There are many opportunities that a good personal brand can offer you. But it is important that it responds to a mix between your professional profile and a personal approach.
Here are 7 guidelines that will help you create, strengthen or improve your personal brand:
# 1. Power your brand: create a blog
The blog, as a communicative tool, allows you to have a virtual space where you can present your experience, resources and professional background with the frequency that you choose.
Sometimes this space can be a hybrid between a web page and a blog. That is, you can accompany it with other pages such as ‘Services’, ‘Conferences’; ‘Hire me’ … The advantage of this option is that you will not have to position two spaces.
Establish a theme-related to your scope of action and your knowledge-and think about what you can write. From there, define categories so that users can quickly identify what your blog is about. A good idea to create content is to be attentive to the queries that your clients can ask you.
Key elements that your blog can not miss:
- A section “About me” or “About”. It is not about putting your CV, but about making a carefree and close presentation of why you are passionate about the subject you are going to discuss, where does that passion come from, what is your personal perspective towards that topic, what have you formed and what it’s your professional career
- A section for your company or services that you offer
- An “Agenda” of events. If your personal brand is linked to conferences it would be interesting to put a section where you can see which are the next events that you are going to attend
- “Contact” so that people who may be interested can contact you
- Logos of social networks or video channel where they can continue to consult your content
- Books you may have published or traditional media articles in which you have participated
- Slide Share presentations that can be consulted
Analyze your competitors
I advise you, if you have not already done so, to perform an analysis of the competition and see what other experts in your sector have a blog. Try to analyze what may be working for them.
Do not forget the offline environment
However, that does not mean that you should leave the offline environment aside. The time you want to dedicate to the blog will depend on your strategy in this medium and what you can expect from it .
# 2. Follow on social networks
Although people usually have more than one social profile, what usually happens is that you feel more comfortable in some networks than in others, either because of the type of community you find, because of the way you share content or simply because of the what they bring you Try to make that choice coincide with the network that provides the most followers. Enfócala to get community and show your side of personal treatment. You should know how soon you can create a community faster.
Think big, start small
Think big: create community. Start small: be specific and decide for quality, not for the number of profiles.
In many occasions people open profiles with the intention of putting the same messages on all networks to “save time”. Avoid this practice: each network has a language and promotes a way of acting that makes it different from the others; that’s why it’s still working. You will have time to expand profiles. It is important that once you opt for one or two social networks put them in your virtual spaces as reinforcement and as a way to announce where your user can find you.
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Key elements:
Use the same photo on all your profiles so that people can easily identify you on all networks.
Put the address of your blog and other spaces such as the video channel or the Slide Share account in the information sections.
Establish what tone of conversation you are going to give to your community. Be yourself That will positively reinforce your image when they de- virtualize you or know you personally (” It’s the same as your profile! “).
# 3. Create a video channel
Video is the content with the greatest future, since it is the one that can bring you the most visits , it is the easiest content to consume for the user and the one where the least competition can be compared to other media. She thinks that being in front of a camera to a lot of people is something that gives her some protection. Seize the opportunity. Here you have a videotutorial of Gildeon Shalwick to lose the stage fright ( in his web you will find more tips related to video).
Contrary to what many people think, to talk about your sector or what you know you do not need videos with a professional edition . More and more you can edit them yourself from your computer. The user values more information that you can provide or doubts that you can solve a perfect edition. Here are some examples to see what I mean:
Key elements for a good video:
Introduce yourself and, above all, give and subtitle the address of your blog so that the user locates you and can consult you in another medium in which you are already working. The video should open with an entry that identifies you with your graphic image. Throughout your speech you should leave your logo as a symbol of your official image.
Speech: be specific and get to the point. I advise you that previously you have structured the speech . Try it several times, but not too many to avoid humming or it seems that you know by heart.
Duration: try not to exceed 2 minutes. It is preferable to make two or three videos of 2 minutes than a single one of 5 or 6 minutes. If it must be long, create an index of contents indicating in what minutes you are going to change the subject, as you can see in the interview that from Actibva do to Ángel María Herrera, from Bubok. Reinforce your speech with phrases or content sources that support your explanations. This breaks the monotony of the speech and is more dynamic
Say goodbye by naming other virtual spaces where they can consult you, or videos that you do with certain periodicity. Reinforce this with logos or with text
Share on social networks. Do not forget to put the share buttons as a call to action or to subscribe to your YouTube channel
# 4. Offers exclusive content
Once you start having your community and your list of subscribers, offer them exclusive content to reinforce the value of your personal brand. Send a Newsletter or publish on your social networks invitations to webinars or download useful presentations in the environment in which you are. In the field of social media, Hubspot does a very good job in this regard . Not only is it present on all channels, but it is also very active sharing useful content for a user that can end up becoming a customer.
If you subscribe to SocialMediaBlog.es (in the sidebar on the right or at the end of this post) you will receive periodic free content that will be useful to maintain a good presence in Social Media.
It is true that all the work involved in opening channels in the online medium is an extra job. For that reason, do not wait to have it all ready: do a scaled job and in stages. Think that an imperfect action is better than perfect planning.
# 5. Participate in other blogs, profiles or forums
Your participation with other people from your same sector in the online environment not only enriches your social relationships on the Internet, but also can give you innovative ideas. Sometimes, participation in forums can bring you requests for services. With this participation, you can not only learn what the market demands, but it can also help you to relate with relevant people in your sector.
# 6. Make your slideshare presentations accessible
Making presentations reinforces the content that you can offer in other spaces. Also, if you dedicate to give lectures, classes or seminars, you should also prepare this type of material. Do not stop losing visibility in this channel and “monetize” your time by offering your presentation for free.
Key elements
Title of the presentation: The title is essential for your target to find your content. Focus it on your needs and solve them, even if you may be presenting a course or a product. The important thing is always what solution you offer
Very visual slides: Make very visual slides with the keywords that help you organize your speech
Biography: Do not forget to put at the end a little biography and the url and links where you can find on the net
# 7. Write a book
Explain your knowledge and your experience in a book. Books always offer a more settled and meditated knowledge. Your writing is revised, so the reading is more understandable and there is a thematic unit that favors the subject you are dealing with.
Maybe your goal is to get subscribers to your blog, but if you want to reach another type of community that can always be added to the one you already have online, platforms such as Bubok , Lulu or Amazon can be used to publish the book on paper. And spaces like LibroVirtual.org to make you’re reading more comfortable in the network and spread it in a certain community of readers. Again, put the virtual spaces where your reader can follow your experience, either in the flap, on the back cover or inside the book. If you have corporate stationery (cards, envelopes, brochures, etc.), it also indicates the URLs with their logos.
It is likely that the field of expertise that you show on the blog draws the attention of any publisher that sees your potential knowledge for its readers.
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