There is no shortage of impressive personalities on social media platforms today. As a marketing agency, how do you help your clients build a strong personal brand, even in a narrow niche? To get your clients seen and heard in that crowd, here are 4 of the best social media marketing tips for personal branding, shared by an industry expert.
Smart entrepreneurs invest a lot of effort into building strong brands for their companies. But not many of them are aware that personal branding is as important as corporate branding.
Why so?
Because cultivating a consistent personal brand can lead to strong personal connections. When consumers believe in a brand, they don’t shirk from recommending the brand to their friends and families.
According to an Olapic survey, user-generated content (UGC) and reviews play a huge role in the purchase decisions of nearly 46% of consumers. They are trusted at least 7x more than paid advertising.
And, the best way of putting personal brands in the spotlight is social media marketing. Since modern consumers spend a lot of time on social media platforms, it’s important that they see your brand in all its glory there.
By building a memorable personal brand, you can earn consumer trust, speaking opportunities, endorsement deals, and perhaps even “influencer” status.
After decades of experience in digital marketing and brand building, I’ve learned that social media marketing can be a game-changer in this business. I won’t be exaggerating when I say that social media can literally make or break brands. That’s why everyone needs to control the brand image that they project on social media.
But how?
To discover the answer to this, you will need to read this post carefully. You will learn about the insights, hacks, pro-tips, and resources that have helped me build my clients’ personal brands over the years. Armed with this info, you can replicate my success and earn potential clients in the process.
If that sounds like music to you, dive right in.
4 Social Media Marketing Tips to Establish Your Clients’ Personal Brand
1. Identify Your Client’s Area of Expertise
It’s wise to showcase your client’s expertise in a niche so that you can attract relevant followers and fans. While choosing the niche, avoid broad, generic things like “marketing,” “realty,” etc. Rather, drill down into 1-3 sub-domains in which your client has a demonstrable work history, skills, or interest.
So how do you get started with determining your client’s area of expertise?
By three ways:
- Self-Analysis: What are your client’s interests and passions? What drives them towards excellence? While it’s good to follow passions, don’t ignore the market demand for your niche. You don’t want to target areas that are over-saturated or unviable in the near future.
- Keyword Search on Social Media Platforms: You can perform a basic keyword search on the platforms where you want to build a presence. For instance, if you’re targeting Twitter, you can use social media marketing platforms that come with advanced search filters like language, sentiment, and location.
- Hashtag Searches: After identifying potential keywords, you can feed them into hashtag tools to check the competition levels and search volumes of each keyword. Aim for keywords with moderate levels of both.
Want a pro tip?
Don’t worry if the areas you’ve identified don’t garner high volumes of interactions as long as you have an authentic interest in them. In fact, it’s best to find a sweet spot between the two parameters.
2. Create Quality Content
One of the pillars of social media marketing is content. But, creating content for social media users is easier said than done.
Why, you ask?
Many reasons:
- People on social media have short attention spans.
- The competition for audience attention, trust, and loyalty is stiff.
- Each social media platform has its own set protocols and standards, making it hard for content creators to formulate a one-for-all content strategy.
Since grabbing eyeballs on social media is such a challenge, should you just give up? Of course not.
Then what?
Diversify your content strategy. Create an editorial calendar. Write educational content since it has a high shareability potential. Your content can be informative yet engaging if you pepper it with high-quality visuals and videos.
If you don’t have the resources or time to churn out unique content at scale, you can curate high-performing content to reshare on your pages. Just don’t forget to accredit the original creators and stamp the content with your signature style.
To find content that’s getting traction on your target platforms, you can perform hashtag searches or use social listening tools like Mention. You can also dig into the feeds of relevant influencers and industry leaders to understand the latest content-creation styles.
What else?
To give your content visibility, ensure that it’s posted at optimal times and is optimized according to the host platform’s guidelines. That way, you can put your content in front of the right people and boost your personal brand.
3. Focus on Networking
To meet like-minded people on social media, join relevant groups, chats, and communities. Share authoritative content and insightful comments on other people’s posts. If you’re juggling multiple platforms simultaneously, make your life easy by using tools to manage your social media interactions.
To draw the right people to you, here are some best practices of networking you should follow:
- Find influencers and mentors in your niche and do as they do.
- Reach out to your community members promptly and try to nurture personal relationships with them.
- Strengthen the community by inviting suitable members and connecting members to each other.
- Don’t hesitate to build connections with top-notch people. You can use tools like iUnfollow to track high-profile followers of other group members on Twitter. If your content is relevant and your follow request is personalized (LinkedIn allows that), there’s a good chance you will find a place on their friend lists.
4. Maintain a Consistent Image
When people research brands, they look into many social channels. If there is disharmony between your client’s different social profiles, it can confuse and turn people off. In fact, a Lucidpress survey found that inconsistent branding leads 18.6% of people to doubt brand credibility.
To control people’s perception of your client’s brand, keep their image consistent across channels. Adhere to set style guidelines and keep brand colors, messaging, and tone uniform and homogeneous.
Need a real example for inspiration?
American author, Ash Ambridge of The Middle Finger Project, is famous for her care-a-damn personality. Staying true to her nature, she uses strong language in all of her social media content.
Image via Instagram
Like it or not, Ash’s brand personality shines through in her social profiles and makes her unmissable.
Ready to Leverage Social Media Marketing to Solidify Your Client’s Personal Brand?
Since you’re working hard on building your client’s personal brand, it’s important to look into the granular details of your social media marketing. Think of the brand personality you want them to project and always remain true to it. That way, people will start associating your client’s brand with certain values and ethos.
Do you have any questions about branding or social media marketing? Share them in the comments below. I’ll be happy to answer them.
Also read:
How to structure a social media strategy
How to create a Social Media Content Plan
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