How Your Personal Brand Is Good for Business
How can building a personal brand help my business?
How do I start building my personal brand?
How do I optimize my website and social media profiles for personal branding?
Let’s take a look at a tale of 2 companies: Croissants Inc. and Croissants by Christian. Both make buttery, flaky, melt-in-your-mouth pastries.
The 2 companies run ads promoting the quality and taste of their products. Christian, however, also uses his personal brand to promote his croissant business.
He uses his personal blog, social media profiles, and speaking engagements to talk about his lifelong love affair with food. He offers anecdotes of growing up in France with a pastry chef mother, and of apprenticing under top Parisian chefs.
While Christian is promoting his personal brand, he makes sure to mention and link to his business.
Thanks to all his efforts, Croissants by Christian ends up being more successful than Croissants Inc.
Let’s face it: Most people find it easier to form a strong connection with other people versus a croissant, a shoe, an app, or any other product.
That’s why cultivating your personal brand can be a smart business strategy. If people admire, respect, and trust you as a leader and expert in your category, they’ll associate your business with these positive feelings, too.
A strong personal brand is obviously important for a CEO or head of a company because any speaking engagement, interview, or public appearance will naturally get publicity for their business.
But it isn’t just for Mr. or Ms. Big. If you have a team of talented people, each with their own specialities, they can promote your business while they’re promoting their own personal brands.
For example, let’s say you’ve created a mobile app. Your designers can speak to their design community about their work on your app, engineers can do the same about coding and building it, and writers can post about the content creation process.
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You don’t always need to talk about your business to help it. If you have expertise in other areas your audience is interested in, create content around that. It helps you reach people who’d never normally discover you – or your business. Let’s see how this worked for a real company.
Leo Widrich and his business partner created Buffer, an app that helps you manage all your social media accounts, do analytics, schedule posts, and more.
When Leo launched Buffer, he found it hard to get press. So he decided to become a writer himself. He talked about life hacking, productivity, and marketing on his blog, on Buffer’s blog, and in guest posts on other sites.
Because he wrote about the space Buffer is in (versus just about his app), he became known as an expert in that area. And this led to even more media opportunities.
Nowadays, his posts are so popular that many get upwards of ten thousand shares – which gives Buffer a nice PR boost, too.
LISTEN UP
The first step to having a personal brand is just having an opinion and being willing to share it.
After that, you can do the same prep work you would do when building a brand for your business.
Just like you did for your business, you should figure out how your personal brand is unique and who your target audience is.
Ask yourself: What field (technology, design, etc.) can I claim expertise in? What’s my specialty in that field, and how am I different than other experts in it? How would someone benefit from listening to me and following my advice?
Next, define your target audience and how you’ll reach them. What content will interest them? What tone of voice will they respond to? How will you prove your value to them?
After that initial research, you should get your personal website in order and ready for search engine optimization (SEO).
Good news: It’s fine to have a site with info on what you do and what your expertise is, a short bio, and links to your social profiles. You could add a personal blog where you establish your point of view on your industry or field.
Your site is a great way to get you exposure through SEO. To make sure your site is working hard to get you new visitors, keep an eye on which keywords get you the most traffic, and then optimize your site for those words.
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You can also use tools like Google Trends or KWFinder to find searches that are related to your chosen keywords.
Optimizing your site for these related searches can help you get even more exposure.
Along with getting your personal site into shape, you should spend some time prepping all your social media accounts for success.
First, check if you’re missing any accounts that could help your personal brand. If your content is usually business-focused, LinkedIn might be a good idea. For videos, think about YouTube and Vimeo. Also consider Reddit, Pinterest, and Quora.
For all your social media accounts, create a short bio that sets up your story. Example: A startup guru with Middle America roots might say, “Small town stickball hero. Latter day angel investor. Loves open API’s, tech talks, tractor racing.”
Lastly, make sure your accounts look and feel worthy of your brand. Use the same, high-resolution profile photo for all of them, and delete any older posts and content that aren’t aligned with your new personal brand.
Now you’re ready to create and promote your content, making sure every post stays true to your brand’s narrative.
As you’re developing content, hone in on your voice. Are you witty and light? Authoritative and to-the-point? Deep and philosophical? No matter what you decide, make sure it’s true to who you really are.
Post at least once a week, and feel free to mix it up. Along with articles you’ve written, share images, repurpose content from other sources, and post videos related to your area of expertise (bonus points if it’s a video you created).
Be open to writing guest posts for well-known blogs that your target audience reads. It can introduce you to a wider audience and get you more traffic. Remember to link back to both your personal and business sites and social media profiles.
You should also try and connect with other people in your field online and through social media. Start conversations with them and repost their content. After all, if you promote their brand, they’re more likely to promote yours.
DO THIS NOW
We just took you through a lot of personal branding info quickly, but it’s easy to get started building yours. We’ll help you build a to-do list.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
When people view you as a trusted leader, they're more likely to view your business positively, too.
To start building your brand, find your unique skills and who your target audience is.
Make sure your site is SEO-ready and that your social media content stays true to your brand's narrative.
Ready to take the next step?
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