Searching for a brand or googling a name is no longer stalking or considered creepy. Society today has reached a stage, in which searching for a name on google is a means to find their history. Therefore, using social media to build your personal brand becomes crucial. Whether you are a professional, entrepreneur, an influencer, a manager, or a self-help guru – you need a personality on social media. You also need to know how to use social media to build your personal brand. It’s not tough to build a personal brand on social media. However, it does need a strategic plan and timely execution to create an aesthetic brand name. Only sharing a resume on LinkedIn is not enough. In most cases, professionals are too busy to do this. Mindstorm offers social media marketing services in Mumbai and helps entrepreneurs and businesses globally to build their brands, digitally. Today, we are sharing 10 ways to use social media to build your personal brand.
10 ways to use social media to build your personal brand.
1. Identify your personal brand and your brand goals
The first step to building your personal brand on social media is defining your personality and your goals from social media. A few things to think about are:
– Why do I want to build a personal brand on social media?
– What is my area of expertise?
– What do I want to sound like?
– Whom should I be speaking to?
– What reaction do I expect from my audience?
– Where do I want to take my personal brand on social media?
– What do I have to offer?
Answering these questions is the start of using social media to build your personal brand. This will help create a blueprint about you, your goals, your tone of voice. It enables you to chalk out the topics of interest to talk about and refine your audience. Your goals could differ for your personal brand from that of your company or the day job you perform. You may be a day-trader by profession, but your personal brand could be motivating people, inspiring people, helping people. Thus, the content on your personal brand profile would be self-help more than trading tips. If your goal is to build a trading product eventually and sell it to your audience. The personal brand tonality will change accordingly.
2. Build a Strategy Plan
Every social media marketing plan needs a strategy, so does your personal brand. Start with defining the actionable goals you want to achieve. Followed by defining the platforms you want to be present at. If you want your followers to try a personal diet plan on your website, then you need to be present on social media platforms that can direct them there.
– Facebook – lets you reach a mass audience
– Twitter – offers you a platform to share your opinions
– YouTube – lets you upload informative videos
– Instagram – gives you a visual and interactive platform to connect in a more fun manner
– LinkedIn – opens a professional network for you to build your personal brand
– Tik Tok – is a great social media platform to be present on, however, the content has to be more interactive and youthful
– Clubhouse – offers you a chance to make your voice heard through audio notes
– Pinterest – lets you post images of finished work, create boards, and offer inspirations to your followers.
These are just a few social media networks to choose from. You don’t need to be on all of them. Your digital marketing strategy plan will decide which platforms to pick. Based on the platform, decide on whether you’d want to interact as a profile or a page. A personal brand page on some social media networks gives you access to a larger audience. As a profile, the number of interactions tends to get limited.
3. Update and Optimize social media accounts
Once you’ve picked the social media networks to be present on, it is time to build your profile and page. Choose the right personal brand handles and maintain it the same across. Since it is personal, sticking with your name as part of the handle works very well. Fill out the bios and profile description in detail with as much information showcasing your work, professional achievements, and existing projects or events.
One of the ways to grow your personal brand on social media is to instantly connect with your existing network of people. Almost every social media network asks you to invite contacts to follow you or connect over the network. Constantly update these social media profiles and pages with images, details, and project updates. Refresh the links to your work to keep your page relevant and authentic.
4. Develop content for each social media network
The next step to grow your personal brand on social media is to develop a detailed content strategy. Setup a monthly calendar that contains at least 3 original posts every week. Talk about current issues and topics at least twice a week. Your personal brand page reflects you. Thus, sharing opinions on issues close to your expertise or creating posts that talk about your achievements matters to your audience.
People follow you because they want to know more about you and hear more from you.
Thus, you need to develop rich content ideas to share and customize content for each platform. Make content ideas and posts relatable, shareable. Followers usually share and retweet funny videos, great quotes, popular opinions, and advice over social media among their networks. It is high-quality content that increases followers, drives engagement, and makes you popular on social media. Wondering how to deal with a rapid decline in your social media traffic?
5. Develop unique, high-value content – podcasts, articles, collaborations
Some social networks like LinkedIn offer you a chance to share blogs through your handle. Blog writing establishes you as an expert on a topic. If the topic starts trending, your blog and tweet may start trending on that social media platform too.
Podcasts are one of the most important ways to use social media to build your personal brand in 2022. More people are now listening to podcasts while driving, working, and exercising. Share a snippet of your podcast on all your social media profiles to drive more traffic to it.
Collaborations are a great way to build your personal brand. Partner with peers or influencers over a LIVE meet-up on social networks. Conduct webinars or interviews on Facebook with experts to tap into their network to grow your following.
6. Stay consistent with your brand personality
Your personality does not change. Similarly, stay consistent with the tonality of your brand personality across all platforms. Showcasing a technical personality on one platform and sharing a piece of advice elsewhere will do. However, randomly switching to comedy when you have chosen a brand personality of an advisor can confuse your audience. Have you noticed how most self-help gurus have a consistent image across all platforms? Their tonality in responses is consistent thus, offering a holistic experience across all platforms.
7. Interact with social media groups
Every social media platform has excellent forums for discussions. These discussions range from topics of your expertise to topical discussions. Joining these groups enhances the visibility of your brand profile. However, joining social media groups alone is not enough. To build your brand, you need to get vocal in these groups. Share new pieces of content, comment, advice, and start conversations that establish you as an expert. These groups expose your personal brand to a whole new set of audiences while also giving you new ideas, teaching you more too.
8. Engage with your followers and social connections
Great content delivers excellent conversations. Engaging in those conversations helps you build your personal brand over social media. Social media offers you plenty of opportunities
to interact with your followers, ask them questions and generate interesting ideas to discuss.
Reply to comments regularly – negative and positive ones. Since it is your personal brand channel, chances are opposing opinions may come in. Negative replies are common and tough questions may be asked. How you respond to this would make or break your personal brand.
Often, your followers want to hear what you have to say. 86% of consumers say they want business leaders to speak more about important current issues. As a thought leader or expert in an industry, you are expected to reply to social issues and engage in discourse on various topics.
9. Actively build connections to build your own network
One of the ways to use social media to build your personal brand is by building your own network. Part of establishing your personal brand entails actively making new connections. You can also make new connections by tagging other experts and peers in your field or building connections outside your network.
While you try to grow your personal brand -for work, career opportunities, or collaborations- ensure you connect with a personal message. Customize each message by briefly explaining how the association could be beneficial. If someone senior chooses to connect with you, follow back across all social networks, to make your profile stand out.
Every platform has its own set of influencers. Follow those influencers, connect with them and start a conversation. These rich conversations make your personal brand look authentic and help build your network with real connections.
10. Seek help from social media marketing professionals
As a business leader, celebrity, manager, or personality what you do and how efficiently you perform defines your body of work. Often, in these cases, social media takes a backseat. While you could consider automating the whole process, creating content and sharing opinions must still come from you. It is a good idea to consult a social media marketing agency.
A digital marketing agency such as Mindstorm can explain how you can use social media to build your personal brand. Our experts create efficient strategies, drive brilliant content, strike the right collaborations, and hold conversations with the target audience.
Ready to build your personal brand using social media?
Connect with the experts at aniketh@mindstorm.in. Our team helps your business and your brand grow digitally. We consult leaders, entrepreneurs, and others to build brands across social media.
