Build your online presence: We’re living in a digital world, and there’s just no getting past the need to construct a digital foundation for your personal brand. Start with a simple, yet professional website. Supplement it with a fully built-out LinkedIn profile, Twitter account and Facebook profile.
2. Share your offline presence: As crucial as digital media may be, there’s no substitute for real-world connection. Start attending as many industry meetups and conferences as possible. Strike up relationships offline, and then maintain them online. This will increase your name value in the field.
3. Speak in public: Branding is leadership. If you want people to follow (i.e., pay attention to) you, then you need to point beyond yourself to the deeper truths about your industry. There’s no better way to do that than to stand up in front of a hundred of your peers and deliver a compelling vision for the future.
4. Write a paper: What speaking accomplishes in terms of presence, publication does in terms of reach. Online publication is great, but print is even better. The gravitas of a trade journal or industry magazine won’t just help your resume; it’ll establish you as a thought leader in the eyes of your colleagues.
5. Collaborate: Look for opportunities to partner with others in your field. What can you do together to move your industry forward? How can you work with others to highlight issues and develop solutions? These questions will help you create the synergy you need to raise your personal brand to the next level.
For the most part, you can tackle these without infringing on the company’s time. When you can’t, show your company why it’s in their interest to send you off or give you space to write. If you can build a strong brand that shines a favorable light on your company, that will always be an easy sell.
Get To Work
The “trick” to building a personal brand isn’t cracking some esoteric code or finding the perfect niche angle. Strategy is important, and marketing skills help, but the key is this: Have something to say and the courage to stand up and say it.
So, build out your online profile. Get out there, and start meeting people. Stand up on stage, and deliver your ideas with conviction. Write them down for others to read. Collaborate with leaders in your industry. Do the work; put in the time. Build a strong personal brand, and people will have something to think about when they read or hear your name. Your reputation will go before you in ways you’ve never even dreamed. And, best of all, you’ll never run out of options in life.
