Investing In Your Personal Brand Can Grow Your Business

Business in many ways is much more about branding than ever before. The days of using your local person or word of mouth service are no longer as commonplace, given how easy it is to Google or find information about companies you want to use. With Yelp, Google Places, Glass Door and many other sources, it is easy to find reviews and information on almost any established company. Why even bother with a company that doesn’t look established when there are so many established options that you can find within minutes or even seconds online?
What makes a brand? A font, a logo, a color, a name, a person, a product, a service, or some other tangible thing could be your answer. A brand is a complex and abstract concept that is essentially the essence of an entire company’s value and purpose. A brand is what distinguishes you from other companies that sell or produce the same or similar thing as you.
So where does personal branding come into the mix? Personal Branding can help your company better promote its content, events, products and other assets much more effectively. In essence, it can become a very strong sales and marketing tool for you. A great example of this are two of the leading inbound marketing softwares, Moz and Hubspot, who both have great leaders with strong personal branding, Rand Fishkin & Dharmesh Shah. Their massive personal branding effects allow their content marketing efforts and branding to extend far beyond what a traditional company of their size can do.

Tangible Benefits of Positive Personal Branding Effects on Businesses:

• Better Social Media Presence
• Better SEO through content promotion
• More brand awareness
• Larger network reach
• Low cost of high volume advertising
• More leads and sales

So lets look at some of the major social channels and how you can leverage them.

Facebook:

Facebook is a very personal site, and therefore will be used very differently than most of the other more public facing social media sites. From a personal level it is good to keep your Facebook profile fun but also professional in the sense that you will most likely have a lot of people seeing your posts, some of which may not be your best friends. Additionally, there are many public groups that you can join to post your companies content to improve your companies brand.

Linkedin:

Linkedin is probably the most important personal branding tool for your business. You can promote content, make connections, and have a rock solid business resume all on one platform. Take the time to fill out your profile to be a strong representation of the hard work you have done and any accomplishments & projects you have completed. Take the time to make as many strong connections as you can as well as endorse other people for skills because they will likely endorse you back. Try posting articles as well to showcase your knowledge about your industry or business expertise.

Twitter:

Twitter is a great tool for promoting content, events, news and getting your name out there to a large number of people. It is also a platform in which it is acceptable to tweet many times a day unlike some of the other platforms in which that would be considered more annoying and spammy. Try following other industry leaders, tweeting at relevant people and sharing useful company or industry content to boost your profile and followers.

Pinterest:

Pinterest is still a more niche social media site relative to some of the other major ones and is mostly dominated by women in terms of usage. However for many industries like fashion, eCommerce, or other visual oriented industries, Pinterest is a great platform. Building a strong presence on Pinterest can help you promote products or other company related assets.

Snapchat:

Snapchat is a new comer in terms of social media but can be very effective at reaching a large audience with highly unique and real time content. Its still a very new platform so its value from a personal branding stand point continues to evolve and grow everyday.

Youtube:

Youtube is an excellent way to showcase your knowledge through media such as explainer videos or other types of expert content. You can create a strong following via Youtube and make yourself stand out as an industry and business expert helping promote your company and brand.

Instagram:

Instagram is great for building a visual brand similar to Pinterest. If you work at a restaurant posting food and your recipes can show people why they should take the time to check out your unique offerings. Instagram is one of the most used social media platforms by younger generations and is a great way to grow your personal brand.

Niche Sites:

There are a lot of niche sites like Bizsugar, Apsense, Inbound.org, GrowthHackers, and much more that can help you build your personal brand. Depending on your industry and niche, there are most likely many specific sites in which you can build up a reputation by posting useful information, answering questions, commenting or much more.

Other Things You Can Do:

• Speak at events
• Create a radio show or podcast
• Build your own personal site
• Get involved in organizations
• Have nice business cards

Separating Your Personal Brand From Your Professional Personal Brand

Although building up your professional personal brand is very important, there is another aspect of brand you have to consider; your own personal life and the personal brand that comes with it. I want to bring this up because it is an important for many reasons. Things like your reputation, your personality, whether or not you are a party animal or not, or how your profession proceeds you, can all be determined through social media sites such as the ones listed above [Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest, etc.]
When you are making a personal brand, it is about making yourself recognized for certain things; just like if you drive by the golden arches on the highway, you know that there is a McDonalds off of that exit. That is branding at its finest.
Today, there are ways around being seen by the public such as setting your profiles on a Private setting, or blocking people. These settings are great and all, but there is always a catch, especially say, if you are a recent college graduate looking to get a job. One of the first things a company is going to do after accepting your application is Google YOU! Now you have to ask yourself, is getting the most Likes on an Instagram picture and that 5 minutes of fame more important than landing your dream job?
Whether you have just graduating from college or are the Vice President of Sales for a Company, you need to watch what you post on the Internet when it comes to your personal life. You are going to want to have a professional feel to your brand in order to be taken seriously by your current, or future boss or even potential clients that you will work with in the future.