Personal branding is essential for any entrepreneur, business owner, or professional looking to enhance your image. You are your company, and a bad reputation will reflect on your brand. Likewise, a good reputation will reflect positively on your brand. But if you’ve never engaged in personal branding before this can be a confusing field.
I’ve gone through a long journey of trial and error in building up my personal brand. I’ve created a comprehensive guide for how anyone in any industry can create their personal brand. Here’s how I’ve built my personal brand through using my website and social media.
Your Personal Website is Your Major Branding Point
To begin with, your personal website will serve as the hub of your brand. This is what appears on all the business cards and it’s where your social media followers will visit. Your website should reflect the industry you’re in, so if you’re in finance you’d have a more professional website.
One of the mistakes I made with personal branding is I treated my website as a launchpad for my company. I was afraid to promote myself for fear of looking arrogant. But the truth is this is exactly what people want. They want to know about you. Keep your website focused on you because you’re the subject.
Of course, it shouldn’t be too self-congratulatory. Try to talk about your motivations and how you serve the people you meet in everything that you do.
Keep everything updated and you’re already well on your way to building up your personal brand.
How I Used Instagram to Help My Brand
Instagram is one of the newer platforms. A lot of people don’t know how to use it. This is an image-based platform and it uses a more casual manner of connecting. That’s why when you promote yourself on Instagram you should use it to give an insight into your personal life. Make sure it stays casual.
I also made use of Facebook’s advertising platform. Not a lot of people know that Facebook bought Instagram in 2014 and connected it with their own advertising platform. It requires trial and error, along with some money to spend, but it’s worth it when you hit that sweet spot.
Also, don’t forget about Instagram hashtags. You can use as many hashtags as their guidelines allow, so check out the conversations trending when you post and change your hashtags based on that.
Why Twitter is Great for Making Connections
Twitter itself acts as an indirect way of upping your personal brand. The way to create a brand is to have your image promoted in as many ways as possible. Getting into the mainstream media or featured as part of a guest blogging opportunity can get more eyes on your personal brand.
Twitter is perfect because it’s where news breaks first and it’s where most people spend their time after Facebook. You can easily make connections by targeting content at specific reporters and interacting with them within trending conversations. I’ve used it to get my stories into the mainstream media and on prominent websites many times.
But Remember that a Personal Brand Takes Time to Build
Ultimately, a personal brand takes time to build. It’s not going to happen overnight. Check out my guide on building a personal brand today and see how you can best take advantage of the branding opportunities available.
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