Oreo, McDonalds, Ford and Starbucks. All brands that have built a loyal and passionate legion of raving fans. How did they do it?
While product and innovation were key ingredients to their success, they also learned how to leverage social media to extend brand reach and supercharge their marketing efforts.
So, how can you use the power of social media as marketing super juice for your personal brand? The answer is twofold.
First, you must be able to combine multiple social platforms and second, you need a deep desire to differentiate yourself in an ever-growing sea of the same.
If you’re eager to separate your business from the competition, read the ten steps below to supercharge your personal brand using social media!
Position Your Online Brand
Transitioning your established offline presence to an online powerhouse takes finesse. While this first step may not be the sexiest way to get started, it is imperative that you take the time to properly define your brand for your new online audience.
As Dharmesh Shah, Founder/CTO of HubSpot says,
“The goal of positioning is to create an immediate and direct connection in the minds of consumers; that’s what branding is all about. Individuals need to think about positioning, too.”
A personal brand that embodies your beliefs, expertise, unique abilities and personality will allow you to stand out and shine.
Conveying your message effectively opens the door to attraction marketing and your ability to draw the right consumer to your business.
Manage Your Online Brand
Whether you like it or not, people are forming perceptions about your business on a daily basis. Take a moment to run a quick audit of your online presence.
When consumers land on your Google Plus or Facebook page, do they find that information is outdated and the last post is months old? How about Twitter, Google Plus and LinkedIn?
While social media can be an enormous benefit, it can also be a reputation killer. Don’t leave public perception to chance.
[clickToTweet tweet=”Take control of your online persona. Actively portray the values that make you, YOU! via @rebekahradice” quote=”Take control of your online persona. Actively portray the values and virtues that make you fabulously YOU! “]
Build a Strategic Road Map
Social media moves at a rapid pace and can easily become an enormous time-suck if it isn’t managed and your goals aren’t strategically set.
Build an architectural blueprint that encompasses your social media marketing strategy. Begin at a high level including each social channel and their corresponding goals.
Then begin to add the steps it will take to meet your goals. Answer the questions below:
- How often will you post?
- What type of content will you post?
- Where will the content come from?
- How will you execute your strategy consistently?
Get in the Conversation
Believe it or not, you actually have to use social media in order to be effective. I know, crazy right?
If you plan on marketing your business through social media, you must make a commitment to consistently show up. There is nothing worse than setting up a social media profile and then halfheartedly stumbling through the motions of posting and interacting.
The way I see it, you have two choices. Step it up or step out altogether.
Blogging Builds Thought Leadership
While blogging isn’t social media per se, it does directly relate to your content strategy. It is also the best way to share expertise and build thought leadership.
It encourages growth and interaction if properly promoted across multiple channels. Don’t believe me?
Just take a look at these statistics found by Technorati in their 2013 Digital Influence Report.
Own Your Niche
Determine who your target audience is and then build a following around that niche. For example, “The Pioneer Woman” is a blog which talks about ranch and homeschooling and is normally visited by close to four million people in every month.
The key to her success? She determined who her audience was and set out to own that niche.
Discuss issues, provide content and actively offer solutions that connect with your followers and fans. It’s all about identifying a need and then filling that need day-in and day-out.
Be Approachable and Friendly
My motto has always been “you catch more flies with honey than vinegar.” Granted, people are by no means flies, but you catch my drift.
No one wants to hang out with a negative and defeatist person.
Be friendly, affable, helpful, approachable and always genuine in your willingness to serve consumers needs.
Promote Authenticity
And that leads me directly into my next point – stay true to who you are offline in all of your online dealings. Always say what you mean and mean what you say.
Remember, building your brand in social media takes time and that means that you must have patience. People will connect with someone they sense is an authentic representation of their brand both offline and online.
Don’t Be Everything to Everybody
It is not possible to win the heart and minds of every person. It is important for you to find your niche and strongly stick with it.
Figure out who you are and what you stand for. Ensure that your personal brand connects with the right people.
Streamline your brand so that you can produce results that matter!
Share Freely
Want to attract quality prospects to your business? Freely give of your time, knowledge and expertise.
Social media allows you to spread your message to a larger audience than ever before.
Don’t miss that opportunity to showcase your talents and the many benefits associated with working with you!
I like that you said to be friendly. A lot of people are preaching this aspect of social marketing but not following through with it. Not you, of course, you have always been kind to me, but I have noticed others being a little flippant to people. Great quote, you catch more flies with honey… I wonder what you would catch if you were actually friendly to everyone?
Probably something that’s for sure. Anyway, great stuff as always Rebekah, you’re on fire these past couple weeks!
Thanks again Rebekah,
One question that keep running through my mind is this: i just started a blog and I am enjoying the process of writing. I have noticed a number of visitors that I really was not targeting . Now the question is, Do I fine tune and write for this “accidental” audience with the risk of having to struggle or do I go on with your original audience, be comfortable and risk not having much of a traffic?
What makes it a challenge is that I am not sure I can connect with the unexpected trickle of audience but I am sure I can connect with my target audience and I believe that with time I may get their attention and do a better job.
What are your thoughts on this?
Hey Rebekah,
thanks a lot for this helpful article, later I´m going to read the other one (failing to build..)!!!
We started almost 4 weeks ago to upload our works, we´ve build up several sc profiles and are feeding them everyday with 3 new works.
Kind regards from Germany,
yours Sascha @ Jack the Flipper | not the band 🙂
Sounds like you’re taking all of the right steps Sascha and you certainly have the content which is something most people can’t say. Good luck!
Rebekah,
This is so refreshing to hear someone speak of importance being with your unique presents which is your branding. Giving to others usable information and guidance is a big hit with most readers.
Thank you for showing us more is good when it comes to giving more of our time to others and stop with all the jumping through hoops per say to get some support in your area of knowledge.
Great article!
Rebekah,
wow, you sure have great tips to make your Internet presence worth while… Thanks so much for sharing.
As I went through all the 10 tips, I was wondering, “do I do this?” and the answer was always “no” wow, how in the world can I be doing al that if I am not familiar to make them work?
Anyway… always time to learn and for sure these 10 tips will be a guiding base for me.. especially the one “Build a Strategic Road Map” that for me may be the most important one now so I will know where to start and where I will end up haha 🙂
Thanks so much once again for sharing such great tips for al of us.
_nickc
Hey Rebekah,
Oh my, the first tip that aroused my interest is the marketing super juice…lol…
Honestly, you are super creative to use that as an example to describe how to super charge personal brand.
I love it and thanks for the rest of the tips.
Cheers
Pearly Quah
Rebekah,
so glad that I finally visited your blog. We’ve been FB friends for quite some time now! That is such a crazy and inspirational story about that woman rancher , homeschooler, The Pioneer Woman who gets 4 million visitors per month! Like you said, it’s really important to define your niche!
Thanks for sharing your great stuff all the time!
~ Jupiter Jim
Cheers for the tips Rebekah – all good and actionable, happy days!
Thanks Robert — appreciate that and for stopping by!
Big Brands don’t really need to do much for social media since they are already popular. They can just show a little bit of creativity and they go more viral. It’s tough for the brands which are less known to people, these brand need a perfect social media strategy and need to select the target audience as they have a particular budget and the audience is also limited.
It’s certainly more difficult for small to mid-sized businesses to spread the word, but even established brands struggle. It’s always exciting to see when someone really knocks it out of the park!
online services graphic. Search..
Spot on with your point on ‘Promote Authenticity’. Many of us are not doing that and it could be bad.
Absolutely Malhar! If you’re not the same person online that people have perceived you to be offline, there’s no room for trust and thus no way to build a relationship.
Great tips! Thanks for the mini course. I feel so knowledgable now!!! (and motivated too)
YAY for motivation Debi! That’s great to hear! 🙂