In our previous blog post, we briefly explained why you should have a personal brand. In this weeks blog, we’re going to explain how to start building your personal brand while benefiting your company.
We’ve all heard the phrase - it’s not what you know, it’s who you know. Using your personal brand to build your business brand can be a helpful tool in growing your platforms.
If people aren’t aware of your company, they generally will not have had the opportunity to engage with it online.
Take control and use your personal social media profile and connections to increase your brands’ online presence and spread the word.
Here are several steps you should take to start your personal branding experience off right:
1. Build your foundation
In our last blog, we explained that through personal branding, you can create trust and credibility. You can only do that by showing off who you are, authentically of course.
What makes you, you?
What is special about yourself that you’re willing to show to the world?
Consider writing down your answers to the following questions and use those answers to develop your foundation:
What are you passionate about?
What are your skills and credentials?
What are your core values?
If you were able to answer these you’ll have a clear vision as to what you want to share, why you’re qualified to share it and a benchmark for what you care about.
2. Who is your target audience?
As a business owner or entrepreneur, you can’t and shouldn’t be trying to target everybody.
If you’re looking to reach potential clients, you’ll want to target those similar to who your company targets.
If you’re looking for employees, you’ll want to target those who would fit your job description.
3. Show off the company you’ve built by inviting your friends to like your page:
This is a simple and fast way to boost your organic following with a personal touch.
All you need to do is go to your company page and on the right side where you will see a box labeled ‘Community’. Just click the ‘Invite your friends’ button and then you can select the people you want to send an invite to.
It may not be best to invite your entire Friends List. So take time and consider who of your Friends is most likely to support your company page. Your friend's friends will be able to see that they liked your page and may be inclined to take the same steps.
4. Share updates on your personal profile
Sharing updates from the company page to your personal profile allows for people that don’t follow your company page to see the content that get posted. It’s also a great opportunity to show off your company.
Sharing is really simple, just go to the bottom of the post and click the share button. From there, you can select how you want to share the post. The easiest option is ‘Share Now’ - this allows the post to show up on your profile, just like one of your status updates. You can also share updates on LinkedIn and the process is the same.
Using your personal account to cross-post company content will also give the impression that you’re proud to show off the work your company is doing and give more inclination to those you have connected with to seek further information.
5. Engage, engage, engage!
Engaging with the people that interact with you is a cost-effective way to continue building your brand awareness.
Social media doesn’t close its doors - when you’re posting on social media and people interact with you, they often expect a response back. By engaging with those people, you continue to build a trusting relationship with a potential customer.
Engagement isn’t just limited to conversations on your content either - engagement consists of liking other people’s content, commenting on it or following them.
When you reach out and interact with others, the people that follow them will be able to see your engagement and may be more inclined to check out you and your company.
These 5 steps are just the beginning, but the effort is well worth it. Building your personal brand is a win-win situation all around.
ou can generate leads and increase clientele for your company while building and fostering personal relationships.
At Are You Social, part of our social media strategy for organizations includes in-depth engagement tactics on behalf of our clients to increase reach, awareness and generate leads so you can get the best return on your investment.