You are the most powerful marketing tool at your disposal. If you are starting a business, establishing your thought leadership, or trying to get ahead in your career, it’s a great time to start investing in your brand. Learn the secrets of personal branding in this course with a business strategist and leadership expert, Samuel Ajiboyede. Samuel explains how to develop your story, craft your messaging, and define your audience.
This COMPLETE personal branding course will teach you how to skyrocket your credibility and become more visible at work and in your social circle. Get tips to monetize your brand and land speaking engagements and guest roles. Then he walks you through building your brand presence online and off, creating a calendar that will help you stay on top of social media and keep your content fresh.
In this course, you’ll learn how to use branding principles to create a more precise summary of your unique personal brand and make it more credible and believable using social media. A solid personal brand can help you become a more sought-after professional/entrepreneur, allowing you to stand out to hiring managers, land your next promotion, and reach more investors and clients.
Objectives
- Learn how personal branding can affect everything around you
- Define your brand using proven branding principles
- Summarize your personal & professional qualities in a clear, convincing way
- Use social media to build an authentic personal brand
Course Description
I designed this course for the aspiring professional or entrepreneur who wants to communicate your unique strengths and skills authentically, believable way without sounding too self-promotional. Leveraging proven branding and marketing principles, you’ll learn simple techniques you can start using today to build and reinforce your unique professional value.
With so many personal branding courses, this course is uniquely built on the backbone of marketing principles used by reputable brands and products. This course includes real-world case studies, helpful resources, and simple techniques you can begin applying right away to your career. By the end of this course, you’ll be able to understand how strong brands behave, create a more straightforward summary of your brand, and make it more credible so you can establish yourself as reputable professional others can trust.
Module 1: Basics of personal branding
- What is personal branding? Characteristics of solid brands Principles of Branding. Building your brand
Module 2: Unconscious influence of a personal brand
- How your brand affects YOU
- How to have an excellent internal brand Common pitfalls you should avoid
Module 3: Personal brand using content marketing
- How to stand out on social media
- Building a content framework and strategy Tips to help grow your brand
Module 4: Monetize your branding
- Sell your products
- Sell Ads/Affiliates
- Sell Coaching
- Sell your membership program, Sell speaking gigs
Introduction
Suppose you had a box with 100 pens to pick from. 9Ninety-nine of them are made of silver, and only 1 is made of gold. Which one will you go for? The gold one, think. Why would you choose that? All the pens are working fine, but instead, you went for the gold because it is unique and looks better than the others. Your brand makes you different from the 7 other billion people on Earth.
It is your unique selling point in the marketplace. At every moment, you are either being sold something, or you are something. Whichever one it might be, your brand determines the quality of the opportunities you attract. Whether you intentionally build a personal brand or not, your brand exists and influences everything happy either p, positively or negatively.
You must invest in your brand to stay on top of your game in this competitive market. There are thousands of other people who offer the same services and products that you offer, how do you stand out from the crowd?
Your brand is the answer. Your brand is the first message that showcases your potential and self-worth before your words get to the observer. Our brand determines who your next client, customer, investor, or partner would be. A strong personal brand will ultimately advance your career/business, increase your circle of influence, and have a more significant impact.
Module One – Basics of Personal Branding
What is Personal Branding?
Personal branding is the conscious and intentional effort to create and influence public perception of yourself by positioning yourself as an authority in your industry, elevating your credibility, and differentiating yourself from the competition. It is finding your uniqueness, building a reputation on the things you want to be known for, and then allowing yourself to be known for them.
It is what a person outside yourself perceives of you which is shaped by what they hear, see and feel. It is not just about how you appear, think or act offline. It also extends to what you do in the digital space in social media, blogs, or videos. All these reflect your brand, and you must showcase the same brand values across all channels for authenticity and credibility.
Characteristics of Strong Brands
What do all strong brands have in common?
- Authenticity
- people trust genuine brands and combine all components; color, appearance, tone, and services to convey one message.
- Consistency
- They deliver the same quality of results consistently. They are reliable and never fall below expectations.
- What do all strong brands have in common?
Focus on One Niche
There are many things to venture into, but strong brands stick to one message and ensure they drive it home. They are known for one thing and are very good at it. They avoid confusing their audience by engaging in too many things but sticking to one path.
Excellence
Strong brands are known for delivering excellent results. Their audience has no doubts about the quality of service provided to them. A product is more than a simple collection of attributes.
What do all strong brands have in common?
Outstanding service to the Community
The audience gives them their loyalty because they know you are genuinely interested in providing value. They understand the needs of their audience and commit themselves to serve them. His is a very efficient and effective way to earn the loyalty of your audience. Your audience will fall in love with you and make their lives easier if you prefer solutions to solve their problem.
Principles of Branding
When building your brand, there are essential principles you should apply. These principles have been tested over the years by many strong brands, and they have generated results. Here they are
Be Unique: There should be something that sets you apart from the competition. What do you have and no one else does? Could you find it and take advantage of it? To have a strong brand, you must be clear on your target audience and competitors and beat them.
Sticking to a Niche: Brands that have built a strong presence are known to focus on one particular area and own it. Your brand’s objective should be to become an authority in a specific niche. Mark out your territory and capitalize on it.
Keep your Word: When you promise your brand audience to deliver, deliver beyond expectations. Let there be compensation if there is any reason to break the promise; it will help earn their loyalty & motivate them to promote your brand through word-of-mouth among friends & colleagues.
Establish Emotional Connection: Your brand targets are humans & humans have feelings. Humans are moved based on emotions. If you connect with how they feel, it would be hard for competitors to take them from you. People may forget what you do for them but never forget how you made them feel.
Principles of Branding
Own your Media: Acquire channels that are solely for the purpose of promoting your brand. Owning a website, for example, is a great way to speak to your brand audience without the access or influence of your competitors. You are entirely in charge of everything your customers see, and it also helps you cut more running costs.
Open the Channels for Interaction: Your customers want to be seen & heard. Set up systems for them to be able to share their thoughts, suggestions, and feedback. Give room for 2-way communication. Your brand will feel more connected with them.
How do you create that unique story?
Building a personal brand goes beyond your physical appearance. Your brand will cover how you introduce yourself, your body language, posture, carriage, social media presence, and pictures and videos you share. Your brand should showcase your experience, expertise, competencies, and achievements. To build the foundation of your brand, you must first do these 3 things;
Building Your Brand
- Define your identity; Do an introspection and be very honest with yourself. If you need help with answering these questions, you can ask your friends, family, and co-workers.
- What motivates me? What are my values?
- In which areas of work do I excel?
- What characteristics have others complimented me on?
- Which have others had to help me with repeatedly? Which roles seem to drain my energy?
- Which can I spend hours on without feeling overwhelmed or tired?
- What do I want to be known for?
Building Your Brand
Once you’re more aware of the different facets of your personality, you can decide how best to brand them. Many people struggle to choose a specific niche because they don’t want to limit themselves or don’t know exactly what they want. Realize that your brand will change as your career grows, so there is no need to pressurize yourself. The best strategy is to choose a particular area you’d like to focus on and let it evolve.
You should also establish an image, impression, and position. With this identity, you develop your brand assets, which may include a logo, tagline, visual images, website, writings, products, and services. Create a value or mission statement that represents your “why” and your purpose, either as a personal mantra or to describe your personal brand’s overarching goal.
Building Your Brand
Communication: Who are your target audience and customers? Who are the people you want to reach? When you define the audience, it will be easier to craft your story because you’ll better understand the type of story you need to tell and where you need to stay to it. You should know that not everyone in your audience is your customer. Your audience is the people who believe and trust your brand, while your customers are those who believe, trust your brand, and are both willing and capable of paying for your products or services. You will not be able to convert everyone in your audience, but they can help you spread the gospel of what you offer.
Get credibility; Who are the people who can vouch for your services? Find people who can speak on your behalf. You can ask for help from those with more experience or work on getting collaborations.
Module 2 – Unconscious Influence of Your Brand
How does your brand affect you?
Your brand is the general perception of you based on your expression. Your expression can be classified into 2 major categories, which can be either physical or digital. The physical expression can be further classified into verbal and non-verbal. The words you speak are the verbal expressions of your brand, and the nonverbal consists of body language, facial expressions, and gestures. While digital expressions are your physical expressions in digital form, e.g, images, audio, and videos.
When a lady walks into a room and screams at the top of her lungs – Can someone switch on the air- conditioner? Can’t you all see I am hot? She grabs a seat, squeezes her face, and stomps her feet on the ground. Meanwhile, someone in the room took a picture of her while she was screaming. The person goes ahead and posts the photo on social media, which attracts the attention of many people. Mr. A in another country sees the picture and thinks this lady must be a hothead. I can’t be in the same room with someone like her Mr. B in another country sees the picture and says – She looks very frustrated. She must be going through a lot. Poor lady
The people in the room with her will be influenced by her physical expression (her words and body language), while the image posted on social media is a digital expression. Both faces make up a personal brand. Your digital terms are more critical than your non-digital expressions because they go farther than your physical expressions. Anyone from any part of the world can see that image, which will influence his/her perception positively or negatively. Every digital presentation about you is content. Every content(video/audio/image you put is a digital expression of you.
80% of your brand expressions are in digital form because many people today are internet savvy. You can put out any content from anywhere at any time. Your physical expression can also be converted to digital, so you must pay equal attention to both. Every digital expression originates from your physical expression. If you are not intentional about your expressions, anyone will define them on your behalf. A person can underrate you if you don’t adequately express your brand.
Managing your internal brand
The whole world gasped in shock when Will Smith took the stage to slap Chris Rock because of the joke he made about his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, at the Oscars. This single action caused him to lose multiple brand partnerships deals. All of the suitable activities and efforts he invested in his brand over the past few decades went away in a matter of seconds. It would take time, energy, and patience to remove the consequences of that action from his brand. Brands will consider it twice, though he remains prominent before working with him. One wrong step can damage the brand you have worked hard to build.
Your brand is a reflection of who you are, i.e, your personality or character. It will cost you opportunities if you don’t have an excellent personal brand. You can’t have a brand that portrays honesty, and you are dishonest. It is not possible, people will see through your facade. Your character is your internal brand which people cannot see, but it largely influences your external brand, which people can see. When you speak to someone during a coffee break for five minutes, that person should have an impression of what your personal brand is. They should walk away thinking – I would like to have another conversation with this person soon.
When developing your personal brand, you must watch your attitude. It is one of the essential components that shape your personal brand. No matter what you do with your personal brand, it’s going to have an attitude. Attitude is everything in personal branding, and all private brands have attitude. You can either choose to intentionally shape that attitude, or allow it to get shaped by your actions. The problem is that our behaviors and actions sometimes shape our personal brand without us knowing it. The truth is no one cares if you had a bad day or just lost a deal, they only care about the solution you have for them when they need it.
The key to this is to “always put your best foot forward”. You should only share positivity and optimism. You can dedicate countless hours to looking good physically and on social media, but all it takes is a few interactions to tarnish your personal brand. No amount of experience and skill can overcompensate for a poor attitude. I am not disputing the fact that your work should be able to speak for you, I am only stating that beyond being able to get the job done, you should have a good attitude too. People base their perceptions on body language, grammar, vocabulary, telephone etiquette, email etiquette, social media etiquette, and so on.
Every minute, you are exhibiting behaviors that positively or negatively affect your personal brand. No matter how minute it seems, even though your good actions are more than the bad, the wrong moves will eventually compound and negatively affect your brand. As you become self-aware of your attitude, your daily interactions may become a bit more pleasant, and opportunities may present themselves more frequently. Creating a personal brand takes a long time, so it logically follows that your attitude takes some time to develop as well. Attitude is everything, and that’s how you should manage your personal brand.
Unauthentic or fake: Do not pretend to be someone you are not. This might be hard because we think people will not like us for who we are. The truth is they don’t want you either if they find out that you have been deceiving them. Your brand is built on people’s trust, once you lose it, everything will crumble. It is advisable to stick to the type of content that you can sustain. For example – if you live in a rural area with buildings with very poor architectural design & aesthetics, you don’t need to ‘borrow’ somebody’s office & pretend like it is yours just because you want to record video content.
Sharing all your opinions on social media: Not everything that comes to your mind should be shared on social media because it’s a public place. Everyone doesn’t have the same beliefs and opinions, especially on controversial topics such as racism, sexism, politics, religion, etc. Be careful about your digital footprints – all you say, share or support. The internet never forgets, so be conscious of every kind of content you post.
Sharing all your opinions on social media: Not everything that comes to your mind should be shared on social media because it’s a public place. Everyone doesn’t have the same beliefs and opinions, especially on controversial topics such as racism, sexism, politics, religion, etc. Be careful about your digital footprints – all you say, share or support. The internet never forgets, so be conscious of every kind of content you post.
Confusing your audience about your identity: Do not try to do too much or be many things to your audience. Find that one message and stick to it. If you say you are one thing today and present something else to your audience tomorrow, you will lose both your old and potential customers.
Not thinking about your audience: You have a brand because there are people who believe in your brand. You might think, well yeah, they like me that is why they are around me. You are not totally wrong, but the main reason they are around you is because of the value you give to them. If you shift the focus to yourself only maybe to gain likes and followers, you may lose them. Be interested in what they want to know, their concerns, and how you can help them.
Buying followers and likes: This is a shady practice, and you should not indulge in it. Social preferences and follows are tremendous and show credibility, but if you get them in an illicit way, it will eventually backfire. It might solve the problem temporarily, but in the long run, when people discover it, it will take a massive chunk of your credibility.
The higher you go, the more careful you should be about your brand. Your content can either add or remove from your brand. Be selective about the kind of digital expressions you give. Branding is everything! The way you brand yourself will determine the quality of opportunities that you attract and be able to take advantage of. No matter how much value you carry, you will be underplaying your game if your brand does not reflect it.
Module 3: Personal brand using content marketing
How to stand out on social media Since the pandemic, the world has gone digital.
Social media extends beyond just Facebook and Twitter and into the professional world. Over 4 billion of the world’s population are active on social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and many more.
With the advent of social media, they reach many people across different continents. It is more accessible. Businesses have now migrated to the digital space, allowing them to penetrate new markets at no cost.
As an online open source, social media has become a marketing and promoting tool to brand an individual as a type of person. There are general professional profiles like LinkedIn and company or industry-specific networks like Slack. Because of these professional networks, personal branding helps find a job, improve one’s experienced, and meet clients, business partners,s and investors. When you leverage these virtual platforms, your online social value could transform into real rewards in the offline world.
When branding yourself on social media, you need to consider these three things: “crafting their physical footprint, creating their digital print, and communicating their message. To be on top of your branding game, you must purposely shape your image or persona through social media through content marketing. Content marketing is a logical, effective method to build and maintain your brand. Content refers to blogs, social media posts, videos, podcasts, eBooks, infographics, webinars, and other material you publish to represent yourself and your brand.
Content communicates who you are, what you do, and your values to your audience while increasing trust – without being promotional or self-interested. Content marketing is the new oil and is outperforming traditional marketing.
Personal brands are sometimes becoming more influential than big brands with much larger budgets with content marketing. Your content could be in different formats depending on your chosen social media platform, e.g, Instagram uses more images, and LinkedIn uses photos, text, and videos. The more content you produce and share, the more candidates you will reach. It’s that simple.
Of course, your content will need to be of good quality, and the topics discussed need to be interesting, engaging, and entertaining. Still, as long as you are consistent, you will continue to reach more candidates. To build a content marketing strategy, you must do these;
1. Define your target audience: Who are the people you want to reach? What is the kind of thing that interests them? What is the age range, nationality, status, income, and gender (If it’s a gender-related brand you are trying to build)?
2. Identify what social media platforms they are on; When building a personal brand, you must be strategic about the platforms you use. You can make it across different social media platforms, but to get the best results, you must focus on one.
For example, someone in the fashion and entertainment industry can be on LinkedIn and Twitter but won’t get the best, unlike Instagram, where most of their audience is.
With so many social media tools available today, your online presence will likely look different depending on your chosen medium. While your story should match across all platforms, once you know where your targeted audience is most likely to turn, you can redouble your efforts in telling your best story there.
3. Design a content strategy; What problems are they facing? How can you help them solve these problems? What are the topics in your niche? Define your content pillars and what type of content format you want to adopt to pass your message to your audience.
When you solve their problems and make things easier, they will most likely trust your brand and refer you. ( More of this will be covered in Module 3)
4. Prepare your content calendar; To build and implement a content marketing strategy effectively, you must prepare a content calendar. Decide how often you want to post in a day, week, month, and year. You don’t need to search for relevant people to connect with constantly. Sharing your content will bring your customers to you and help you become a voice in your field. Having a calendar will help you build consistency and keep you on track.
5. Share valuable content; To stand out on social media, you have to give your real audience value in your content. Always lead with value first and avoid content that puts your product before your audience (sell your brand, not your product.) People are interested in consuming content that applies to them and helps them solve their problems.
Having identified the problems they are facing, you have to create engaging and compelling content. Once you achieve this, your audience will begin to grow, and opportunities will come knocking at your door.
To help with this, you can segment your audience into 3; those who are unaware of their problem, those who are problem aware but do not know how to solve it, and those who see a solution but also need new solutions. Do your research and create content to meet the information needs of all these three categories.
To stand out, and attract the attention of your ideal audience, post content that represents your personal brand’s values in a way that educates entertains, or motivates people.
Although you may shy away from being front and center, you’re the CEO and leader of your brand – so act like it through your content. Don’t be afraid to publish posts or photos of your everyday life. Take advantage of the casual tone to publish more personal content, including your opinions and unique thoughts relative to your industry.
These practices position you as a wise, but relatable thought leader and innovator in your niche. Using content is essential to building your authority – but don’t forget the importance of having well-written social media profiles and custom branded images, as people will often look at your profile before or after reading your content.
Your social media profiles are a very important part of your branding. When appropriate, dedicate time to responding to comments, threads, and DMs. These interactions can help you virtually network, build your following, and find opportunities to collaborate.
Here are some platform-specific tips to help you craft your brand online: LinkedIn serves as a professional social media tool and is the ultimate site for defining your brand. LinkedIn is the top network for B2B content marketers—96% use the platform. This is closely followed by Twitter (82% of B2B marketers use it).
This is for a good reason—LinkedIn and Twitter allow you to build a following on social media by sharing your expertise and building through leadership. The best way to use this network is to participate in groups, make introductions with people who interest you, and ask for (and give) recommendations. Some other tips for effectively telling your story through LinkedIn include:
- Focus on critical industry skills: Recruiters will often search for keywords that relate to the role they’re trying to fill, so it’s essential to put essential industry terms in your profile—whether in your headline, summary, or job description—and explicitly state your skills. For example, if you’re pursuing a communications role, zero in on your area of interest and essential qualifications, such as public relations, social media, or crisis communication.
- Quantify your accomplishments: Saying you’re “results-oriented” isn’t nearly as effective as your actual results. Quantify your accomplishments: the number of articles you’ve written, dollars you’ve raised, or deals you’ve closed.
- Complete your profile: While this might sound obvious, it’s not uncommon for users to leave sections of their LinkedIn profile blank. Recruiters want to see what work experience you have, your educational background, and a detailed list of accomplishments, so make sure you’re showing the whole picture. Convince them that you’re the person they should hire.
- Use a professional photo: LinkedIn users with a professional headshot receive 14 times more profile views than those without. Upload a current image that’s closely cropped to your face. Remember, you should be the focal point, so avoid busy backgrounds—and smile.
The more welcoming you look, the more likely recruiters will contact you on Twitter Leverage this platform to highlight and build upon your industry expertise.
Try incorporating your brand into your Twitter bio by using hashtags to focus on your niche, following leaders in your field, and retweeting top industry stories.
Don’t forget: what you tweet is still a part of your online image. Other Social Media Platforms In addition to LinkedIn and Twitter, there are many different platforms you may want to consider.
Choose the platforms you are trying to reach your audience, and network and spend their time. Additional social media platforms include:
- Instagram: While you may not think of Instagram as a career tool, the app gives individuals a platform to build their professional brand in a creative, visual format. Instagram is an especially helpful resource for those in creative fields and digital marketing.
- TikTok: TikTok is a short-form video platform that has recently become popular amongst Gen Z and Millennials. Some of the world’s largest businesses are building a TikTok presence, so it can be an effective platform to creatively build your brand and interact with organizations that interest you.
- Snapchat: Like TikTok, Snapchat is a favorite for younger audiences. You can use special effects and emojis to demonstrate your unique personality and brand.
- Reddit: Boasting over 52 million daily users, Reddit is a popular news and discussion platform where users can submit content and interact with threads posted by other users. Reddit communities, called subreddits, are made up of like-minded individuals interested in a specific topic.
Because of this, Reddit is an excellent place for you to build your brand and connect with others in your field. Live streaming on social platforms like YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn will allow you to communicate with your customers and leads over the Internet in real time.
During the stream, you can discuss topics that interest your audience, answer questions, and sell your digital or physical products/one-on-one coaching sessions at some point. Video conferencing tools like Zoom or Vimeo Live Stream can be an excellent option for people looking to promote their podcasts, workshops, books, private online communities, masterminds, video courses, meal plans, fitness programs, paid classes, and any other piece of content.
Suppose you’re in a marketing or design field. In that case, it’s especially important to have a personal website or portfolio that provides essential information about you and helps visually highlight your work. Do such sessions once a week or at least a month to share your expertise & valuable insights, and you will see how quickly you secure trust among viewers.
You can cream consistency is vital – growing your network organically isn’t an overnight job, but it’s doable—to your site using Squarespace, Wix, or WordPress. Small brands and business owners can use helpful design resources like Canva templates to create brand-specific content. Consistencyketing is a long-term effort that requires consistency – especially when you’re looking to build trust, recognition, and influence. Don’t expect results without investing time or money. Creating a content framework and strategy Content marketing is developing and distributing relevant, helpful content—blogs, newsletters, white papers, social media posts, emails, videos, and the like—to current and potential customers.
When it’s done right, this content conveys expertise and makes it clear that a company values the people to whom it sells. The consistent use of content marketing establishes and nurtures relationships with your prospective and existing customers.
When your audience thinks of your company as a partner interested in their success and a valuable source of advice and guidance, they’re more likely to choose you when it’s time to buy. For effective content marketing, it is essential that you have a content framework and strategy.
Content strategies are the actions and steps you must take to implement the content framework. The process helps you outline a single piece of content while following brand guidelines. In short, it’s a strategy that guarantees consistent, quality content. Your content strategy; must include the following;
1. Your SMART Goals; Define what you want to achieve for your brand using content marketing as a tool. Let your goals be S- Specific, M- Measurable, A – Attainable, R – Realistic, and T- Timebound. Setting these goals will help you monitor and evaluate performance. An example is gaining 1000 followers in 4 weeks on LinkedIn.
2. Your audience’s want: Identify the main pain points they regularly face and solutions in the form of content to solve these problems.
3. The right tone and voice: Your audience will trust a brand with a more engaging, friendly manner in its content. What style do you want your brand to portray; professional, casual, conversational, or conventional? Let your content be consistent and say to build compelling brand perception.
4. Your content workflow: You may need to work with a graphics designer, video editor, or web manager to create different content formats. Determine how many people you need on a project, and the processes involved e,g Article ? Promotion ? Publication ? Editing ? Writing ? Design ? Ideation ? Strategy.
Now you can begin to build the blueprint for your content marketing plan.
Here is a framework;
1. Topic and Headline Ideation Your headlines determine if people will engage with your content or not. You can either gain their interest or lose it from the first line.
Headlines serve as the gatekeeper, and you have a limited time to get people to click through to read more. It’s crucial that you put together something that inspires action.
Utilize keywords that both relate to your content and to topics you want your content to rank for. Keyword research may reveal valuable content ideas for your brand, but topic discovery moves the needle. You can also build topic clusters to help you plan your content around key themes.
To develop an accessible, repeatable process of coming up with topics and headlines, you can adopt the following tools and tactics to your framewoFrameworkgle Search Console to see what keywords you’re already ranking for. Look for highly searched keywords that are not yet covered on your site.
- Answer the Public to grab ideas from Google’s autocompleting data.
- Google Keyword Planner to tap into Google’s massive keyword database ? Mind mapping software to organize your best ideas visually.
- CoSchedule’s Headline Studio to help you land on a killer headline.
2. Share Responsibilities If you are working with a team, you must ensure there are no gray areas regarding responsibilities. You might work with writers, editors, subject matter experts, designers, social media marketers, etc. Practice effective communication and give room for feedback, so the results come out great. Give them enough time to do their best work and set ground rules to keep everyone in check. Monitor and evaluate every completed work to reduce the chances of errors and ensure progress
3. Create the Content Your topic and team are ready, now is the time to get the content cooking.
- Define your angle – How will you approach this topic?
- Conduct competitive analysis – What type of content is everyone else producing?
- Research your topic – Learn everything you can about your topic, from facts to the latest developments.
- Write the outline – What sub-topics will you cover in the article?
- Create an introduction with a powerful hook – Use the APP technique where; A stands for Agree; Pitch an idea that customer will agree with, P stands for Promise: Promise you will show how to solve the problem, and P stands for Preview; Make it clear what you want your customers to learn.
- Write the body copy – Aim to immerse the reader by deconstructing your research with the help of storytelling.
- Add visual content – Relevant images or videos can make great content unforgettable.
- Find quotes – Brilliant quotes by subject matter experts add value to your post.
- Find statistics – Ensure they are not older than two years to keep them relevant for the readers.
- Add a powerful call-to-action at the end – Where should visitors go from there? E.g, Follow me for more insightful content, Order a copy of my book from here, etc.
It would help if you had a clear idea of your customers’ priorities, challenges, and preferences. If you have detailed descriptions of your various segments of the audience, choose 1 or 2 to write for. You can also craft profiles of your audience members and prospects.
Decide on what content formats will best help you showcase value. For some, this will be a carousel; for others, a video. You can then create a content framework. This repeatable process helps you outline a single piece of content while following brand guidelines. In short, it’s a strategy that guarantees consistent, quality content.
4. Edit, Edit, Edit Just when you think you’re ready to publish, you still have one step ahead of you: a thorough overview. If time allows, skip a day between finishing and editing the piece.
This practice helps you look at your writing with fresh eyes. “When editing your content, obviously, grammar and flow are the biggest areas to edit,” Natalie Slyman says. “You want your article to be pleasant to read, straightforward, and align with the tone that fits your brand.
Disjointed sentences or paragraphs will leave your readers questioning your authority in the space and whether or not you provide the proper quality assurance in other aspects of your operations.”
5. Audit and Optimize the Framework Finally, it’s a good idea to take a step back and re-evaluate your content creation process now and then.
Did you follow the content strategy all the way? If not, what were your main blockers? Did you achieve your goals? If not, what should you adjust in your plan? What worked out well, and what didn’t? And why didn’t it work out? Is your content resonating with your audience? If not, do you need to create different content? Or change your tone and voice? What are areas that work well? How can you make the most out of them? Periodically adapt your content marketing as you gain more insights into your target audience, or your team expands.
Building a content framework that brings you consistent results is not easy. The good news is that this work is front-loaded, meaning you need to invest most of your time and resources into the beginning. Rest assured: no one gets it right the first time.
Once your framework and content strategy are in motion, all you need to do is upkeep and revisions. Right now, you’re just the first step away from building a solid and successful personal brand. Tips to help grow your brand
Pay attention to your appearance. . Always dress to protect your brand. Do not underplay or overplay. Wear what suits you always. You do not need to wear expensive clothes but ensure they look bright on you. Don’t discredit the importance of good grooming: Clean nails, personal hygiene, checking on body odor, and bad breath, all need to be taken into account. All of it counts.
Stay active: The longer you aren’t active on social media, the quicker people will forget who you are. That’s not because you’re not great at what you do – we’re sure you are – but the amount of competition in the global marketplace is incredible.
Many people who offer the same services and products you offer and are also on social media promoting their brand every single day, so if you were to miss as much as a week or a fortnight of posting. If a candidate or client needs your help at that time, they may go elsewhere. You should be consistent about your online presence and don’t leave it to active default. You don’t want people to notice a brand gap.
Be consistent: Your online and offline brands should reflect the same brand values so that you won’t lose the trust of your audience. If your personality online is very fashionable and well-spoken, you should be and look the same when someone runs into you in the elevator. Let your offline brand speak more of who you are and what you represent, if there is any difference.
Build your network; The more connections you make and value you can provide in your interactions, the more likely your brand will be recognized.As you cultivate your ideal personal brand, you must network regularly and effectively to grow your professional circle. You can do this both online and offline.
Reach out to industry leaders and top players in your field on professional platforms like LinkedIn. Don’t just follow them. Go online and find out if they have blogs, or where they contribute their thinking and engage them. When you enjoin professional groups and share valuable information. Age people in your field in discussions, you showcase your in-depth knowledge and position yourself as an authority. Join professionals who are successful and examine what they’re doing. Imitate them, and then do it better. In building a personal brand, your goal is to stand out—but you can’t rise to the top without taking inventory of who’s already there.
Attend physical events; As great as virtual events are, physical events are the real deal. That is where things happen. Attend conferences, seminars, and networking events to meet others in your field. Prepare your elevator pitch and leave a very good lasting impression. Your elevator pitch is a two-line introduction about your identity and what you intend on doing.
It should be within 30- to 60-seconds and whether you’re attending a networking event or an informal party, having an elevator pitch prepared makes it easy to describe your brand succinctly.
Module 4: Monetize your branding
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