5 Steps to Kickstart Your Personal Brand 🙌
Today I want to talk to you about building a personal brand.
A lot of people get really overwhelmed and look ahead to folks that have been in the space, building their personal brands for a long time.
The key thing to remember, when you're idolizing those individuals, is that they all started somewhere.
A first Tweet, a first YouTube video, a first post on Instagram...
The thing that helped me the most was to start small and focus on a few little activities that moved the needle every week versus trying to do it all at once.
I'm going to share with you five things that you can do to get started with your personal brand and I'll share one mistake that I see a lot of people make that will help you avoid that road bump on your journey.
Ready? Let's go!
Step #1 - Write a Fun, Story-Based Bio
Let's be honest, nobody wants to read a boring bio that doesn't contain anything real or human in it. While you do want to establish credibility and highlight your accomplishments, don't forget to also add in a bit of humour, your passions outside of your career, or your origin story - ie: what made you excited about what you do today.
For me, I often share the story of my dad giving me a Commodore 64 and I try to weave that in when it makes sense. Here's my LinkedIn bio to get you started.
Step #2 - Create a Consistent Experience Across All Platforms
The next step is to take that bio to all of the social platforms that you're on and ensure that you are creating a consistent experience for your community.
Now, you might want to craft each bio to suit the platform and the type of content you're going to share on each but the idea is to at least make it feel like the same person.
While you're at it, it's also a good idea to freshen up the graphics - social headers and profile photos - and audit your content. I like Canva.com for social graphics and you literally need zero design skills to use it.
Step #3 - Choose 3-5 Pillar Topics
Next, choose 3-5 topics that you're passionate about.
These will become your pillars to help you guide the content you'll share and shape the connections you will make as you build your brand. For me, I share a lot about marketing, startups, tech, and being fearless and unconventional.
Think about these pillars as bumpers in a bowling alley. They help you stay on-topic and give the folks in your community an idea of who you are, what you're about, and what they can expect when they follow your content.
If you aren't sure what those things are, think about WHY you are sharing this content and what you're hoping to get out of it or what your goals are. I'll talk a bit more about my why later onto help you contextualize this.
Step #4 - Craft Your Content
The next step is to write out a few social posts that fall within those categories.
I usually aim for about three Tweets per day, one LinkedIn post per day, one Instagram post, a YouTube video per week, and three TikToks per week. Side note: those last two are things I'm working on building in 2021 so stay tuned to see how I do with that.
For productivity purposes, you can batch the creation of your content together. Maybe you set aside some time on Saturday or Sunday to create your content for the week ahead. You'll be far more successful if you batch it versus having to do it in real-time.
Step #5 - Take Your Content to the Social Platforms
The next step is to take that content to the platforms.
You can use a scheduling tool like Buffer or Hootsuite if that helps you to stick to a posting schedule BUT, and here's that mistake I was telling you about earlier, it's important not to post and ghost.
The magic of social media and building a personal brand is showing up as a PERSON on those platforms. Someone who is there to engage, answer questions, retweet or share comments, and be a part of the conversation.
It's also important to engage with other people's content, too. If you're only engaging with the stuff you post, it's going to feel pretty one-sided to your audience.
A lot of people say to me, "BUT ERIN, THAT IS SO MUCH WORK."
If you're feeling like it's a whole lot of work, you can scale up or scale down the things I've shared here today. Building a personal brand is a very personal thing and should match the natural cadence of your life, your goals, your career, and what you're looking to get out of it.
For me, I love sharing and teaching because I get a lot of value out of feeling helpful. I derive a great deal of satisfaction when I know that my contribution to the community made a difference, helped someone out, or made someone's day just a bit better.
Know your why, provide value, and most importantly... have fun with it!
