Getting Started Building Your Personal Brand On Social Media

Personal branding has become an important tool for all professions right across the business world. Whether you’re a freelancer, entrepreneur, or employee, brand building is something that you should be thinking about. Having a strong personal brand will help you to stand out from the crowd. It can help you negotiate a better salary, find a more interesting job, and make yourself more attractive to clients and customers.  In this article, I share tips and tricks to get started building your personal brand on social media.

What is a personal brand?

When it comes to successfully marketing yourself, social media can be a valuable tool. And while using the various social media tools in your day-to-day is a good start, going that step further and cultivating a strong personal brand can set you apart from the crowd and be the differentiator for those seeking quality information and expertise in a sea of noise and opinions. When you have a personal brand, you allow yourself to be recognized as an expert in your field.

Your personal brand is your promise to your clients, to your employer, and to the world around you. It is the impression you make on others. It is the set of characteristics and attributes that you convey to others. This is who you are and what you do. No matter if you are a freelancer or a big company, you want to be seen as an expert in your field, known for your professionalism, and respected for your experience.

Every business owner wants to be more visible, build their brand, and increase their influence in the marketplace. Contemplate for a moment, what could it do for your business if you were known in your industry as a thought-leader? Could it be a catalyst for your business success? Absolutely yes it could be. By being a sought-after thought-leader, you’re spotlighting your business and mapping its upward trajectory.

How to build your personal brand

The good news is that you don’t need to be a marketing expert or have any special skills to build your personal brand. You just need to know how to stand out from the crowd, how to make yourself memorable, and how to tell your unique story in a way that resonates with your target audience.

To build your brand on social media, you need to master the art of self-promotion. Don’t worry; it’s not as bad as it sounds. But you do have to be willing to promote yourself and be open about what you’re trying to do. 

When you first start building your personal brand online, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the sheer number of social media platforms out there. There’s Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, Google+, Instagram, Pinterest, and many more. Trying to figure out how to make a personal brand on each of these networks can feel like a lot of work. But it’s actually not that complicated!

The best way to build your personal brand on social media is the same regardless of which platform you choose:

Share great content. Be remarkable and helpful by consistently providing people with valuable information they want to read and watch. Encourage engagement by asking questions that let people share their expertise or viewpoints. Engage in conversations with others, but don’t be afraid to say something controversial every once in a while.

Connect with others. Find people who are already engaged in conversations about things you’re interested in, and connect with them. Comment on their posts and share their content as well as your own. You should have a good balance between posts that give information about yourself and your content versus those that are purely promotional in nature.

Encourage sharing. Create content that is so good other people want to share it with others because that’s how you’ll get the most exposure for your brand.

Building a successful personal brand

The key to using social media to build your brand is to find a voice that resonates with the people that matter to you. For example, if you’re trying to build a career based around content marketing, it’s important to make sure that everything you post across all platforms hits on the same points. If you’re blogging about SEO, try to mention some of the latest SEO trends or tools in every post – this way, when someone visits your website from Pinterest or Twitter, they’ll already know a little bit about what you do and why it matters to them. You don’t want someone reading your blog posts for the first time and then leaving because they weren’t interested in the topic.

Blogging is one of the best ways to start building a personal brand, especially on social media. Using your blog as a platform, you can share your expertise with potential followers and establish yourself as an authority in your industry.

It’s also important to post about things that will resonate with your target audience. You can use Google Analytics or other social listening tools like Brandwatch to figure out what people are talking about in relation to your industry and offer up some insight into those questions. This way, when someone is searching for a solution for their problem, they might find one of your blog posts.

Things to avoid when building your personal brand

Building a strong personal brand is a constructive step forward in your career and business ambitions. However, and as with all things, it’s important to reflect and reassess from time to time, informing whether you’re on the right path or whether you need to realign your personal brand. There are things to be avoided when developing your personal brand, and which can ultimately hold back your success. Here are some tips on what to avoid:

1. Don’t just promote yourself.

2. Don’t just ask for followers.

3. Don’t just share links.

4. Don’t just criticise others.

5. Don’t only self-promote.

6. Don’t forget to be human. Always be yourself.

7. Don’t forget to be creative.

On the road to success

The most successful professionals have a strong personal brand that they can use to their advantage. A strong personal brand can help you achieve your business goals and get ahead of your competitors. Branding should be an evolving process; if you feel you have a personal branding problem, it may be time to take action!