HOW ENTREPRENEURS CAN BUILD THEIR PERSONAL BRAND USING SOCIAL MEDIA
In the online world, social media has emerged as a crucial way to connect with your customers on a deeper level and inspire brand loyalty. That’s why so many growing and established businesses use social media to enhance their online revenue and visibility. The more these groups engage on social media, the more they create a positive experience for their users that generates more traffic, more profits, and more awareness for them.
So, what happens when your brand centers around a person, instead of a company? When you’re trying to establish your own personal brand, you still need to leverage the power of social media, but you may need to approach the concept in a different way. In a world where more than 90% of customers trust the information they obtain from “people” over companies, building those personal brand connections could be the ideal way to enhance your presence online.
Here are just some of the actionable ways that entrepreneurs can begin to build their personal brand through social media.
CHOOSE A NETWORK THAT SUPPORTS YOUR IMAGE
With about 22% of all Americans using social media every day, this platform represents one of the best ways for any entrepreneur to build their brand. Of course, just because there are dozens of social media platforms to choose from, doesn’t mean that you should be using all of them. Instead, you’ll need to focus your time and energy on choosing a platform that supports your ideal brand image.
Here’s some guidance that just might help:
- LinkedIn is typically the best platform for entrepreneurs who want to work on a B2B basis. You can use this social media channel to connect with other professionals in your field and expand your network.
- Pinterest is often the most effective social network for connecting with women – particularly if you’re planning on selling clothing, jewelry, or anything with a visual appeal.
- Although Google+ isn’t the most popular social network out there, it can be an effective way to reach men in the tech space, as two-thirds of the users on this platform are men, with most of those individuals working in engineering professions.
- Instagram is perfect for personal brands that rely heavily on imagery. It’s also ideal for when you want to connect with younger adults and diverse cultures
- Facebook is the most effective platform for boosting brand awareness, with three-quarters of all Americans using the site.
KEEP THAT IMAGE CONSISTENT
Once you’ve chosen the social media platform that’s best for your personal brand, make sure that you’re taking steps to ensure consistency through every channel. When people want to learn about you online, they’re likely to look at all your social outlets. Presenting your profile consistently will help you to control customer perception, and enhance your brand reputation.
Here are just some of the things that you can do to improve consistency:
- Reserve your name across every social channel, and use the same name in each place
- Use the same profile photo on each channel
- Make sure that you use a similar headline, blurb, or bio wherever your customers find you
- Come up with a consistent “look” for your themes and images
POST VALUABLE CONTENT REGULARLY
Now that you’re certain that you’re interacting in the right places, with the same consistent image, you can focus on helping people to get to know your personal brand. Research into Twitter followers shows that people who tweet more often have the most followers. In other words, activity counts on social platforms.
Research into the perfect posting frequency suggests that you should refer to specific guidelines when deciding how often to post, but it’s important to remember that you’ll learn more about what works for your audience as your personal brand grows. To get you started, the recommended numbers are:
- Twice a day for Facebook
- 5 times a day for Twitter
- Once a day for LinkedIn
- Twice a day for Google+
- 5 times a day for Pinterest
- 1.5 times a day for Instagram
When deciding how often to post, remember to think about which content you should be producing too. Often, visual content performs well, with content that includes images gaining twice as many views as all-text posts.
JOIN A COMMUNITY
Social media works best when you’re dedicated to being social. Sharing consistently will help to draw more people to your brand, but you can also take a more proactive approach to engagement by connecting with your community.
Many different social media platforms offer groups that you can join to help you find more people who might be connected to your niche or marketplace. At the same time, you could even consider connecting with influencers who have already begun to develop their own community that could be relevant to your personal brand.
Remember, collaborating with influencers isn’t always easy, but it can be a fantastic way for budding brands to start leveraging the pre-existing trust and authority that a big-name in their industry has already developed. You should tag the influencers you want to connect with in your content, mention them whenever possible, and email them to let them know that you want to work together.
CONSTANTLY MONITOR YOUR NAME
Finally, most businesses will set up some kind of alert to let them know when their products, services, or company is mentioned online. Those alerts are intended to allow organizations to respond quickly to discussions about their brand. You should be doing the very same thing for your personal brand, including alerts for common keywords that reference your entrepreneurial expertise.
There are a number of ways that you can improve your chances of monitoring discussions on social media. For instance, you can search for yourself online and see what comes up, or you can set up a monitoring tool like “Mention” which works to track any instance when someone talks about you online.
The idea behind monitoring your name is that if you’re aware of the discussion other people have you, you’ll be able to jump into the conversation and protect your reputation when necessary. You’ll also be able to better respond to potential client queries or people who might be interested in networking with you in the future.
