7 Actionable Social Media Personal Branding Tips
Social media personal branding is where social media and personal branding intertwine. Here are 7 actionable social media personal branding tips!
Hi Trish Davies, here, personal branding expert and creator of Build Your AU. You will know how social media as developed over the last 15 – 20 years. What started out as platforms to stay in touch with friends and share silly videos has evolved into a business owners playground.
Yes you can still do the fun and silly things but as a business owner you can develop a huge following. A following that will be influenced by you, know, like and trust you. Ultimately will convert from being followers into high value paying customers.
Social media is a massive tool that you can leverage for your business, but you must be strategic. Just like any other aspect of your business where you have a plan to work to. Your social media personal branding strategy must be consistent and have a purpose that showcases what you and your business is all about.
You want to develop an online presence and persona that truly reflects your values and professional skills. When you use social media for business you immediately open up people’s perceptions on how you conduct yourself. Obviously you only get one chance to make a great first impression and how you brand yourself makes all the difference.
Now social media personal branding takes time and effort. Use it initially to create connections both in the public and business sectors and you will find that your goals will evolve naturally if you do it correctly. Therefore, I thought it would help to share some social media personal branding tips so you can create a solid foundation on your platforms of choice.
7 Social Media Personal Branding Tips
Bring Your Social Media Accounts Up To Date
You may well have some social media profiles of which some you use and some you don’t. Therefore, it is time to do some housekeeping and delete the ones that you don’t use and don’t intend using in the future.
When you do this, you become focused on the platforms that are important to you. Those remaining platforms and profiles must have up to date information about your business. Make sure everything is accurate as not to confuse anyone who visits your profiles.
The purpose of your profiles is to generate awareness, engagement and traffic. Your social media profiles are like shop windows where people can browse your work and what you have to offer.
Therefore, it is critical to make sure your content is relevant and congruent. If needed delete anything form the past that may have a negative impact on people when they visit your profiles.
Define Your Area Of Expertise
You are an expert of something so you must tell people what that is when they land on your social media profiles. To illustrate that here is a screenshot of my Facebook profile.
As you can see under my name I have what I am an expert in clearly defined. This immediately tells people who visit my profile what type of content they can expect to find on my page.
From a personal perspective I also have clarity on what type of content to publish for my followers. These are the areas that I will create content around and I have my own formula for creating content. I share this formula within my free 9-week personal branding program which you can learn more about here.
Automate Your Social Media Posting
You will be creating content around your expertise and sharing it on publishing platforms. These platforms usually are your website and video hosting platform such as YouTube.
This content will then be shared further on your social media platforms but that can be time consuming. Imagine if you have a video or blog post and you manually share that link on say 5 different platforms. That may well eat into an hour of your day which is obviously counterproductive.
Therefore, I recommend you using an automated publishing tool such as OnlyWire. Basically, it lightens your workload by auto-posting your content onto your desired social platforms.
Now there are other tools that can do that, but the principle is the same. You set up your publishing feeds and link them to you profiles and the system does the work for you. In all it will take you around an hour to set things up then it is set and forget.
Going forward you will know that your valuable content is being shared where it needs to be automatically. This enables you to spend more time creating the content.
Create Regular Content
You must develop a publishing mindset as you will become a publisher. Creating content must have purpose and deliver value to your audience. It must resonate with your following, tell your story and form a connection between you and your audience.
I publish at least 1 video per week, sometimes 2 and around 4 blog posts per week. Consistency is key as your audience will become conditioned to expect regular updates from you. Therefore, you must fulfil that demand and publish when you say you will.
Each piece of content is another brick in the wall to help establish your personal brand online. It will remain there for eternity making it possible for people to come across your years after you have created the content.
To learn more about how to create content for your personal brand join my 9-week personal branding program here.
Always Keep Things Positive
You want your audience to have a great experience when they visit your profiles and consume your content. Therefore, always remain positive in what you say and the language you use.
You want to build a positive impression that sticks in your audiences minds so they themselves develop a positive attitude. Be careful if you are talking about sensitive issues such as religion, racial aspects or politics. You can have your opinion but avoid being offensive.
One thing I must mention is that your professional profiles must be separate from your personal ones. Again, it all comes down to impression and you will publish different content on each profile. The focus today is your professional image and building your personal brand on social media.
Join Related Social Media Groups
You will find that on social media there are groups that are closely related to your business. Therefore, use the search bar to locate these groups and ask to join them. These groups are great places for you to establish your authority and build a network around you.
Here you will share your insights and expertise, to deliver value and make connections. Joining such groups will challenge yourself, help you set and achieve goals and keep you accountable.
Also, they are great learning hubs as you will come across other people’s expertise, skills and perspectives. You will expand your skills, become more knowledgeable. Doors will open up to potential new opportunities and collaborations and raise your profile in your niche.
Keep Your Brand Consistent
It is important that your brand image is consistent over all your social media profiles. Now that includes imagery, colours, fonts etc. It also includes your voice and your messaging.
You will constantly have new ideas and concepts but how you present them must be consistent with what you are trying to achieve. Everything you do must be aligned with your values, so people trust you, so you control their perceptions of you.
Basically, if people hop from one of your profiles to another and so on they are presented with the same message.
This is my share on social media personal branding. If you would like to learn more about building a strong personal brand then click here to learn more about my 9-week program. I look forward to seeing you on the inside.
Helping you build your authenticity, authority and audience.
Trish Davies
Build Your AU
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