Expert Social Media Advice for Growing Your Personal Brand
These days, everyone wants to make a living by building their own personal brand but how do you go about that when everything feels so oversaturated? Here are five quick things to keep in mind as you establish and build your business.
Narrow Your Social Media Focus
What are you best at? Creating YouTube videos? Taking aesthetically pleasing photos? Dancing on TikTok? Whatever it may be, using your strength to build one platform will allow everything else to follow. For example, my passion is creating and editing videos. I built my YouTube channel to 2 million subscribers, which naturally brought an audience to my Instagram, TikTok, and podcast. However, my audience follows each platform for a different reason, which brings me to my next tip.
Identify Your Value Proposition
Everybody follows accounts for a reason. What is yours? Some examples of value propositions may be: you are a source of inspiration, you provide funny content to brighten people’s days, you post educational material to teach, you’re a travel blogger which allows people to better plan their next trip, or you live an interesting life that people want to emulate. To figure out what your value proposition is, start by asking yourself what you’re passionate about.
Become Someone You Want to Follow
Take an honest look at your social media account(s) and ask yourself if you would follow yourself? Do you get bored watching your own videos? Does looking at your Instagram feed make you cringe? Fix those things! If you can’t even stand your own content, no one else will be able to either. Create content you’re proud of.
Are You Relatable or Aspirational?
This is a thin line lots of influencers tread. Building an audience can come quickly if you get super clear on which you want to be: relatable or aspirational? Even mega-rich celebrities can take this relatable approach, but find what comes naturally to you! Perhaps you want to be a travel blogger who creates content that people follow because they wish they lived that lifestyle, or maybe you’re a business owner who wants to show the behind-the-scenes, nitty-gritty of what it’s really like to build a business. There are audiences for both.
Remember—People Can Smell the BS
This last one is something almost everyone will tell you when asked how to build a personal brand. “Be authentic.” We have all heard it before, but that is because it’s the most important factor. Even my own audience can tell when I’m unhappy but forcing myself to film a video. People can see nuance even through a screen, so if you’re not tricking yourself, you will not trick anybody else.
Social media connects you with people from all over the world. So just have fun, be yourself, and the rest will follow with consistency and hard work!
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