Building a personal brand takes time, but diversifying your approach is crucial to stand out in a competitive market. We’ve put together 10 effective personal branding tips so you can stay ahead of the curve!
1. Use photos and videos
Photo and video content naturally performs better on platforms such as LinkedIn, because it allows you to say more, with less! It also allows you to create a visual story for your audience, and give them an insight into who you are as a person.
2. Stick to three key topics to cultivate a streamlined audience
When building a personal brand, you want to ensure that you’re known for specific topics that you love talking about as well as topics which will resonate with your audience.
There is no set amount on how many you should stick to, but our advice is to have two or three as a starting point until you start to build an audience. You can absolutely diversify in the future, but overwhelming yourself with too many topics can make it a lot more challenging.
3. Allow people to connect with your personal life
A personal brand allows you to show people who you are professionally, and personally, too. The degree of this will vary depending on what you’re comfortable showing. However, giving people a small insight into who you are outside of your job allows them to connect with you and find common ground that isn’t rooted within your work.
4. Be a storyteller
Whether it’s through visuals (photo and video) or writing, telling a story is a great way to capture your audience. Some people are natural storytellers, whereas for others - it can take a little time to find a flow in your writing. Our advice is to keep it short and sweet, and ensure that you run it through a free grammar checker before posting!
5. Ask for feedback
Connecting with your audience and standing out in a competitive market can only be achieved if you know what your audience wants to hear more of. Asking for feedback and showing that you’re open to criticism (or positive commentary) is a huge plus.
6. Use a poll
Polls are available on Discord, LinkedIn, and X [Twitter]. Using a poll can allow you to engage with your audience quickly, without needing to think of too much additional content to support it. Try out a poll once a month and use the results for future personal branding content to generate an interesting online conversation!
7. Build your connections
Networking and building your personal brand can’t just come from inbound requests and connections. You have to continuously nurture your connections, especially on LinkedIn. Even if it’s expanding your network by 10 different requests a week, that works out to be an extra 520 people a year. That can make a substantial difference to your personal brand and expose you to opportunities with 520+ more people.
8. Push yourself outside of your comfort zone
“You can only be embarrassed if you allow yourself to be embarrassed”
A big fear that often comes with personal branding and “putting yourself out there” is the worry that you’ll embarrass yourself or say the wrong thing. It’s like going on a first date and praying that you won’t spill red wine over your brand-new outfit.
However, embarrassment is a fleeting feeling, and if you can train yourself to push outside of your comfort zone, you’ll undoubtedly be able to stand out in a competitive market. We are so quick to pass judgement on others, especially online. But, should that judgement paralyse you from never posting and potentially holding yourself back from something that would be truly amazing?
9. Don’t be afraid to do something different
Aside from pictures and video content, standing out in a competitive market - especially on LinkedIn - takes more than just posting once a week and getting a few likes. A true personal brand is multifaceted: events, groups, podcasts, downloadable content - the list goes on. To stay ahead of your competition is to do something that no one else (or very few people) is currently engaged in.
10. Be authentically yourself
When building a personal brand in a competitive market, it can be easy to follow the crowd and do what everybody else is doing, because that’s the “safe” option. People buy from people, and regardless of whether you’re building a personal brand to sell a product or simply to build your network, authenticity is key.
The best personal brands are unique because you get a slice of who that person really is. They may say things with humour, they may be controversial, or they may be a tiny bit cringe - however, it makes them authentic and enables them to be noticed.
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