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How Social Media Can Improve Personal Branding

How Social Media Can Improve Personal Branding

We talk about corporate logos, brand names, taglines, etc. and the sum meaning of all three is that it helps them to increase their target audience and build a business. But when it comes to law firms, digital marketing agencies, and hospitals, personal branding matters. These organizations arose with the help of a person’s professional experience, practice and degree. This means that individuals can benefit from branding much in the same way larger corporations can.

Why Does Personal Branding Matter?

Personal branding is the practice of people marketing themselves in order to enhance their careers and stand out from their competitors by providing flagship services. Recently, digital marketing expert Neil Patel stated his marketing prediction for 2015, which was that personal branding is going to boom. His expertise in this industry niche will allow his company to get more leads than any other. Individuals are already aware of his expertise in digital marketing and contributions these last many years.

Therefore, if they hire his company, they will most definitely obtain guidance from the top industry leader. This will allow you to establish your reputation as well as to create an identity for yourself. Presently, even employers are increasingly using social media tools and started screening candidates resume according their performance on social media.

How Can Social Media Improve Personal Branding?

When it comes to brand awareness, social media will flash into everyone’s mind. It is true that social media is one of the best platforms for improving your personal identity, branding and reputation within an industry. As a result, here are facts which identify how social media can help us to improve personal branding.

1.  Full and complete social media profile showing real identity

Someone once said that if content is the fuel for your personal brand then social media is the engine. So, take your time and complete the details of your social media profile, to include Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and About.me. Include your real profile and cover photos; add your favorite interests, skills, expertise and preferred language; as well as anything else you can think of. Also, choose your custom username for all of your social media channels.

The Takeaway:

A complete profile shows that you’re a real person. Facebook and Google+ always ask individuals to verify their contact number in order to customize their username.  A real username should be created in order to show your personal identity.

2. Post updates regularly to show you’re active

Just creating a profile doesn’t mean you’ve created a personal brand. You need to update your content on a regular basis. Don’t forget to engage with other individuals in your field, connect your social media influencers and share their posts, appraise their valuable content. These people could prove to be helpful in spreading the word about your expertise.

Generally, you can update posts at least twice a day for Facebook and LinkedIn and at least four times each day for Twitter. Don't be afraid to re-post your older content for any new followers and to share posts from others as well. The timing of your posting updates is also important. Check here to determine the best times to update your social media posts in infographics.

The Takeaway:

Updating content on a regular basis shows that you’re active in your field and capable of contributing valuable knowledge and information across your industry’s niche group. It also builds customer trust and relationships with consistent interactions. Finally, it helps us to gain awareness through a higher level of visibility in order to attract potential customers.

3.  More networks mean more opportunities to increase personal branding

Either we choose the real world or social media.  The key to sparking your personal brand growth is networking. Create a Facebook page as a business person and then increase the likes on that site. Start following industry leaders and sharing their valuable information by tagging them. Also, share your content with them. Engage with social influencers and individuals in your field.

Attend a social media summit or professional networking event in order to meet with influencers in your area and increase your connections. The more connections you have, the more opportunities will you have to meet these kinds of people and talk, the better.

The Takeaway:

More connections mean more people will read your content. If people like your content, then they will share it within their pages. This creates trust on your end as a personal brand.

4. Invest in paid advertising to increase connections and enhance your personal brand

It is difficult to connect with an audience on a personal brand’s social media profile without investing money or ads. Whether it is on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn, we have to invest money in advertisements in order to increase connections, reputation and enhance our personal profile. Along with paid ads, we need to implement a few strategies that can help us attract more of an audience with more engagement for your posts. Choosing below all plans your personal profile will

Whether it is on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn, we have to invest money in advertisements in order to increase connections, reputation and enhance our personal profile. Along with paid ads, we need to implement a few strategies that can help us attract more of an audience with more engagement for your posts.

Choosing below all plans your personal profile will boosted and promoted across all channels.

For the Facebook branding page, we can either go with a promotion page  in order to increase the number of likes, sponsor posts to increase our post-reach or we can do both simultaneously.

For Twitter, we can invest in increasing followers, ask people to mention our name and participate in hashtags. This means you can either promote a hashtag or a username, though both will result in an increase in  followers.

For LinkedIn, we have more options:

  1. Power your professional life – This means you can find the right contacts to promote, enhance and grow your personal brand and business.
  2. Find and hire talent - If you’re a talent acquisition agency, then you can choose the plan which allows you to find appropriate candidates, contact them directly and build relationships with prospective hires.
  3. Unlock sales opportunities – Find leads and accounts in your target market, get real-time insight based on outreach and build trusted relationships with customers and prospective customers.

The Takeaway:

Advertisements are a 100% return on investment (ROI) and a results-oriented activity. If we use content strategically and accurately promote it, targeting the right people in the right location, then it will increase your connections and enhance your personal brand and identity.

Conclusion

Overall, we show that social media is making a significant contribution toward building personal brands. It is one of best tools to increase an online reputation and identity both personally and professionally.

Sawaram Suthar (Sam) is a Founding Director at Middleware. He has extensive experience in marketing, team building and operations. He often seeing working on various GTM practices and implement best one to generate more demand. He is also founded a digital marketing blog - TheNextScoop.