Steven J Wilson

How to Market Yourself Effectively

April 2, 2021 by Steven J Wilson

Steven J Wilson

There was once a time when marketing was meant for selling products and services only.

Now, marketing has evolved into a more sophisticated tactic that can also be applied even to yourself.

Whether you want to attract new clients for your business or get the attention of employers to land a new job, marketing yourself is now an essential skill that can make the difference between failure and success.

That said, it is crucial to learn how to market yourself if you want to succeed in a competitive world.

In this guide, we’ll talk in detail about what it means to market yourself. Find out why you should be strategic about selling yourself on social media and how this tactic can benefit your business or career.

Most importantly, learn effective ways to market yourself online as well as the common pitfalls you should avoid when promoting yourself.

What Does It Mean to Market Yourself?

“To market yourself” means to present yourself in the best light to clients, customers, and employers.

For career seekers, it is vital that you know how to show employers you are a good fit for a job.

Sometimes, the person who gets a job may not be the most skilled. They may have been good at creating a strong personal brand that makes them the “expert” in the eyes of hiring managers.

The same holds true in the business setting. Founders, owners, and executives today are keen on building an effective personal brand to compete with other companies in the field.

By showing they are experts in their crafts, they build credibility to the public, thus winning the trust of paying customers.

Hence, to market yourself means to build trust by positioning yourself as the go-to expert in your field, which is the main principle of personal branding.

Drawing the Line

To further understand what to market yourself means, you also have to know what it doesn’t mean. Marketing yourself isn’t:

From the points above, we can start to identify what to market yourself truly means. Marketing yourself is:

Remember these points to successfully promote yourself online.

The Competitive Advantage of Marketing Yourself

Everyone can benefit from marketing themselves, even if your business or career has absolutely nothing to do with marketing. When you know how to promote yourself on social media, you can:

Develop credibility and trust

Marketing yourself is all about building your authority. You demonstrate your knowledge and share your experiences to be seen as an expert in the field.

When you show people that you are an expert, they are naturally drawn to you.

They will depend on you more, and ultimately, they will reward you with their trust.

Attract potential clients, customers, and hiring managers

When you market yourself, you are reaching more people.

When more people can see you, chances are, there will be individuals who will be interested in you.

Done right, marketing yourself can lead to people hiring you, buying from you, or availing your services.

Gain recommendations

Did you know that by simply doing good with your work, you are marketing yourself?

The good news is that it can be a powerful marketing tool that can spread the word about you. Imagine if you’re consciously shaping the perception of people around you of how good and helpful you are to them, you can have people recommending you.

This word-of-mouth tactic is especially effective on social media where shares, retweets, and comments can reach more people.

Build your network

Exposing yourself to a wider audience helps you forge real connections.

This opens up opportunities to create a network that can help achieve your marketing goals.

Whether it be potential partnerships with fellow experts to grow your business or connecting to the right people in your dream company, marketing yourself can help build valuable networks.

Grow your career or business

In a competitive market, knowing how to promote yourself on social media can be a key to achieving success.

It helps you position yourself as an expert that your clients, customers, and employers need. This earns you valuable trust, and by marketing yourself, you are setting yourself apart from the crowd.

Eventually, you’ll have potential clients and hiring managers coming to you seeking your expertise, and that means business.

How to Market Yourself Online: Getting Started

Whether you’re an entrepreneur or a job seeker, marketing yourself online can be the key to your success.

The great part is that you can promote yourself without spending money to get started. Here, learn how you can start marketing yourself on social media.

1. Figure out who you are

To market yourself effectively, first, you need to know who you are.

By knowing yourself, we mean finding out your strengths as a professional.

Where do you excel at?
What are you passionate about?
What motivates you?
What are your experiences related to your niche?

The answer to these questions will become your unique selling proposition (USP).

It’s crucial to understand what you are selling to market yourself effectively.

Thus, think about how you can bring these elements together that you can present when you start marketing yourself.

Once you have identified your strengths, it’s time to determine who you want to be.

Many individuals struggle to market themselves because they don’t want to limit themselves.

For instance, a startup founder of a digital marketing agency wants to market himself as the go-to expert in the community.

But, digital marketing is a complex process that involves many disciplines, such as SEO, social media marketing, and email marketing.

To effectively promote yourself, choose a certain area you’d like to focus on. In the above example, you can’t be an expert in all of these marketing disciplines because it’s too broad.

It’s unrealistic, and that makes it harder to appeal to a specific audience.

Therefore, concentrate on a certain aspect of your craft and start from there.

Listing your current skills, passions, and experiences will help you identify the area you should focus on in your marketing efforts.

2. Define your audience

Once you figure out who you are, the next step is to identify who your audience is.

Who are you trying to reach? Are you marketing yourself to potential clients? Do you want to connect with future customers? Or are you trying to reach hiring managers and recruiters?

Determine a specific audience you want to target.

To do this, look at your skills, products, or services. What problems do they solve?

From there, ask yourself who would benefit the most from what you offer.

After you get a general idea of who your target is, do as much research as possible about them. For entrepreneurs, understand your audience’s pain points, their wants, needs, and their concerns.

For job seekers, learn about the company you’re trying to reach, specifically the skills, values, and knowledge, and experience that they value the most.

Defining your audience is a crucial step in marketing because it will guide your content-making process.

If you know your audience, you’ll know who will read your content.

This way, you can tailor-fit your posts to a specific set of people.

By deeply understanding your audience, you can create more focused content that can resonate with them.

3. Develop your personal brand statement

Say, you’re in an elevator together with a prospect.

You only have a minute to talk about yourself. How would you market yourself?

This is where a personal brand statement comes in.

A personal brand statement sums up who you are, what value you provide, who would benefit from your offer, and how you deliver.

It’s important to develop a statement that can clearly convey your message.

It’s one of the first things people will learn about you, so your statement should stick with them.

Here’s an example of what a personal brand statement looks like:

“I help executives build their personal brands to attract more quality clients and investors.”

Your statement should contain the value you offer, your target audience, and your USP.

To start, follow the classic formula for writing a brand statement:

“I help ____ do ____.”

The first blank should be your target audience. The second blank is the desired result or outcome of your audience after working with you.

In the example above, the target is executives. The desired result is to attract more quality clients and investors by building their personal brands.

Keep your statement clear and concise, about one to two sentences short. Also, make sure to keep it conversational, memorable, and genuine.

4. Create a strong online presence

When you have identified your value, your audience, and your statement, it’s time to build your presence online.

If you already have a website, make sure to upgrade it to reflect your message. If you don’t have it, consider building one.

A website is a crucial digital marketing tool for building credibility and authority aside from providing accessibility and making the right first impression.

Then, use social media strategically.

There are various social media channels you can choose from. But if you’re looking to establish thought-leadership, make sure to have a presence on LinkedIn.

This platform is basically a living resume that offers a trove of information about you. It’s essential for communicating your value and connecting with the right people.

Once you have chosen your platforms, the next thing to do is to create and distribute your content.

Content is the meat of your marketing strategy. It is what will communicate your message and demonstrate your expertise.

When creating content, always ensure that they are:

Informative
Educational
Helpful
Original
Actionable
Accurate
Engaging
Thought-provoking

Marketing content comes in many forms, but the important thing is to provide value to your audience. Again, you should put yourself in the best light to your audience.

To do this, they should be able to see your value, and well-thought content that answers their problems can help you achieve this purpose.

However, don’t just create content and let people discover it. You should also actively distribute your content to reach more people. Email marketing is a great way to do this.

So, to build a strong online presence, make sure to optimize your website, social media accounts, and email with effective content that positions you as an expert in your industry.

6 Effective Ways to Market Yourself

Earlier, we defined “to market yourself” as building trust by positioning yourself as the go-to expert in your field.

And that’s what marketing yourself is all about: demonstrating your expertise to present yourself in the best light to the public.

That said, your marketing strategy should focus on communicating your knowledge to your audience. Here are some ways to do it:

Maintain a blog

Start writing your thoughts and share them on your blog. Blogging is a great way to demonstrate your expertise.

Whether you add a blog to your website or publish in off-site blogs like Business 2 Community, Medium, or LinkedIn, make it a habit to write articles about your industry.

It doesn’t have to be a long post every time, especially when you’re just starting out.

The goal is to be consistent in publishing content online, and that you write for a specific audience. This way, people will have a reason to follow your website or social media accounts.

Write a book

Aside from writing blogs, you’ll also benefit from authoring a book.

Look around and many of the thought-leaders in your field have already published at least one book.

Because it offers real value to people, books are a powerful marketing tool to demonstrate your knowledge about a subject matter. Hence, you should consider publishing one.

While writing a book can be daunting, it’s really worth the effort you put into it.

Besides, you don’t have to write a book by yourself if you don’t feel up for it. Instead, you can reach out to fellow experts in your industry and ask if you can co-author a book with them.

Speak publicly

Speaking in front of a large audience is a sure way to get your name out there.

By sharing your knowledge in conferences, trade shows, or webinars, you get to promote yourself while building your network and your reputation.

The good thing is that you don’t have to be a big name to get invited as a resource speaker in events. You can start small in the local chapter of your professional association.

But if you’re someone who gets stage fright, don’t worry. You can utilize digital speaking platforms like podcasting to work out your speaking skills.

So, practice enough, build your confidence, and aim for the bigger stage where you can market yourself.

Get quoted

Aside from speaking at events, it’s also a smart move to speak with the local media.

People will recognize you more if you appear in media interviews, reports, and features, aside from building your portfolio.

Reporters and journalists love quoting experts to back up their points.

Showing your expertise to attract the attention of journalists is great.

However, you have to actively look for reporters if you want to leverage this marketing tactic.

For this reason, sites like HARO and Source Bottle can be of help. These kinds of sites connect journalists with experts, allowing you to score an interview with various news outlets.

Lead or organize a group

If there is no professional association in your area, organize one.

Experts are always drawn to fellow experts, and organizing a group of professionals helps you build a valuable network. Connect with them and create a community of like-minded individuals.

If there is an existing group already, join them. Then, talk to the leaders about you wanting to help out.

Or better yet, express your willingness to be part of the leadership. Joining industry-related groups can significantly bolster your reputation.

Common Pitfalls of Marketing Yourself

Finally, avoid these common marketing pitfalls when promoting yourself online.

Getting too broad with your niche. You need to be specific with the niche you’re claiming to be an expert in. Finding a specific niche helps you solidify your value and lock in on the right audience.
Creating content for everybody. As they say, if your content is for everybody, it is for nobody. Create more focused content with a specific set of people in mind. This can make your content more appealing to your readers.
Not doing research. You can’t answer your audience’s questions if you don’t do much research about your subject matter. Spend some time researching your niche and become a true expert that people can rely on.
Don’t be self-absorbed. No one wants to listen to someone that talks about himself all the time. Instead of talking about me, me, me, focus on being helpful to your audience. Address their problems, wants, and needs, and be genuine about it.
Not engaging with your audience. Always remember the “social” aspect of social media. When marketing yourself, don’t forget to engage with your audience. Reply to comments, ask for suggestions, and converse with fellow experts online. Marketing yourself on social media also means building a community.

Final Words

To market yourself, you should become an expert in your field. This goes true for entrepreneurs and job seekers alike.

Learning how to market yourself properly can make the difference between failing and succeeding in your goals.

So, be sure to consider the most effective ways to market yourself and avoid the common pitfalls of the task.

9 Examples of Impressive Thought Leadership Content

March 10, 2021 by Steven J Wilson Leave a Comment

Steven J Wilson

Do you want to be a thought leader in your field?

A thought leader is someone who offers guidance and insight to those around them. They help others with their knowledge and experience in a particular topic.

To cement your reputation as a thought leader in your industry, you need to have strategic thought-leadership content. But what exactly is thought-leadership content? How do you create it?

In this post, discover the essential things you need to know about thought-leadership content. Also, learn from the examples of established thought-leaders to inspire and guide you in crafting high-quality content for thought-leadership marketing.

What is Thought Leadership Content

Thought leadership content presents your brand as a leading, authoritative voice in your industry.

It aims to inform, educate, provide insights and help answer the biggest questions in your audience’s minds.

This type of content is based on unique perspectives, experiences, and resources that inform the philosophy of your brand and your product.

You share this content to build credibility, trust, and ultimately, loyalty.

Remember, thought leadership content is:

Informative, educational, and helpful, not self-promotional
Answers the problems of your audience, not a marketing piece about a product or service
Positions you as the go-to expert in your industry, not just a mere brand trying to make sales

While thought leadership content is used as a content marketing tool, remember that it takes a customer-first approach. It is not entirely about what you know.

Rather, it is what your audience wants and needs to know from you.

Remember what it is and what it is not to effectively position yourself as a leader in your field.

Types of Thought Leadership Content

Thought leadership content comes in different formats, such as:

Blog Posts & Articles

Writing blog posts and articles is one of the most common and effective ways to demonstrate expertise in your niche.

It requires you to consistently publish posts about topics that resonate with your market.

By publishing new content in your blog, you are showing how well-versed you are in your field.

This consistency eventually builds a following to your blog which helps boost your credibility.

eBooks & White Papers

Look at some thought leaders in your industry. Chances are, they have authored at least one book or white paper about their subject matter.

Writing eBooks and white papers may require time for in-depth research, but it isn’t as demanding as maintaining a blog schedule.

The heavier graphics and thorough content also provide real value to your audience, which in turn, position you as an authority in your field.

Original Research & Insights

Conducting your own surveys, research, and data gathering instead of relying on existing reports can make you stand out from the crowd.

As a thought leader, your followers expect you to provide something new to the field.

Presenting original research and insights about your industry satisfies this need, which in turn, establishes thought leadership.

Videos & Infographics

We live in a visual world, that’s why videos and infographics make for great thought leadership content.

Both types are easy to digest and engaging to users. This is especially true for videos, which is a consumer’s favorite type of content to see from brands on social media.

That said, consider creating explainer videos and interactive infographics to inform and engage your audience.

Media Appearances & Guest Posts

Your brand recognition grows the more you appear in media interviews, articles, features, and industry-related websites and blogs.

The more people recognize your brand, the more you’ll be perceived as a thought leader.

So, it is also important to work on content outside your current platforms.

Build relationships with the press, contribute guest articles, and get your name out there.

Virtual Events & Speaking Engagements

Just like media appearances, getting active in virtual events can give your reputation a significant boost.

Aim to participate in conferences, trades, and exhibits not only as an attendee but as a speaker when possible.

Speaking engagements are particularly crucial in building your resume as a thought leader.

If you can, hold your own webinars and podcasts to build yourself. In the new normal, it’s still a must to make human connections with the people in your field.

Digital Hubs & Training Resources

As a thought leader, your primary goal is to teach your followers. Thus, creating a learning hub for your audience is crucial to your success.

Offer training resources, programs, courses, and events that will help your users solve their problems, alongside the other forms of content mentioned above.

Examples of Thought Leadership Content

Based on the types above, let’s look at some brands that are doing great with their thought leadership content. Take inspiration from these brands so you can create effective content for thought leadership.

Grow by Acorns and CNBC

Acorns may be a company offering financial investments, but they know not to oversell their services with their content. Instead, they make good use of their blog to tackle the more interesting side of financing.

To appeal to their audience, they publish content revolving around saving, spending, and earning that people could highly relate to. They also partnered with news provider CNBC and built a team of financial experts to boost the blog’s credibility.

This sincerity to help people make the most out of their money earns them a spot on this list.

Takeaway: Be helpful.

Degreed

When it comes to building authority, publishing whitepapers is a surefire way to get the job done. Education technology company Degreed recognizes this, which is made evident by their thorough and well-designed whitepapers.

It is a smart move for Degreed to leverage this type of content as whitepapers are often perceived to be highly-authoritative. This especially works when your target markets are entrepreneurs and businesses, who usually look for real value from brands.

Takeaway: Provide real value to your audience.

Burning Glass Technologies

Data is a powerful tool to establish thought leadership. And for for-profit enterprise Burning Glass Technologies, it is one key to stand out from the competition.

The said brand uses data to become a formidable name in its field. Together with industry authorities like the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Burning Glass Technologies offers a wealth of original content from raw info about labor and the job market.

As the brand brings something new to the table, it gets a huge chunk of attention from the community.

Takeaway: Add to the conversation.

MarieTV by Marie Forleo

When it comes to creating video content for thought leadership, Marie Forleo does it spot-on.

It is truly impressive how she handles her web series, MarieTV. Not only does she create videos that help people create a business and life they love. She also goes the extra mile addressing her audience’s problems.

One notable thing about her content is her effort to answer questions from her viewers every week. She does this with much gusto, not only answering on her YouTube channel but also on her website. This genuine care to help her audience has earned her a loyal following.

Takeaway: Engage with your community.

Oprah Winfrey

From one host to another, Oprah Winfrey’s brand is built around authenticity.

People follow Oprah’s content because it’s genuine. She opens her stories to the world to empower other people. She isn’t afraid to share her experiences, joyful or sad, to encourage her audience to embrace their own stories. And this genuineness translates well to her content, whatever the format.

Throughout the years, she remained herself and taught us that thought leadership isn’t just about your knowledge. It is also about being who you are, not just as a brand, but as a person. And that this genuineness should reflect on your content.

Takeaway: Be authentic.

Build a Better Agency Podcast by Drew McLellan

In industries like digital marketing, agency leaders are often strapped for time. If you’re targeting these people, how do you get them to consume your content?

Drew McLellan knew exactly what agency heads need, that’s why he created the Build a Better Agency Podcast. His 30-45 minutes long podcasts are just what busy leaders need to get educated on how they can improve their agencies.

By thinking of his audience’s needs, he was able to appeal to them and get a fair share of their time.

Takeaway: Think of your audience’s needs.

First Round Review

While getting interviewed sure can help with your thought leadership journey, interviewing people can also boost your reputation. The First Round Review blog is proof of that.

The said venture capital firm spends its time interviewing entrepreneurs. The people behind the blog seek thought leadership advice from real companies to feature on the website.

Through this approach, the First Round Review blog has managed to get media attention as well as a positive response from the community.

Takeaway: Reach out to other experts in your field.

Business Class by American Express

Here’s another brand that doesn’t just rely on its own expertise.

Business Class by American Express is a blog for small businesses. Previously called Open Forum, this blog lets their business customers post content on their website.

Along with their team of writers, content from business owners make up American Express’s blog. This cumulative effort to provide a thought leadership hub gives Business Class a spot on our list.

Takeaway: Build a community.

HubSpot Academy

In the marketing world, HubSpot is a respected brand well-known for its top-notch automation tools. However, people’s recognition of this brand doesn’t just end with their software products.

This company brand is also admired for its free online knowledge hub, HubSpot Academy. Here, you will find training resources for professionals and entrepreneurs aiming to grow their careers and businesses. They offer certification programs and practical courses to help their customer base and visitors.

Takeaway: Educate your audience. Successful thought leaders aren’t only experts, but they are also excellent teachers.

Developing your Thought Leadership Marketing Strategy

What can we learn from the examples above?

When developing your thought leadership content, you have to take into account the following elements to pull off an effective content marketing strategy.

Be helpful. People turn to brands that help make their daily lives easier.

Provide real value to your audience. Your effort to create content that offers real value pays off with a loyal following.

Add to the conversation. Thought leaders are expected to lead and not just follow. You do this by offering something new to the field.

Engage with your community. Don’t just post content and leave it there. Engage with people before, during, and after publishing your content.

Be authentic. People can see through pretensions. Always be genuine when informing, educating, and entertaining your audience.

Think about your audience’s needs and problems. When creating content, think about how you can solve your audience’s problems.

Reach out to other experts in your field. Sharing knowledge with fellow thought leaders does not only help your community. It also puts a spotlight on your brand.

Build a community. Involve your audience in your content creation process.
Educate your audience. Real thought leaders are excellent teachers. People will trust you if you can teach them what they need.

Final Words

Content is an essential tool to establish yourself as a thought leader in your field. As such, you should understand what exactly is thought leadership content to know how you can create it.

Remember: There is no such thing as the “best” content. What works for one brand may not work for another. Thought leadership content comes in many formats, and it is up to you to discover which will work best for your message.

However, there are definite elements that you need to consider when creating content. The examples of thought leadership content above should guide and inspire you as you develop your own content marketing strategy.

An Essential Guide to Personal Branding on LinkedIn

March 2, 2021 by Steven J Wilson Leave a Comment

Steven J Wilson

Here’s a pro-tip: Work on solidifying your personal brand.

Building a personal brand is one of the greatest things you can do for your career or business. Anyone who’s looking for a marketing strategy–from job seekers to startup founders or even executives–can benefit from having a strong personal brand.

When it comes to branding yourself, there are many social media channels to build your presence on. But none can match the advantages that LinkedIn has to offer.

In this post, find out why you should take your personal branding efforts on LinkedIn. Learn how having a strong LinkedIn presence can help establish your professional brand. Most importantly, discover the steps you need to create your personal brand on LinkedIn.

Why is LinkedIn Important for Personal Branding?

LinkedIn may be best known as a place to upload your resume to show recruiters. But that’s in the past. Now, it has evolved into a more sophisticated platform perfect for building your personal brand.

Today, LinkedIn boasts of various features that let you showcase your value, build connections, and reach out to your audience. From contact targeting to article publishing to lead generation and conversion tracking, you’ll find tools to grow your personal brand on LinkedIn.

This opens plenty of opportunities to use the platform in different ways. Your LinkedIn profile, when done strategically, can portray different roles that support your goal of establishing a personal brand:

It’s your online portfolio
It’s your personal website and blog
It’s your 24/7 salesperson
It’s your career coach
It’s your researcher
It’s your online directory
It’s your professional association
It’s your review platform

With your LinkedIn profile playing many roles for your brand, you have to spend time working on it. Continue reading to find out how you can build a strong personal brand on LinkedIn.

How Does LinkedIn Help Promote Professional Branding?

Fact: LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network. That alone explains its importance to your professional branding. In more detail, here are specific ways a LinkedIn brand helps you.

LinkedIn serves as your living resume

A solid LinkedIn profile gets your brand positioned for more opportunities.

Thanks to this platform, you’re given a space to construct a professional image of yourself. LinkedIn allows you to list your skills, experiences, and accomplishments for your potential clients and employers to see.

You can update your profile whenever you make a career move, complete a new course, get speaking engagements, or publish new articles, research, or case studies.

Consistently updating your LinkedIn profile sends the right signal to your target audience that you’re constantly advancing your career, and that they should check out your brand.

Your professional career becomes an open book that can influence how people perceive you.

LinkedIn helps you get found on Google

Have you ever tried to Google your name? What shows up on the first page of the search result?

If you’re applying for a job or emailing a potential client, chances are, they’ll search your name on Google. And you don’t want them to see the less desirable results about you online.

Hence, if you want to control the narrative about your name, it’s time to work on your LinkedIn profile. One great thing about this platform is that it is easier to rank your LinkedIn profile on Google than your website, giving you more visibility.

When your profile ranks, this leaves searchers a good impression of you as a professional individual.

LinkedIn connects you with people

When it comes to networking, LinkedIn is top-notch. With over 700 million professionals using the platform, you’re more likely to find your target audience in this channel.

Here, it is easy to find relevant people in your industry, send an invite to connect and grow your network.

The LinkedIn Groups also provide excellent opportunities for your personal brand to gain recognition. With a free LinkedIn account, you can join up to 50 groups for sharing your content, researching your market, and making meaningful connections.

That said, LinkedIn is a great place to build relationships, which you need to grow your professional brand.

LinkedIn communicates your value

LinkedIn is a great platform to broadcast the word about your brand in front of a large, targeted audience.

Here, you can post regular content to show your expertise in your subject matter.

When you achieve a milestone, post it on your profile. If you read an informative article that you think can be of value to your connections, share it with your network. If you have some thought-provoking questions for your followers, ask away.

Posting on LinkedIn can reach a lot of people that can help build awareness of your brand. Even a simple comment on other people’s posts can go a long way in this channel.

You can even publish articles directly to LinkedIn to demonstrate thought-leadership, establishing your authority and credibility.

Be strategic about what you post to communicate your value the best way possible on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn offers a trove of information

LinkedIn’s wealth of resources and analytical tools can help you with your market research. From its LinkedIn Groups to LinkedIn Company Pages to LinkedIn Search functionalities, you’ll find the tool useful.

Here are some ways you can use LinkedIn for research:

Looking for insights about your market
Searching for experts in your industry
Gathering information for your customer profile
Curating popular content ideas
Staying on top of current events in your field
Find candidates for your team
Learn more about a company’s culture and key personalities

How Do I Create a Personal Brand on LinkedIn?

By now, you might be excited to build your personal brand on LinkedIn. To help you get the most out of your brand, here are some tips to strengthen your profile.

Optimize Your Profile for Search

A well-optimized profile lets you be found by potential clients or employers online. But how do you optimize your profile?

LinkedIn isn’t just a social media channel. It is also a search engine platform, so you need to use the right keywords specific to your expertise and industry.

Once you identified the keywords, use them in the following sections of your profile:

Headline, summary, and job descriptions.
Headshot, banner, and images.
At the top 3 list of the skills section.
Pulse posts, which is LinkedIn’s blogging platform.
Contact information section.
Projects and Publications sections.

Choosing the right words and using them in your profile make the difference between getting found and being invisible on LinkedIn.

Create Your Headline

In the headline field, you’re allowed to fill up to 120 characters. It’s one of the first things that your profile visitors will see, so make the most out of this space.

The headline is an excellent place to show your personal branding statement, which is a 1-2 sentence summary of your brand.

To take advantage of your headline, make sure that it answers all of these questions:

What are you expert in?
Who do you help?
What sets your personal brand apart?

Here’s an example of a personal branding statement in the headline:

“I build the online brands of financial service professionals.”

Also, don’t forget to optimize the headline with keywords so you can be found via relevant searches.

Craft Your Description

The About section is the support text to your headline. It is where you sell yourself to a potential client or hiring managers.

In this part, mention compelling points that would make your visitors want to connect with you. It should include your skills, experiences, and accomplishments.

However, sell yourself for what you want to do, not what you’ve done in the past.

This means you don’t just squeeze every work you’ve done before in your summary. Instead, highlight the works that are relevant to the clients or jobs you want to attract.

For instance, if you’re a photographer and want to attract soon-to-wed couples, be sure to feature previous works related to weddings.

Your other portfolio can be placed below in the Experience section.

Choose Your Headshot

Remember that LinkedIn is a platform for professionals, so use a profile photo that would help you look professional. Don’t just use your usual Facebook or Instagram selfie photos on your LinkedIn profile.

You don’t need to have a professional photoshoot to do this. Just keep these things in mind when having a headshot:

Show your face and/or shoulders
Make eye contact and smile
Dress professionally
Don’t wear accessories that can obscure your face
Avoid pixelated photo
Ensure you have excellent lighting
Don’t have anyone else in the photo

Also, be sure to name your headshot with your keyword. For instance, name your photo “personal branding consultant Tennessee.” People who are searching for this term may see your image come up on the search results page. The same goes for your banner and other images.

Design a Banner Image

LinkedIn also lets you upload a banner image to your profile. When choosing a cover photo, keep in mind that it should tell your brand story.

Insert elements that clearly tell what your brand is about. For instance, if you’re a writer, you can include an image of a pen in your cover photo. It wouldn’t also hurt to inject your personality in the banner to make it more creative.

If you have a graphic designer who can create your cover photo, great. But if you have limited resources, Canva.com offers plenty of templates to design your own banner.

Write Articles

You might be thinking, “Why would I want to publish an article on LinkedIn? when I can publish it on my website’s blog?”

It’s a valid question, but did you know that every time you publish on LinkedIn, the post shows up on your connections’ feed. But the best part is that they get notified of your post.

That means more people can get to read your article when you publish on the said social media platform versus your blog.

There are various ways to take advantage of LinkedIn posting.

Publish a LinkedIn exclusive article.
Publish an excerpt of an existing blog article to LinkedIn. Then, direct your audience to continue reading on your website.
Syndicate content from your blog and repost it to LinkedIn.

With such a feature, it’s worth considering publishing articles directly on LinkedIn.

Engage with Others

A solid LinkedIn branding strategy isn’t just about you posting content. It also involves building relationships with your connections.

Make sure to engage with other people’s content regularly. Interact with fellow professionals, especially those with who you plan to work together in the future. Find time to share, like, and comment on posts relevant to your goals.

Converse with prospects or recruiters to introduce yourself, which can increase your chances of success when you pitch your products or services to them.

Engaging with others doesn’t only build relationships. It also literally connects you with your target audience. In LinkedIn, a simple comment shows up to your network, which usually appears like this: “Steven J Wilson commented on this post.”

Leverage this to further your brand recognition.

Get Endorsements & Recommendations

LinkedIn also allows users to leave endorsements and recommendations on your profile. These are great to have as they act as social proof of your expertise.

Don’t just wait for people to leave testimonials. Be proactive and ask for endorsements and recommendations from relevant connections. In LinkedIn, you can request recommendations from your connections easily from your profile.

You can start asking your colleagues, clients, or professors for their testimonials.

When requesting recommendations, ask them for feedback on a specific skill to boost your reputation. It also pays to mention why you want the recommendations.

In return, always say thank you and write a recommendation for them.

Personalize Your Connection Request

A personalized invitation boosts your chance of getting accepted. So, spend some time writing your invitation to build that connection.

A good LinkedIn connection request contains the following:

Explanation on how you know the person
Reason why you want to connect
What you admire most about his brand
Some information from his profile (e.g., recent blog or specific skill set)

When sending your invite, show a bit of enthusiasm to further improve your chance of getting accepted. Also, always end it with a thank you.

Don’t Pitch Too Soon

While you are using LinkedIn to sell yourself, don’t make the mistake of pitching straight away.

It’s tempting to sell to someone you meet the first time because you don’t want to miss the opportunity. But this may only ruin your chance to build potential relationships with your audience, which is the reason why you’re establishing a personal brand on LinkedIn in the first place.

The best approach is to be helpful to your audience. Show you’re sincere in connecting with them, and that you’d want to help them with their needs, concerns, and problems.

At the end of the day, your audience remembers genuine relationships, not cold pitches.

LinkedIn Personal Branding Examples

If you need inspiration, we rounded up some of our favorite professionals who are on top of their personal branding game on LinkedIn. Check out their profiles and learn what they did best to stand out from their peers.

Jonathan Palmer

Video is huge on LinkedIn right now, and if you are or planning on getting involved in creating videos on LinkedIn, Jonathan is the person you should follow. Jonathan shows and teaches you the power of being yourself through LinkedIn videos while growing your brand or business at the same time. Jonathan has been dominating LinkedIn for the past two years, and there is no doubt in our minds that he will be able to inspire and guide you on the path to success with LinkedIn video.

Connect with Jonathan Palmar on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathanpalmar/

Cher Jones

It wouldn’t be fair to mention building a brand on LinkedIn and not mention Cher Jones. She is the perfect representation of showing your professionalism while letting people connect with who you are on a deeper level. If you need more amazing energy and tips from a dedicated LinkedIn power-user that has been crushing in for years, then, Cher is who you need to connect with. Cher hosts a weekly show called #JustAskCher, and we highly recommend you tune in.

Connect with Cher Jones on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/itscherjones/

Reggie Mac

Reggie will inspire and help you achieve better results with your brand from the content he shares. Reggie does a great job of posting thought-provoking content while genuinely engaging with his connections. Every business professional should model and take Reggie’s advice to grow your relationships and business utilizing his LinkedIn strategies.

Connect with Reggie Mac on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/reggiemac/

Joel Lalgee

Joel is one of my favorite people to follow on LinkedIn. He shares some great thought-provoking content and is a perfect example of a LinkedIn power-user doing amazing things on the social media platform without being salesy or pushy. If you are looking to grow your brand on LinkedIn, you should follow and soak up everything Joel does on LinkedIn.

Connect with Joel Lalgee on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/bestrecruiterever1/

Wrapping Up

When it comes to building your personal brand, LinkedIn is currently the best social media channel to be apart of. It is a sophisticated platform meant for creating personal brands, offering plenty of benefits for career seekers and business owners alike.

Leverage the platform and start branding yourself now.

Be sure to follow Steven J Wilson on LinkedIn.

The Importance of Personal Career Branding

January 26, 2021 by Steven J Wilson Leave a Comment

Steven J Wilson

In a competitive job market, we’re always told to leverage our education, experience, and skills to stand out from the crowd.

But how do we exactly present all these in a way that will win the attention of hiring managers?

If there’s one career advice you need, it’s to start working on your personal career branding.

In this guide, learn what a personal career brand is and how it can help you in your job search. Also, learn how you can build a strong personal brand that can help you move toward career fulfillment.

What is a Personal Career Brand?

A personal career brand defines who you are as a professional.

While your resume tells your story, your personal branding shows your character development. It sums up your goals, skills, expertise, and core values at work.

For job seekers, it is how you present yourself as a potential hire.

Personal career positions you in the professional world in a way that makes you stand out. It is one way to advance your career and move toward work fulfillment.

Thus, it has become an integral part of a job search today.

In the next section, discover how managing your personal branding exactly helps you land that coveted job.

How a Personal Career Brand Benefits You

Savvy job seekers know that personal branding is part of a healthy career. They understand that it is an ongoing process of painting a professional image, which ultimately, can benefit them in the following ways.

Improve visibility

When it comes to job search, 92% of recruiters use social media to find potential hires, and 87% of these leverage LinkedIn.

That said, having an online presence on LinkedIn can help you get found.

Your personal brand positions you as an expert in your field. It lets you speak, write, and share your knowledge on platforms where your audience spends their time.

When communicated strategically, personal branding cuts through the competition and gets you in front of recruiters.

Thus, successful career branding increases your visibility online.

Communicate value to hiring managers

Once you get found, your brand now works to move you through the next step of the hiring process.

Hiring decision-makers need help knowing how you position yourself as a professional.

Your brand helps them understand your character. It tells them what you’re like to work with and how you do things your way.

Personal branding also helps recruiters to understand what you have to offer that only you can do.

Make the hiring decision easier

After communicating your value, it’s time for the recruiters to decide.

Your brand makes it easier for recruiters to evaluate you as a potential hire. It can signal whether you’re a good fit for the role and whether to hire you or partner with you.

But the benefits of career branding don’t stop there.

Find career fulfillment

If you pass the screening, you’re finally getting hired.

Remember that you have positioned yourself as an expert in the field. You have effectively communicated the value you offer that only you can do.

As you establish yourself as a valuable addition to the team, this allows you to set premium rates that work for you.

Not only do you land your “dream” job, but you are also getting a good job that pays well and fills you with a sense of purpose.

And a strong personal brand can make all these possible.

How to Build Your Personal Career Brand

Having a strong personal brand offers plenty of advantages for job hunters like you. If you want to reap these benefits, it’s time to start branding yourself now.

Here, we’ll walk you through the process of personal branding. Learn what you need to do to position yourself in the professional world so you can land that new job you dream of.

Define your goals

Your personal brand may be a reflection of who you are today, but it is also a roadmap of who you want to be in the future.

Determine where you want to end up five or 10 years from now.

Do you want to get hired for a certain role? Do you want to advance your career in your current organization? Do you want to be a business partner?

Define your goals and set a realistic timeframe to accomplish them.

Find your strengths and weaknesses

In which areas do you excel? What are you passionate about? Which tasks do you spend time on without feeling overwhelmed?

Assess yourself and find out who you are as a professional individual. List your strengths that you can help your audience with.

Those strengths are what make you stand out from the competition. Those can be the value that you uniquely offer.

Don’t forget to identify your weaknesses, too. This includes tasks that you need help with repeatedly or roles that drain your energy.

Once you’re done with your self-reflection, gather feedback from other people as well. They can be your colleagues, friends, and family.

You might be surprised to learn your strengths and weaknesses from an outside perspective.

Determine your audience

Who are you trying to reach? Are they fellow industry experts? An individual at a specific company? Recruiters?

Depending on your goals, you need to target a specific audience to communicate your value.

Defining your audience also allows you to determine the right platform and type of content you need to create.

Create a statement

Now that you know your value and the audience you’re targeting, it’s time to create your statement.

A personal brand statement is a concise story about who you are. This elevator pitch should be 30- to 60-seconds long and answers the following questions:

What problem do you solve?
How do you do it?
Who are you trying to help?

Your statement is the first thing that recruiters will see when they check your brand, so make sure it is memorable and effective.

When making your statement, focus on a few key points you want to emphasize. Make sure that it is directed to your target audience, and that you stay authentic.

Develop a strong LinkedIn presence

Once you have your statement, it’s time to build your online presence.

As we explained above, LinkedIn is a vital platform for job hunters to establish their presence.

To do this, set your LinkedIn profile first in a way that highlights your value. Feature industry terms in your profile and emphasize your key qualifications. Include your accomplishments and don’t forget to add a professional photo.

Here’s how I did my LinkedIn profile to give you an idea.

After setting your profile, follow people of relevance to your branding and engage with them. Also, participate in groups to further grow your network.

Create or update your personal website and blog

Aside from LinkedIn, it’s also important to have an updated professional website and blog.

A website is an excellent way to showcase your portfolio, especially if you’re in the marketing or design industry. Also, it can be used to house essential information about yourself and highlight your work.

Likewise, a blog is also an important platform to build your presence online. Writing blog posts about your expertise on a regular basis helps boost your authority. This is especially true when you’re following SEO tactics to expand your reach.

Strategic networking

A network is an essential part of successful personal branding.

Research your industry for thought leaders you can connect with. Follow these experts and engage with them.

You’ll be surprised how a simple comment on other people’s posts can go a long way in LinkedIn.

Also, find other platforms these experts use like personal blogs and websites. Then, interact with them.

The more connections you make, the more people will recognize your branding. Just make sure that you provide value every time you engage with these professionals.

Ask for recommendations

Just like how businesses use reviews and testimonials to build credibility, recommendations can help you gain the trust of recruiters.

Ask for recommendations from current and former colleagues to establish your personal brand. You can ask previous managers who handled you closely as well as leaders of organizations you belong to.

LinkedIn has a particular feature that is helpful for asking for recommendations.

Having recommendations on your LinkedIn profile is a great way to capture the attention of your target audience. So, make sure to ask for one.

Volunteer on important projects

If you feel like you are lacking the experience to boost your reputation, start doing helpful projects when possible.

Identify activities relevant to your chosen niche. These should be roles that will help position yourself as an expert in your field.

For instance, if you are a writer who wants to be known for his SEO expertise, volunteer doing guest posts in SEO-focused blogs. The more reputable the blog is in the industry, the more recognition you will get from your peers—and the more you will be recognized by hiring decision-makers.

Remember your goals and determine the activities that will help you get there.

Grow your skillset

A personal brand needs to evolve throughout your career.

To do this, you need to be up-to-date on new skills in your industry.

For example, digital marketing is an ever-changing landscape. Social media platforms come and go. Strategies that are relevant today might suddenly become irrelevant tomorrow.

It’s important that you keep up with the skillset needed in your industry.

Fortunately, there is a wealth of resources available online to grow your skills. Make sure to take online classes, get helpful certifications, and utilize company learning programs to further establish your brand.

Track your progress

Finally, like all other processes, you need to monitor your success.

To measure your success, you have to set some metrics. This includes your number of connections/followers, comments on your posts, page visits, and mentions of your name online.

Track your progress against your set timeline to ensure your brand is headed in the right direction.

Things to Avoid When Building Your Personal Career Brand

Aside from learning the things you need to do, you should also be aware of the common pitfalls of personal branding. Watch out for these mistakes that can hold you back from attaining branding success.

Getting too personal with your brand

Just because it is YOUR personal brand, you’d have to get too personal with it. Personal branding doesn’t work that way.

While posting personal information can help show authenticity, draw the line on what you will share with your audience.

Before posting content, ask yourself this: “Will this truly help build the image I want my followers to see in me?”

If you decide to share personal details with your audience, always tie them back to your goals.

Getting overly promotional

On the other hand, personal branding isn’t just about marketing yourself.

Remember that a personal brand isn’t shameless self-publicity. It’s about educating your audience on how you can be of value to them.

Personal branding also involves communicating your purpose, values, vision, and motivations. It also lets you discover more about yourself, hence, it is also a personal development tool.

That said, be sincere about helping your audience learn more about you while developing your professional self.

Not preparing for the tough questions

Say, you’re undergoing a career change.

Are you prepared enough to answer questions about taking a new path? Can you explain how your current skill set relates to the new role you’re aspiring to? Or how your passion translates to your goals of shifting to a new field?

Your personal brand must answer the tough questions to help the hiring decision-maker to understand your position.

Getting too comfortable

As we move on in the personal branding process, we tend to get too comfortable after completing the first steps.

Sure, you have set your profiles in place. Also, you have published your first posts, and you have your strategy rolling.

Now, you think you’re all set and everything will go well.

Don’t just stop there.

While you did great with all those works, remember that personal branding is a continuous process. And most of the time, a learning process.

Continue doing what’s necessary, assess the performance of your strategy, and adjust as needed. With perseverance, you’ll eventually reap the rewards of your hard work.

Losing focus

Before reaching your goals, you will be facing lots of twists and turns.

You may find yourself accepting activities irrelevant to your goals just so you can pay the bills. Or you may get disheartened with your slow progress.

The important thing is to stay focused. Remind yourself of your goals. What do you want to achieve, and why are you doing it?

Set some milestones, track your progress, and keep your eyes on the destination.

Final Words

With a strong personal career brand, you are boosting your chance of standing out in a competitive job market.

You get to improve your visibility, communicate your value to recruiters, and make the hiring decision easier. Ultimately, personal branding moves you toward career fulfillment.

If you need help in your job search, take the career advice above and start building your brand today!

An All-Inclusive Guide To Strong Personal Branding

January 6, 2021 by Steven J Wilson Leave a Comment

Steven J Wilson

When you Google your name, what do you find?

Is it something that will help you land clients, close important deals, or attract potential customers to your business? If the answer is no, then you need to think about personal branding.

Personal branding is the conscious effort of improving how the public perceives you. If you’re running a business, a strong personal brand can help you rise to success in surprising ways.

That said, it’s time to take the reins of your personal brand now so you can control your narrative. And if you need help to get started, you’ve come to the right place.

Here, we’ll walk you through the fundamentals of a strong personal brand so you can develop a solid strategy for establishing your online reputation.

By the time you reach the end of this personal branding guide, you’ll have a strong understanding of what personal branding is, why it is important, and how you can successfully build a personal brand.

What is Personal Branding?

Personal branding is the practice of promoting yourself to the public. It is a marketing technique that influences how people perceive you as an individual.

In this strategy, you communicate certain qualities to your target audience. These qualities are what you want people to associate with you. They sum up your experience, skills, core values, principles, and purpose as a personal brand.

Think of Michelle Obama. Beyond her stint as the former first lady, people remember her for her authenticity and integrity. She still has that strong influence and public trust even after her husband, Barack, stepped down from office.

The same goes for Oprah Winfrey, who’s also known for her genuineness that she kept consistent throughout her career. Then, there’s Richard Branson of Virgin Group, whose unconventional stunts launched him to superstar status.

What do these individuals have in common? They have effectively communicated their qualities and core values to attract people. They all embraced their own personal brand.

You might be thinking, “But all these people are already prominent and successful individuals. Can someone like me have his own personal brand?”

There was a time when brands were only for a select few. Before, branding only mattered to large companies, celebrities, athletes, and famous people.

But this is not the case anymore.

Now, everyone can have a personal brand. Instead, it’s crucial to manage one’s brand and turn it into a strength. This is especially true for founders of a startup, executives, and entrepreneurs who want to grow their business.

In the next section, find out why you should think of your personal brand now.

Why is Personal Brand Important?

Today, consumers have become more critical than ever. Their trust in business brands continues to go down in the past years. This proves to be a challenge for business owners like you.

Now that the public trusts people more than a business brand, having a personal brand is key in converting them into paying customers.

A personal brand is crucial if you want to be known in your field.

With personal branding, you can position yourself as the go-to expert in your industry. When people look up to you as an authority, they will come to you to solve their problems. And that means business.

You can also attract potential investors and clients as you become a thought-leader in your industry. And since consumers are more willing to pay for experts they believe in, you can even charge premium prices for your products and services.

Hence, if you’re running a business and want to improve your reach, gain the people’s trust, and boost your sales, you need to build your personal brand now.

To help you grow your business, we’ll walk you through the process of creating a personal brand in the following sections.

Getting Started: Personal Branding Questions You Need to Answer

Branding a person can be a challenge when you’re not clear about the things that make your brand uniquely you. Before you get your name out there, ask yourself these questions to give your personal branding journey a clear direction.

What are your goals for your personal brand?

Would you like to be known in your industry or local community? Do you want to build trust? Or maybe, you need to boost your sales?

Setting your goals helps you be clear on what you want to achieve with personal branding. It also helps motivate you, so you’ll keep moving toward success.

What value do you offer?

What are you good at and are passionate about? In what ways can you help your audience?

This gives people a reason why they should care about the person as a brand. Hence, determine the value you offer that you want to communicate with others.

Whom are you trying to help?

If your content is for everyone, then it is for no one.

Be specific with the set of people you intend to help. Who is your target audience? What are their wants, needs, and problems that you can offer a solution with?

What sets your personal brand apart?

Determine the unique selling proposition that makes you stand out.

Do you have certain qualities and skills that allow you to work more effectively than the competition? List down all of them.

How will you communicate your value to others?

Do you want to address your audience formally or casually? Friendly or authoritative? Entertaining, helpful, or informative?

Your brand voice can make an impact on your audience. So, identify the brand voice that best reflects your personality.

Where will you connect with your target audience?

LinkedIn is arguably the most important platform to build a personal brand. It’s a channel for professionals who want to build authority in their respective fields.

But aside from LinkedIn, what other platforms do your audience use? Identify them and establish your online presence there.

What will you do to position yourself as a leader in your industry?

Are you involved in speaking engagements? Do you have time to maintain a blog? Can you author a book?

There are plenty of strategies to build your name out there. Determine what you can do to position yourself as a thought-leader in your field.

What are other successful people in your industry doing that you are not?

What topics do your successful peers cover? What type of content do they publish? Which posts are getting the most engagements?

Determine the best practices in your niche that you can follow as you build your personal brand.

Are you connecting with like-minded professionals?

Can you identify established professionals in your field? Are you engaging with them?

Reach out to like-minded individuals and interact with them to boost your reputation. It’s also an instant exposure to their set of followers.

Are you moving close to your goal with your current activities?

As you start building your personal brand, monitor your progress. Are your strategies working? Which activities performed best, and which do you need to scrap in your strategy?

Have key metrics to measure the progress and success of your branding efforts.

Building a Personal Brand: 9 Actionable Steps

Once you have answered all the essential questions on our checklist, it’s time to put up the pieces together. Follow our step-by-step action plan below to guide you in building a personal brand.

Step #1: Define your branding goals

As we mentioned above, goal setting is key to achieving what you want with personal branding. It helps establish a clear path, identify the challenges of building a personal brand, and motivate you to keep moving forward on your journey.

But what do these personal branding goals exactly look like?

Marketing Nuts founder Pam Moore discussed the top 7 personal branding goals in her podcast, which include:

Increasing brand awareness of your business
Establishing authority in your industry
Generating more leads
Boosting your sales
Decreasing the sales cycles
Connecting with influencers
Building a community

When building a personal brand, think about which goals you want to achieve. Having a specific goal in mind lets you create more focused and effective personal branding content.

Step #2: Determine your value

Previously, you asked yourself what value do you offer. It’s time to put the answer on paper.

You should be able to say what your brand is all about in 20 words or less. To make this, list down the things you are most passionate about. These can be things you’re good at, something you love doing, or things you are most confident to work on.

Then, trim down the list to the top three passions you can offer to help others.

This will serve as your value that you communicate to your target audience.

Step #3: Identify your audience

Don’t write for everybody. Based on your value, determine who your target audience is.

These people that you should be targeting include:

Those who will pay you
Those who will influence the person who pays you
Those who will benefit from your message

Then, create a buyer persona for each individual. A buyer’s persona describes who your ideal customers are. The more detailed the persona is, the better.

Creating focused content based on these personas allows you to connect with your audience on a deeper level.

Step #4: Define your brand voice

Being genuine makes your brand as human as possible. This helps you connect better with your audience. But how do you make your brand authentic?

By defining your brand voice.

Your brand voice is how you communicate with your audience. It contains the language you use, the tone you speak, your purpose, and the character you aim to invoke in your content.

Image from Social Media Explorer

Your brand voice plays a big part in how effective your brand message will be. Be sure to decide how your brand will sound when you start branding online.

Once you’re clear with your value, your audience, and your brand voice, it’s time to develop your personal branding statement.

Step #5: Develop your branding statement

A personal branding statement is a short sentence that sums up what your brand is all about. It is an essential piece that conveys the value you provide to your audience and why should they care about you.

Your personal branding statement is one of the first things that your audience will see when they check your brand. Thus, it’s vital that you take your time in creating a compelling statement.

When creating your statement, make sure it is clear and concise, about 1-2 sentences. It should also include your value and is directed toward your audience. It also pays to be authentic.

If you want to be inspired and get your creative juices flowing, check out our list of fantastic personal branding statement examples here.

Step #6: Build your presence online

The next step is finally building your presence online.

In this phase, you have to sort out the social media platforms that will be relevant to your personal brand. These are the platforms where your audience thrives.

Social media is an excellent place to start. For those who want to establish thought-leadership, LinkedIn is one platform that you shouldn’t miss.

Aside from social media, you should also build or upgrade your personal website. While social media networks are helpful, don’t just rely on these third-party platforms. These social networks may lose their popularity one day along with the effort you invested in them.

On the contrary, a website is a platform that you own and have full control of. This platform allows you to establish your presence and continue to be relevant in the long-term.

As you go along your personal branding journey, you will also need to go beyond owned media to strengthen your online presence. This involves features in prominent media like Forbes, Entrepreneur, or even your local news sites.

Step #7: Create focused personal branding content

Now that you have set up your social media accounts and website, it’s time to work on the meat of your brand: content.

Content is a powerful tool in establishing your brand. A well-thought content plan wins people’s trust.

Through the content you’ll make, you can demonstrate your expertise and position yourself as an authority in the field. It also helps connect people within the industry and build community.

Most importantly, content offers solutions to the problems of your target audience.

That’s why it’s important that you identify your audience and their pain points. By doing so, you are narrowing down the topics to come up with a pool of ideas that are focused on helping your followers.

Also, remember that the key here is being authentic, consistent, and helpful with the content you make.

Step #8: Build relationships within your industry

Don’t just post content and move on working on a new one.

It is important that you reach out in your industry so you can get found online. But how?

You can start with simple networking. Commenting on other people’s posts or sharing someone else’s content can go a long way. This is especially true on LinkedIn, where posts soliciting conversations reach more people.

From there, you can take the conversation to one-on-one interaction. Take a look at this example when you interact with others on social media platforms.

Just keep in mind to always be helpful when interacting with others. It’s the secret to creating valuable relationships within your industry.

Step #9: Monitor your progress

As you work on building your personal brand, make sure that your strategy is working. This is one crucial step that many personal brands often overlook.

To measure your success, set key performance indicators (KPIs) as you determine your personal branding goals. These KPIs will tell you what works and when do you need to adjust your strategy.

Some tangible metrics that can determine your success include:

The number of your followers
Engagement, especially comments on your posts
Page visits
Mention of your name on social media
Sales growth

Strengthen Your Brand with These Personal Branding Strategies

With our personal branding guide above, you should be able to start working on your brand. But we’re not done yet.

In the previous section, you asked what other successful people in your industry are doing that you are not.

Here, discover the secret to the success of an established personal brand. Find out what other activities you can do beyond your current role that will help propel your name to prominence.

1. Write a book. If you’re looking to boost your credibility, authoring a book is the way to go. Many established brands have authored a book to demonstrate their knowledge in their respective fields.

2. Speaking gigs. The best-known experts share their knowledge in front of a large audience. Seek speaking opportunities in your local associations or start a podcast to boost your authority.

3. Interviews. Aim to be the go-to person for local news outlets regarding concerns about your industry. Leverage sites like HARO (Help a Reporter) to improve your chance of getting interviewed, showcasing your expertise.

4. Social media. Getting personal on social media gives a human face to your business brand.

5. Maintain a blog. Blogging is one way to demonstrate your expertise consistently. Whether you publish an article daily, weekly, or monthly, make sure that the topics you cover are helpful and relevant to your audience.

6. Email marketing. As your blog gains new visitors, you have to turn them into loyal–and paying–customers. Email marketing helps you build this loyal following.

7. SEO. In many cases, people find solutions to their problems in search engines like Google before seeking professional help. Maximize this opportunity to connect with these people by optimizing your content for SEO.

8. Outreach. Outreach strategies like guest posting do not only expose you to a wider audience outside your platforms. These also create links to your site, which is great for SEO and your visibility.

9. Partnerships. Partnering with a fellow expert can also be beneficial to your brand. You get to tap another thought-leader’s resources instantly and widen your reach.

Things to Remember When Building a Personal Brand

Finally, here are other important tips to solidify your personal branding efforts.

1. Be yourself. Being your authentic self is the key to convey your message effectively. Find your brand voice and inject your personality as you develop your content.

2. Get good at telling stories. Your stories are what make you unique. Learn the craft of telling your stories while keeping your audience involved. It’s all about balance.

3. Post content regularly. Consistency is key. Create a content schedule so your followers have something to look forward to every time they visit your profiles.

4. Get out of your comfort zone. Learn how to write, get involved in speaking engagements, or learn SEO. The most established personal brands did more beyond their existing roles to get noticed by the public.

5. Stay on topic. Always tie back your post to your core topic, even if you post about your personal life on your social networks.

6. Don’t try to reinvent the wheel. Learn from established brands and use their example as a guide in developing your own strategy.

7. Get others talking about you. Actively ask for feedback and reviews from past clients. Their words speak volumes about your skills and values, boosting your credibility.

8. Use personal branding tools. Tools make the personal branding task a lot easier. Check out our list of affordable and easy to use personal branding tools here.

Personal Branding Examples

To motivate you further, here are three examples of individuals that are killing it with personal branding. Get inspired by their journey as you build your brand in your respective field.

Brian Dean

Brian Dean is a name that rings a bell to big companies and fellow SEO experts alike in the internet marketing world.

Brian built his popularity around his credibility.

In a world full of SEO “experts,” companies struggle to find someone who can actually deliver results. Brian Dean stands out because he positions himself as a reliable SEO expert.

Visit his site Backlinko, and you’ll find well-thought-out content and testimonials from real people to prove his expertise. And there are no sketchy ads to boot.

What Brian Dean Teaches Us: To build a personal brand, you need to build trust.

Elon Musk

Elon Musk is one of the most admired tech leaders today. As the founder and CEO of Tesla, his personal branding has helped the car brand rise to popularity in recent years.

But how did he do it?

He gets personal on social media.

While most execs are still hesitant to build their personal branding on social, Elon Musk defies this trend. He is not afraid to share his opinions, personality, and crazy antics on his channels.

In return, his public popularity has helped spread the word about his company more effectively than Tesla’s advertising.

It just goes to show how tying a face to a company brand can work wonders.

What Elon Musk Teaches Us: Personal branding can beat company branding.

Lewis Howes

Lewis Howes was a professional athlete who found a new career as a lifestyle entrepreneur. If you’re following the guy, you’ll know how he went from playing football, suffering an injury, to creating a lifestyle business.

He uses his personal experience to teach people how to start a lifestyle business around their interests. Listen to his self-development podcast, The School of Greatness, and you’ll get to know how inspiring this man is.

What Lewis Teaches Us: Inspire with your personal story.

Final Words

When you take the reins of your personal brand, you control your narrative. You have the power over how people see you. You allow your brand to grow in a way that’s favorable to you and your business.

That said, it’s high time you work on your personal branding today. The guide above should help you get started on your journey. But if you need more guidance, consider hiring a personal branding consultant.

A personal branding consultant lets you save time, money, and energy, building your reputation online.

14 Fantastic Examples of Personal Branding Statements

December 21, 2020 by Steven J Wilson Leave a Comment

Steven J Wilson

Having a personal brand offers plenty of competitive advantages whether you’re a founder of a startup, an executive, or an entrepreneur. It’s an essential piece if you want to grow your business.

When creating a strong personal brand, one of the first things you need to have is a personal brand statement.

This short piece about your personal brand has a great impact on all your branding efforts. Thus, it’s crucial that you craft an effective statement.

And what better way to inspire you than to take a look at actual personal brand statement examples from successful individuals?

In this list, we rounded up 14 fantastic personal brand statement examples to get your creative juices flowing. But before we delve into the examples, first, let’s define what is a personal brand statement.

What is a Personal Brand Statement?

A personal brand statement is a 1-2 sentence that sums up your brand. It explains what you do (value), for whom do you do your work (target audience), and how do you do it (unique selling proposition).

Your statement is a distinctive part of your personal brand that is unique to you.

It should convey the value you provide to your audience in a concise way, all while maintaining a certain level of intrigue to keep people interested in what you do.

Think of it as a tagline, catchphrase, or slogan about you.

Your personal branding statement is one of the first things that people will associate with you.

It can be a defining factor whether your audience will want to learn more about you or just leave your website or social media without doing your desired action.

Thus, it is important that you take your time crafting a strong personal branding statement.

To better understand what it is and how it should look like, let’s take inspiration from some of our favorite personal brand statements below.

Personal Brand Statement Examples

1. “Be a unicorn in a sea of donkeys.” – Larry Kim

In the search marketing world, Larry Kim’s name is forever synonymous with unicorns.

The founder of Wordstream and Mobile Monkey is playful but gets his message across: “Be different.” In the marketing industry filled with companies promising you results, many fail to deliver.

But there’s always that magnificent unicorn that shows up now and then, so better ride it.

True enough, Larry’s statement being different from his peers make it a “worthy” unicorn to be included on this list.

Takeaway: Be unique. Aim for your personal brand to stand out from the crowd because that’s the whole point of creating your own brand.

2. “Empowering ridiculously good marketing.” – Ann Handley

Here’s another example of being unique.

Ann Handley, WSJ best-selling author and a digital marketing pioneer, chose to describe her work casually, empowering “ridiculously good marketing.”

Not many marketers would dare craft their personal brand statements like how Ann did, and this is exactly the point why she’s on this list.

Ann delivered her statement in an unconventional way—with a casual tone—which makes her stand out.

She does not only make it clear that she’s good at her job, but she also hints at how comfortable it is working it with her.

Takeaway: Pay attention to the tone of your statement. It can dramatically affect how people will perceive your message.

3. “Create less content. (It’ll be fine! I promise!)” – Brittany Berger

Challenging popular ideas is another way to stand out. Clearly, content marketer Brittany Berger knows this, which she applied to her personal branding statement.

In digital marketing, you’d often hear experts advising brands to create more content. But Berger thinks otherwise.

She understands how exhausting thinking about filling in a content calendar.

So, rather than creating new content and getting caught up in the content creation treadmill, she promotes creating less content.

She encourages her audience to effectively use their existing content instead to get more success from less effort.

Takeaway: Swim against the tide when you have different ideas that you can actually justify.

4. “Do you want more traffic?” – Neil Patel

A personal branding statement doesn’t have to be a statement. It can take other forms too, like a question. Just look at how Neil Patel, one of the leading online marketers today, did his statement.

In marketing, asking questions is arguably one of the most powerful ways to pique people’s curiosity. It appeals to your audience’s desire to learn and understand, to improve and grow, and most importantly, to solve problems.

Neil’s statement may be a simple question, but it works because it appeals to his audience. This is especially true given his reputation to get his clients more traffic.

Takeaway: Spark curiosity. A personal brand statement needs to catch attention, and one way to do it is by piquing your audience’s interest.

5. “I build and grow SaaS companies.” – Sujan Patel

So far, we’ve seen unique and creative personal branding statements work their magic. But there are times a straightforward approach works too. Sujan Patel’s statement is a good example.

Sujan is a reputable marketer focusing on growing SaaS companies from the ground up. That’s what he does best, and that’s basically what he wants to tell everyone who visits his site.

His statement is direct but bold. He makes it clear that he does not only help in the growth of SaaS companies. Rather, he’s responsible for the growth of those businesses.

Takeaway: Tell what you do best and be bold about it. This kind of personal brand statement is easy to understand while immediately catches attention.

6. “Real life on a budget.” – Jessi Fearon

Jessi Fearon’s brand statement is short, but it’s clear and concise enough to send the message.

Running a personal finance and budgeting blog, Jessi aims to help people plan their budgets more effectively.

And she takes her advice from her real-life failures and successes with money to share with everyone. Thus, her personal branding statement.

Sometimes, personal brand statements don’t have to be long and overly creative. Even a simple statement has its own charm.

Takeaway: A short and clear statement works. Properly conveying the message should always be the priority.

7. “Practical help for freelance writers” – Carol Tice

Carol Tice is a six-figure freelance writer who founded the writing blog, Make A Living Writing. The tagline on her website is simple, concise, and straight to the point.

But what makes her statement great is it targets a specific audience: freelance writers.

By mentioning a specific audience, Carol’s personal brand statement makes it clear who will benefit from the “practical help” she offers.

Her choice of words also makes it apparent what she can bring in to your table. In this case, actionable tips for struggling freelance writers.

Takeaway: Make sure to target a specific audience. The best personal brand statement resonates because it’s directed to the intended audience.

8. “I believe in you… Now you must believe in yourself.” – Dave Nelson

A personal branding statement isn’t always about you. It is also about your audience. So, talk about them. Talk to them.

Dave Nelson’s statement just did that. As a personal trainer who struggled with obesity, he taps into his audience’s deepest concerns: lack of self-esteem.

Then, he encourages them to believe in themselves.

Not only it is empowering, but he puts his audience’s struggles into his mind and connected with them. That is what makes his statement more compelling.

Takeaway: Talk to your audience. Your personal brand statement is your first (and can be your last) chance to connect, so make it speak with people.

9. “The world needs that special gift that only you have.” – Marie Forleo

From one inspiring statement to another, Marie Forleo’s personal brand exists to encourage people to build their dreams.

Whether it’s creating a business or the life you love, you have that special gift that the world needs.

Her brand motivates people to create just about anything. And as a passionate entrepreneur, her statement is an inspirational message for aspiring entrepreneurs and creatives.

As the host of the award-winning show MarieTV, Marie sure does know how to use her wisdom to inspire her audience to become the person they most want to be.

Takeaway: Inspire your audience. Because the most successful individuals make a difference in the lives of their followers.

10. “Travel smarter, cheaper, longer. Where do you want to go?” – Nomadic Matt

In #9, we talked about the importance of involving your audience. Here’s another example to emphasize our point.

Nomadic Matt is a passionate traveler. In his blog, you’ll find tips and resources so you can travel “smarter,” “cheaper,” and “longer.” Because that’s exactly what his target audience wants to know.

Matt’s statement makes good use of his audience’s pain points to capture their attention.

Followed by a leading question as a call to action, this personal brand statement is clearly intended to appeal to his audience.

Takeaway: Address your audience’s pain points. Use these pain points to highlight your brand’s value.

11. “Be a blessing.” – Tony Robbins

Tony Robbins is a renowned entrepreneur, life and business strategist, and NY Times author. But above all, he is a philanthropist.

And his short yet clear personal branding statement perfectly sums up what he does: help people.

As a prominent life coach, he made it his mission to help transform lives. How? He guides his audience to live purposeful lives by being a blessing to others.

This is because he believes that “The secret to life is giving,” and it translates well on all his social media profiles.

Tony’s statement is simple but clearly conveys his philanthropic message to everyone.

Takeaway: Be helpful. Personal brands sincerely aiming to help their audience creates genuine connections.

12. “50% Marketing, 50% Geek – 100% Social Business Results” – Pam Moore

Marketing Nutz founder and CEO Pam Moore’s statement tells a lot about her character. She claims to be half geek, half marketing, which lets you know she’s a dedicated marketing consultant who can deliver results.

Also, the fun tone here hints that she’d be comfortable to work with.

This personal brand statement reflects Pam’s personality. By showing her personality in her statement, it makes her brand more relatable, authentic, and unique.

Takeaway: Show your personality. Personality creates individuality, which can make your personal branding statement unique.

13. “It’s time to unleash your epicness.” – Felicia Hatcher

“Epicness” may not be a real word, but it made Felicia Hatcher’s brand statement a real winner that deserves a spot on this list.

Just like how Felicia’s inspirational speeches touch our emotions, her statement also taps deeply into our desires of becoming epic. Why not? You know you can be epic, too.

With her careful choice of words, her statement conveyed a more impactful and memorable message. And it’s clever how this lone word was designed to appeal to the younger generation of innovators whom she hopes to inspire.

Takeaway: Choose your words carefully. Even a single word can make a huge difference in how effective your statement will be.

14. “Learn how to scale your influence at startup speed.” – Adam Enfroy

Adam Enfroy is a blogger who helps online entrepreneurs scale their influence at startup speed, which is clearly defined in his statement.

But what makes his statement even catchier is his use of numbers and social proof. Throughout his career, Adam has built a large subscriber base of 500,000 monthly readers.

He knows it is impressive, and that it will help boost his credibility. Hence, he made the smart move of mentioning those numbers on his personal branding statement as social proof.

Takeaway: Use social proof and numbers. People are likely to perform your desired action if other people are doing it.

Bonus Statement: “Super charge your company’s brand. Grow reach. Build trust. Boost sales.” – Steven J Wilson

Finally, this list wouldn’t be complete without my own personal brand statement.

In this statement, I tapped on my target audience’s desire to improve their brands, i.e., grow their reach, build trust, and boost their sales. It is a simple and direct method to inform busy brand CEOs, founders, and entrepreneurs about the value I offer.

Takeaway: Offer value. The best personal brand statement clearly tells how you can help your audience.

We hope the examples above have inspired you to write your personal brand statement and got your creative juices flowing. In the next section, learn how you can craft an attention-grabbing, memorable, and engaging statement.

How to Write an Effective Personal Brand Statement

Based on these examples, we have identified key elements that make an effective personal brand statement. The personal brand statement examples above have answered most of the following questions:

What are you expert in? (The value you offer)
Who are you trying to help? (Your target audience)
What sets your personal brand apart? (Your unique selling proposition)

Personal brands struggle to create a statement because they are not being clear on the answers to the questions mentioned above. Once you have answered them, you’ll find it easier to craft your statement.

Now, let’s start writing your personal brand statement with this step-by-step guide:

Step #1: Identify your unique proposition

List down your attributes. It can be your qualities or skills that let you do your work effectively.

Then, choose the top three attributes from the list.

The goal here is to find the things that make you unique from the competition, just like how Sujan Patel and Pam Moore did in examples #5 and #12.

Step #2: Define your audience

Whom do you offer your help? It can’t be anyone. As they say, if your content is for everybody, then it is for nobody.

Hence, be clear on who your target audience is.

As we have mentioned above, half of your statement is about your audience. Address their pain points, converse with them, and highlight how you can help them.

Learn from Carol Tice, Dave Nelson, Marie Forleo, Nomadic Matt, and Tony Robbins’ personal brand statement examples.

Step #3: Inject your personality

Showing your personality makes your personal brand statement unique.

Be it in your choice of words or tone of your statement, it creates that individuality that makes you stand out from the crowd.

Ann Handley, Brittany Berger, and Felicia Hatcher crushed it in this department.

Step #4: Make it memorable

Finally, make your statement memorable.

Leave out the fluff and jargons and word your statement that is easy to remember.

Create a balance between clarity and creativity to ensure you get your message across. Just look at Larry Kim and Jessi Fearon’s personal brand statement examples above.

Power Up Your Personal Brand Statement With These Tips

The best personal brand statement is clear and concise, about 1-2 sentences.
Focus on your audience’s pain points and how you can ease that pain. Always think about how you can benefit them.
Be authentic. Only use superlatives like “leading marketer” or “best-selling author” if you are actually one.
Make it conversational. Direct your message to the right audience.
Use social proof and numbers when possible. This increases your credibility.
Test your statement. Try telling it to a friend if the statement can get the message across. Ask for feedback.
Be ready to pivot. Your statement like most things may need to be adjust to make sure you are getting your message across. If it seems like your statement is confusing or misunderstood then revise it.

Now, Start Writing Your Personal Branding Statement

Do you feel like working now after seeing the personal brand statement examples above? Let those creative juices flowing and start writing your first draft.

Make sure to follow the steps and tips above to craft an effective personal branding statement. Also, feel free to reach out to us if you need more help creating your statement.

Steven J Wilson

Steven J Wilson

What Does It Mean to Market Yourself?

Drawing the Line

The Competitive Advantage of Marketing Yourself

Develop credibility and trust

Attract potential clients, customers, and hiring managers

Gain recommendations

Build your network

Grow your career or business

How to Market Yourself Online: Getting Started

1. Figure out who you are

2. Define your audience

3. Develop your personal brand statement

4. Create a strong online presence

6 Effective Ways to Market Yourself

Maintain a blog

Write a book

Speak publicly

Get quoted

Lead or organize a group

Common Pitfalls of Marketing Yourself

Final Words

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Steven J Wilson

What is Thought Leadership Content

Types of Thought Leadership Content

Blog Posts & Articles

eBooks & White Papers

Original Research & Insights

Videos & Infographics

Media Appearances & Guest Posts

Virtual Events & Speaking Engagements

Digital Hubs & Training Resources

Examples of Thought Leadership Content

Grow by Acorns and CNBC

Degreed

Burning Glass Technologies

MarieTV by Marie Forleo

Oprah Winfrey

Build a Better Agency Podcast by Drew McLellan

First Round Review

Business Class by American Express

HubSpot Academy

Developing your Thought Leadership Marketing Strategy

Final Words

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Steven J Wilson

Why is LinkedIn Important for Personal Branding?

How Does LinkedIn Help Promote Professional Branding?

LinkedIn serves as your living resume

LinkedIn helps you get found on Google

LinkedIn connects you with people

LinkedIn communicates your value

LinkedIn offers a trove of information

How Do I Create a Personal Brand on LinkedIn?

Optimize Your Profile for Search

Create Your Headline

Craft Your Description

Choose Your Headshot

Design a Banner Image

Write Articles

Engage with Others

Get Endorsements & Recommendations

Personalize Your Connection Request

Don’t Pitch Too Soon

LinkedIn Personal Branding Examples

Jonathan Palmer

Cher Jones

Reggie Mac

Joel Lalgee

Wrapping Up

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Steven J Wilson

What is a Personal Career Brand?

How a Personal Career Brand Benefits You

Improve visibility

Communicate value to hiring managers

Make the hiring decision easier

Find career fulfillment