Branding is the foundation of all of your marketing efforts. It helps you establish a unique identity in a crowded market and ensures you stand out and catch your prospective customer’s attention. Personal branding is almost as important as company branding because you want your target audience to connect with the human aspect of business. Unfortunately, not many entrepreneurs know how to build a personal brand that’s unique and represent them accurately.
Here are some tips that can help you:
Take Your Profile Picture Seriously
Some people hesitate to use a good picture of themselves in their profile picture, and that can hamper brand visibility. If you want people to connect with and relate to you, they need to see what you look like. Moreover, the picture you post should be of high quality and showcase your features clearly. It’s a good idea to hire a professional photographer, but if you intend to take the picture yourself, here are some tips:
- Use a good camera
- Smile and keep your eyebrows raised as it conveys trustworthiness.
- Don’t use blurry or pixilated pictures.
- Use a headshot with your features clearly displayed.
Neil Patel talks about this at length and provides some great tips and examples on this post.
Create Content that Represents You Honestly
Regardless of the medium you use, it’s important for your voice to come through. That will give your content a personal touch and make it stand out. For example, if you’re noted for you deadpan delivery of facts and dry sarcasm, incorporate that personality into your video, audio, and text content. You don’t need to worry about causing offense though it’s a good idea to keep your more controversial viewpoints to yourself.
Honest content that reflects your personality well will attract more audiences and will allow them to connect with you. People love authenticity and differing views, so such content will help you gain more followers and fans.
I am honest about who I am, what I do, and where I’ve been in all of my writings. This tip alone has forged stronger business relationships and has earned me massive opportunity through speaking and consulting about branding.
Post Content Regularly to Stay Visible
If you want to stay relevant and visible, you need to post content regularly and make sure it’s of high quality. Take your time to research the subject matter, don’t be afraid to create opinion pieces, make sure it’s useful and informative and is of a good length. If your content has the right combination of personality and information, audiences will keep coming back to read or watch it, and that will help you establish a good personal brand.
I know this seems like a no-brainer, but think of it like this: let’s say you love watching Dancing With The Stars (I don’t know what the kids are watching these days, lol) and it’s on every week on the same day at the same time. But, imagine if it wasn’t, and every week it changed days, and times, or, it didn’t even air some weeks. That would be confusing for you to get engaged and follow. Same goes for posting content.
Be Active on One Social Media Platform
Social media has given brands, professionals, and artists the scope to reach audiences they could’ve never had access to before the age of Internet. However, with so many distractions out there, this medium has made it difficult to retain the audience’s attention. It’s important to post and engage audiences on these platforms regularly. For example, you might want to post a comment or picture on Twitter up to 5 times a day to keep your customer’s engaged. However, I’ve found to make this time effective; it’s best to find the one medium you use best.
Use Relevant Links to Build Your Business
Making it easy for people to find your business online is vital, but equally important is taking advantage of searches by using frequently search keywords in your domain.
These are simple tips that will help you establish your personal brand and ensure your following grows. I believe that your personal brand is the most risk averse investment you can make. Plus, if you don’t write your story, somebody else will. And, it’s better to control your destiny versus leaving up to someone else’s hand.
