WHERE TO START WHEN BUILDING YOUR PERSONAL BRAND
Clients will often ask me where they should start when building their personal brand: working with a PR firm to get media placements, revamping their website, pitching to speak on stages, building their email list, or posting consistently on social media.
This is a valid question. Starting to build your personal brand is an incredibly daunting task because it can be taken in so many directions. However, the most important foundation of your personal brand is your social media. Here’s why…
SOCIAL MEDIA CONNECTS YOU DAILY TO YOUR AUDIENCE.
If you have an article published in Forbes, speak on a TedX stage, or are a guest on a podcast, afterward, how will you stay top-of-mind with your audience afterward? Social media.
If you build a beautiful website, have an incredible service offering, or begin to build an email list, how will people know that those exist? Social media.
Social media is how you are able to keep top-of-mind with your audience and inform them of other ways to connect with you such as on your website, ways you can work together, your email newsletter, future articles that you publish, at speaking engagements, and on podcasts.
SOCIAL MEDIA IS A CLEAR AND EASY CALL TO ACTION.
After a piece of content you produce or you are featured in an article, podcast, or speaking engagement, asking your audience to sign up for your newsletter or go to your website is a big ask. This is because it requires them to share personal information such as their email, take additional time out of their day to find your website or newsletter, and remember your company name or URL.
Instead, ask the audience to connect with you via social media. Your social media can easily be linked at the bottom of articles and in show notes on podcasts and remembered since your social media is your name (and if it’s not, it should be).
From your social media, your new audience will then be introduced to the other channels you have where they can connect with you, such as your website or email list, through your content.
SOCIAL MEDIA HELPS YOU EARN MEDIA OPPORTUNITIES.
If you want to get published, be a guest on podcasts, or get invited to speak, your social media is an incredibly important piece to help get you there. While you might have great ideas to share, if people don’t know about them, then what’s the point? To begin sharing your opinions, begin by sharing them with your audience on social media. This will also help you determine which topics resonate best with your audience.
Social media is also a powerful networking avenue that can help you meet the right people to get these kinds of media placements. These people can either find you from your content or you can reach out to them -- either way, they will be seeing what you post about and can begin to see how your ideas and perspectives can begin to fit into their platforms.
In addition, having a solid social media presence and an audience are important because content creators that give you the opportunity to write or speak on their platforms want to make sure it is a win-win situation for everyone. If you have a strong social media presence, that is a huge asset for the content creator as their work that features you will be shown in your feed and introduce your audience to this content creator. You get your thoughts and ideas out there to their audience and they get introduced to your audience. It’s a win-win.
Building your social media presence is the first step to building your personal brand. Once it is established, you will have a reliable resource to be able to connect with your community consistently, direct new connections to stay engaged with you, and leverage it to earn new media opportunities.
