Perhaps you use a few social media platforms to connect with friends and are starting to use them for professional networking. What exactly do you need in order to boost your personal brand into an influencer position? Follow these four high-impact steps to boost your personal brand on social media in the next 30 days.
1. Know Your Brand: Ask yourself, “What do I stand for?” Feel free to include multiple interests. Maybe you have a penchant for finance, hotel lobby bars and amazing ramen. Can all of these coexist on your social feed? Hotel lobby bars demonstrate your aesthetic and hip factor. Ramen might help you express your penchant for food. And if you emphasize an appreciation for both the high and low, i.e. splurge on atmosphere, yet skimp with tasty street food, this explains your financial strategy. Create a vision board on Pinterest or cut and paste images to visualize your lifestyle and how all its components work together. Then communicate your personal brand strategy.
Pro Tip: Don’t worry too much about messing up. It’s going to quickly be buried in a feed, and you can always try again later. That’s the beauty of social.
2. Consistent Design: For people to recognize you on all the platforms, find and use a consistent profile photo. Write a solid and familiar About Me description, and link to the same website or LinkedIn profile where you wish to drive traffic. If I land on any of your several profiles, I want to feel like I’m in the same place. Don’t confuse your followers by being too clever. We don’t have enough time to interpret your multiple messages, and you’ll lose us as a result.
3. Connect: While building the Parsons School of Fashion social accounts, I compared social media (especially Twitter) to a dinner party. What type of role will you play at the social networking party? Talk to people. Write something interesting. Say thanks. Ask a specific question. Very few people, and I mean VERY FEW people do this. I try to do this especially when it’s someone interesting. And when people write to me, I write them back. It makes me take notice of them and realize there’s an actual person behind this account. Every relationship starts with Hello.
4. Choose Accordingly: Looking to network in your field, conduct a job search, or keep an eye out for upcoming industry events? Build up your profiles on Meet Up, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Looking to grow or launch your own company in the fashion, beauty, health or fitness space? Work it on Pinterest and Instagram.
What are your social media tips and tricks? Share ’em with us below and follow Brit + Co on Twitter and Facebook!
This was originally published on LevoLeague by Gretchen Harnick.
