6 ways to boost your personal brand
With ways of working under an intense magnifying glass, the job market is pivoting at an unprecedented rate. What comes with that, is a renewed focus on your personal brand. By showcasing what makes us different it creates cut-through in a competitive landscape and helps our audience to connect with us as a person rather than a product or a service.
There are various ways you can think about your personal brand so I asked some of the experts in my network to each share with me one tip. Below is a round up of six unique ways you can start to hype yourself today.
1. Just do you
The word authenticity can often be overused but this is what should underpin your personal brand strategy. One of my favourite accounts to follow on IG, which has bags of marketing tips, personality and charisma to boot is @kimdoesmarketing. When it comes to putting your stamp on things, Kim Darragon says: “Don’t be vanilla — be interesting! If you’re guava, be guava! Own it and spread the word about it. Don’t overshare the same tired trends and memes that everyone else does, particularly if you haven’t yet clearly defined who you are and your brand personality on digital platforms. Jumping on the viral mainstream wagon might give you some exposure in the short-run, but it will lose its effectiveness in the long-run if you haven’t defined your tone of voice.
In a sea of social media sameness, trends fade but personality stays. Focus on yourself, watch the competition (but too not close!) and honestly define what makes you unique.”
2. Amplify your network
Word of warning: this next tip isn’t about tagging an influencer and hoping they share and you automatically take followers from them. Raz Widrich is the content development manager at Jolt, the modern business school. He works with industry authorities across the globe who lecture on all different expertise and has spotted a common trend when it comes to getting your message to a bigger reach “Harness the power of others. In every post or blog that you share, find a way to tag someone, whether a person or a business, that has helped you achieve your goal.
This way, you get to empower others (and increase exposure along the way).
On a personal level, he notes that when he tags somebody else in his own content it almost magically triples the numbers of engagement he receives. If you show gratitude in your post, it makes people stall a bit more on your post. And let’s face it, it’s just a good thing to do to keep lifting each other up.
3. Recycle
One of the biggest complaints that business owners have is lack of time. When it comes to promoting their businesses, they don’t feel they also have time to develop a personal brand. My fellow publicity expert Ronke Lawal has the ultimate time-busting tip that also maximises your personal brand.
“Repurpose content across your social media platforms. Give your audience a sense of your voice across multiple channels, it not only gives your followers a greater sense of your authenticity it is a great content creation hack. For example your tweets don’t just have to stay on twitter you can screenshot one of your popular or favourite tweets and repurpose it for instagram or LinkedIn. It’s a great way to keep the conversation going and as mentioned, it’s great for bringing your social voice to life without having to do more work!” Ronke Lawal, Founder of Ariatu PR —
4. Phone a friend
Ever since the age of “Who wants to be millionaire” hit our TV screens, having the option to phone a friend to answer a question for us has actually made this a more bonafide solution. Hadrien Chatelet, Creative Director of The Wern says: “You need to really understand your value and uniqueness, sometimes this is something we can’t always identify clearly for ourselves. Or perhaps our ego skews us into either having a false pretence as to what our positives are — we might over or undervalue what it is we have to offer to the world. So, phone a friend and ask them for some adjectives that define our skills”. It might feel scary to find out our uniqueness and values from others but it’s a very worth while task.
5. Be opinionated.
I’m always being asked by founders if they should have two social accounts one for personal and one for business. Not for the typical reasons e.g they want to keep their family life private or don’t want people to nose in their homes. BUT because they are fearful that their opinions are going to be divisive. Let me put it this way, if you are a good person and you are sharing honest and well researched political, ethical or social viewpoints this is only going to attract more of your people to you. As we are moving into a more purpose-drive business era versus faceless corporations it is essential to share your opinions. So my advice, just invest your time in one.
6. Get to know your audience (and some)
We often think we know what our audience works but actually, really getting down to the granular is key. Vix Meldrew, founder of Grow & Glow says “Don’t just stop at working out who your ideal audience are by their demographics — get really under their skin. What TV shows are they obsessed with? What style of clothes do they wear? What cultural or nostalgic references do they get? Then make sure you pepper all of these references throughout your personal brand messaging and the content you create to make that audience stop and go, ‘wow, this gal GETS ME’.”
So there we have it. 6 easy ways to boost your personal brand. Keep your uniqueness and be quintessentially yourself, involve others in your network to expand your reach, make sure you recycle what you have. Check in with others as to what you stand for and make sure you keep your worldly view out there and lastly, really get to know your people.
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