10 Steps to Build Your Personal Brand on Social Media

Your personal brand is your identity. It refers to what people think about you and how you want them to think about you. In other words, what people think about you, your abilities, talents, and capabilities as a person is known as a personal brand. The Dallas digital marketing agency believes that your presence on the social media platform incorporates the phenomenon of personal branding enormously.

If you can project yourself, including who you are and what you stand for, the way you want it to get seen in the public eye, you have successfully branded yourself.

However, it is not easy to do personal branding in the fast-paced world of technology. It requires critical thinking, a well-thought-out plan, and consistency of efforts.

This article will discuss in detail why personal branding is vital. We will also outline 10 crucial steps one needs to follow to build a credible personal brand on social media.

Why is personal branding important?

Consider the following:

• 43% of the US population works as a freelancer. This number is only going to grow. Their presence on social media plays an important role.
• 70% of recruiters use social media channels to screen candidates during the hiring process.

Since you are a unique individual with unique character traits, talents, and capabilities, the perception of you in the public eye should matter. Personal branding involves putting forth that perception in the way you want.

The Dallas digital marketing company agrees that personal branding helps you to be in charge of the narrative of your own story you want to tell in the public space. It enables you to introduce yourself to the world and what you bring to the table. It lays the ground for any future interaction you would carry out in your life and career.

Most importantly, it helps you to distinguish and stand out from the rest so that you may negotiate your personal brand’s value in your favor.

10 Steps to Build Your Personal Brand on Social Media

Personal branding requires deep introspection, strategic planning, and implementation of the strategies consistently over some time. Successful personal branding strategies require consistent and conscious efforts.

Here we outline the 10 steps anyone can follow to build a successful personal brand in social media.

1. Know Yourself

Before letting anyone know about your image, it is vital to understand it yourself. You cannot implant a successful image of yourself in people’s minds if you are unclear about your innate talents, abilities, and strengths.

Therefore, the first step to building a successful personal brand is to go deep into introspection and ask a few meaningful questions. This step is vital since it will determine your further course of action. Some of the questions that you can ask yourself are –

• What is my passion?
• What are the areas I excel at?
• What work excites me the most?
• What situations do I work the best?
• What are my strengths, and how do I use them in my work?
• How do I see myself in the future?
• What would I love to do?

Apart from these, you also need to be aware of certain things you do not like or the things you would like to change for the better. Consider asking yourself –

• What is it that I do not like about my work?
• What is it that drains my energy?
• How would I bring a change in the current circumstances?

According to the top digital marketing agencies in Dallas, once you have a clear idea of the things discussed above, you have successfully triggered your way toward building your personal image the way you want it.

2. Expertise

This step is connected to the earlier one. However, here we clearly define your expertise.

You cannot be an expert in everything, but you can be an expert in a few things. What is that one thing that you think you should be remembered for?

It is known as the unique value proposition. Thus, when you understand what you like and what you are good at, you must ask yourself –

• How do I benefit people from my unique talents?
• What is my expertise that can help people to solve their problems?
• How does my expertise make an impact on people’s life positively?
• How differently am I going to add value to people’s lives?

When you are clear about your domain knowledge and expertise, you have traveled a long way in making a long-lasting impact on people’s minds. And that is personal branding.

3. Personal Goal

Before you start anything else, you need to be clear about what you want to achieve in the social media space. Having a clear personal goal gives you a sense of direction. It will guide you from getting distracted.

Whether you want to promote yourself as a business owner or be better perceived in the job market, you need to be clear about your objectives. Some of the best digital marketing companies in Dallas believe that a strong sense of purpose will often drive success for your branding efforts.

4. Know Your Audience

Rather than focus on appealing to the masses, if you focus on a small and relevant target audience, it will fetch you better results. Audiences interested in your area of work will be your ideal audience.

You need to narrow your focus from a broad field to a more specific one to understand your relevant audience. Having a well-defined target audience relevant to your field allows you to distinguish yourself and your services from others.

Identifying a target audience has its benefits.

• A narrowed-down audience has less competition than a broad audience base. It gives you a better chance to succeed.
• You can operate in your area of expertise. Since you would cater to the target audience, you only have to function within your targeted area of expertise. It gives you a sense of familiarity and comfort and helps you to deliver the best.
• It allows you to engage at a deeper level with your audience.
• It builds trust and allows for a long-term relationship with your audience.

5. Leverage Your Personal Online Space

Now that you have the background work sorted, you need to focus on and sort out the space from which you will operate online. Social media platforms include social sites such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, etc. It also involves a personal website.

Research which social media platform is best for your niche. According to some of the best digital marketing agencies in Dallas, there is no point in having a frivolous presence on all platforms. Also, it is unwise to give any platform a miss because of rigidity. Your approach should be reasonable and flexible in choosing social media platforms.

6. About You

The audience does not like to engage with strangers for long. Sooner or later, they will be interested in finding out more about you.

Statistics reveal that 47% of visitors look for the “About us” section while visiting a web homepage.

Mention what you do and your purpose for using the platform. Pay special attention to filling up all the relevant information while setting up your account.

If you have a personal website, incorporate an ‘About You’ page in it so that the visitors get to know more about you and your services.

7. Content Strategy

One thing that gets the online space going is the content. You must share content on these platforms to let people know about you, your thoughts, opinions, interests, etc. However, posting random content sporadically is like shooting arrows in the dark.

The best digital marketing companies in Dallas believe that a good content strategy means your content:

• follows a routine, a schedule
• is in line with your personal goal
• engages and informs
• has your unique voice in it
• is posted regularly and consistently

8. Content Quality

While you post content, beware that your audience will react and respond to it. It depends on your content to a large extent whether the reaction and response will be positive or negative. Your posts should reflect positive messages for the audience to receive a positive response.

And how do you make that audience connect through your content? By providing value to the audience through your content.

You empower your audiences with quality content when you:

• Inform your audiences through your content.
• Give insightful and knowledgeable pieces of information
• Provide relevant information that will help your audience in some way in their lives.

9. Consistent Tone

The tone of your content is a vital aspect. The first thing is discovering a content tone that connects with your audience quickly. The second thing is consistently using the same content tone throughout.

Further, it will help when the tone is kept intact throughout different content types, formats, and platforms.

A consistent content tone helps the audience to understand your message, retain it and recall it whenever they need it.

10. Network and Communities

If you have a large following in the social media space, you can take it to the next level by networking with your followers and audiences. You can create forums and discussion groups where the audience can share, inform and help each other. A community of like-minded people is always well and closely knit together. So they like to stay connected together. You must engage with your followers by reaching out to them online and offline.

• Consider groups on Facebook or LinkedIn or a community tab on YouTube.
• You can organize a meetup on a personal level with a group of audience members. Whether a one-on-one meeting or a large gathering, offline meetups always have the elegance of a personal touch to them.
• You can create the experience of a meetup online by hosting a webinar to discuss common issues amongst your audience.

All these experiences make your audience stay connected to you because of personal branding, persona, and expertise.

Wrap Up

Personal branding in the social media space takes some serious effort. However, the results are equally rewarding. According to top digital marketing companies in Dallas, the rewards of personal branding are far-fetching. Your business gets the desired visibility, your career gets recognition, and you get access to a network of professionals. Whether the goal is personal or professional, personal branding can help you achieve your goals.