Networking has changed drastically over the past 15 years. From networking in person to pandemic and post-pandemic online meetings and events, the majority of our networking is done via social media.
LinkedIn is an incredible networking tool, and most are unsure of how to maximise this platform. Personal branding also has completely different meanings for each person reading this article. For some, personal branding is being a thought leader online, sharing insights and content regularly with an audience.
For others, personal branding is keeping a lower profile online due to the discretion needed because of the work they do. This is why there can’t be a one-size-fits-all approach to personal branding, as everybody interprets it differently. However, one thing is abundantly clear - a personal brand matters more now than ever before.
The first question you need to (honestly) ask yourself is whether personal branding is prevalent in your line of work already. For example, in the world of recruitment and the world of tech, professionals in this field tend to be active on LinkedIn: sharing opinions, stories, and crucial market information. In other industries, a personal brand may be the lowest priority on your metaphorical to-do list.
It’s important to assess where the importance of a personal brand sits within your industry to ensure that you’re not underinvesting or overinvesting time into building it. However, if you use LinkedIn regularly and consider yourself a “lurker” (not posting much, but well-networked) then it might be time to start paying attention to your brand a little bit more.
In fact, you can benefit hugely from boosting your personal brand within a market that’s saturated with everybody else doing the same!
Personal branding, particularly on LinkedIn, enables you to become somewhat of a micro-influencer within your line of work. Let’s say you’re a developer, and the majority of your network is made up of peers at the same level as you, as well as senior individuals whom you’d like to expose yourself to. Regularly posting on LinkedIn (even once a week, or once every two weeks) enables you to put a message out that can potentially be seen by that target market.
Sharing your opinions is a way to virtually extend a “wave” to your connections and invite them into the conversation. Doing this on LinkedIn is great, because the more engagement you get from your connections, the more opportunities you can be exposed to as a by-product.
How do you think the modern workforce communicates? It’s all online, and LinkedIn is an incredible tool for doing this. It’s also by default a professional network, meaning that your target audience is already curated and ready-made for you, you just need to get yourself out of your comfort zone and do it.
Steven Bartlett is a British-Nigerian entrepreneur who is well-known for his Diary of a CEO podcast as well as being a Dragon on Dragon’s Den UK. Most know him from his podcast or TV appearances, but Steven was an influential individual on LinkedIn long before he exploded on a global scale. Previously the Founder and co-CEO of Social Chain, Steven had always invested heavily in his online presence. Back in 2014, personal branding on LinkedIn wasn’t something that was commonly seen at the time.
Even looking at the number of users on LinkedIn in 2014 which was 313 million in comparison to 930 million in 2023, the growth of LinkedIn has been exponential. Steven capitalised on the platform from the very early stages, enabling him to secure incredible opportunities and accrue over 1.5 million followers on the platform today. Now, it wasn’t solely his personal brand that did this - but investing in this certainly helped.
Now, he is one of the most well-known individuals within his industry but also has expanded outside of that, too. He was voted in 2018 by the digital marketing community as “the most influential figure in the industry” and has also been included in the Forbes 30 under 30 list.
We’ve picked an extreme (but good) example of what you could do with a great personal brand. See this as a slice of inspiration - but also a factual demonstration of how investing in your personal brand can make a real difference to your career, networking techniques, and even the trajectory of your life!