Don’t wait any longer to build your personal brand: Do It Now. With all of the tools readily available to you, building content and video has become necessary to your personal brand. Sharing content that reinforces brand message can be done in numerous ways, so there is no lack of options when picking a way that best suits your style and comfort. Here are five examples of how you can start building your content and professional evidence today.
- Recognition
As you spend time getting to know others, exploring their brand and deciding how it aligns with yours, share your conclusions. Recognizing the work and content produced by colleagues, associates and thought leaders who inspire you takes minimal time. However, it will be time well spent as you communicate what piques your interest. You will be upping your visibility as well as letting your followers know more about what is important to you. Recognition goes beyond simply sharing an articular or a blog post – you need to share an opinion about the content to make it add value.
- Blogging
A blog lets you show what you think and how you think. Blog posts of 500-800 words do not take long to draft and they are critical to upping your visibility and spreading the word about your personal brand. Take the exercise seriously. A blog offers you the opportunity to demonstrate your ability to concisely communicate value to the reader. So ask yourself with each blog: ”What is my value proposition?” and “Who will be reading this content?” Answering those questions with meaningful writing increases your brand visibility and establishes you as a thought leader on the subject.
- Engage With Others
Beyond recognition, engaging with others on their content helps tell a story about who you are and what matters to you. Engaging is more than “liking” a post on LinkedIn. I recommend commenting in a meaningful and respectful way. Even when you want to take a stance disagreeing with someone else, your personal brand will be defined by how you do so. Be careful to be authentic in your choices to engage, because scattershot comments dilute the impact of your interactions. When engaging, build the personal brand of the other person, this can do a long way in fostering high impact professional relationships.
- Interviews
Above all, brand requires community – you should be interacting with others to spread the word about yourself and to learn about the latest challenges and opportunities organizations face in your “area.”. Take opportunities to up the level of interaction by conducting interviews. While you may not be able to get the time and attention of an industry thought leader, you would be surprised at how many people are willing to have a dialogue that can turn into a video or blog. You are offering the other person a chance to increase their content and brand visibility as well as expanding your own.
- Survey
A great way to increase your content, establish your brand, and engage meaningfully with others is a survey. A survey gives you a platform to comment on the topic, supporting your position with the data you collect. There are dozens of apps and methods to create a survey. Be certain to accumulate multiple data points to analyze and make sure to create room for individual storytelling and gather opinions (and facts) on the topic. You can gather the data and the stories then follow up, offering to tell the story through a case study or share the story back anonymously to the people and organizations who participated.
Bill Gates said, “Content is King,” and he wasn’t wrong. In this day and age, your brand needs to be developed and expanded through the regular creation of new, engaging content. Remember – you want to build your brand before you need it.
Need guidance from a Washington DC branding expert? Schedule a meeting with Jen and fill out a form today!
Expert Personal Branding Services in Washington D.C.
Jen Dalton, CEO of BrandMirror, has over 15 years of experience in strategy, marketing, and coaching. In 2012, she made a gutsy move into the entrepreneurship space, launching her branding business and became a certified master personal branding strategist. She specializes in building your digital thought leadership on LinkedIn and other social media. You can find her bestselling book, The Intentional Entrepreneur, on Amazon, which highlights how business owners can leverage their personal brand to grow their business faster.
Add for LinkedIn Post
*Originally published on BrandMirror’s website.
