Personal Branding Tips: The 3 Ps of Personal Branding With Social Media

Are you struggling with building your personal brand on social media? Then you have come to the right place.

Social Media has become a great tool for showcasing your skills, qualifications, career achievements, and knowledge as a professional. Employers don’t just want someone with a great CV they want someone who is an authority in their field and what better way to do that than by personal branding with social media.

Still, feeling uncertain about personal branding on Social Media? Let us take you through some statistics: 75% of HR departments are required to search job applicants online and 63% of Human Resource professionals use social networking to research applicants.

The Benefits of Personal Branding With Social Media

If you are still not convinced with the statistics above, here are a few benefits of personal branding on Social Media:

More Networking Opportunities: Putting yourself out on social media can lead to more networking opportunities. There is always someone you can learn from, mentor, or grab a coffee with on Social Media. Sites like LinkedIn have nearly 800 million users from over 200 countries. With such a large number of users from different backgrounds on LinkedIn think of all the people you can add to your professional network.

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More Job Opportunities: Creating a personal brand can also lead to more job opportunities. LinkedIn’s “open to work” feature lets recruiters and employers know that you are available to work. You can also tell recruiters what it is you do and who you help, that way if they are looking for someone with your qualifications they can easily find you and reach out to you. Instagram also lets you add your niche/industry in your bio.

A Chance To Manage Your Reputation: When you build a personal brand for yourself on social media you get a chance to manage your online reputation before someone else does. Your personal brand on social media shows who you are, your values, ideologies, goals, etc. No one gets to twist your image if you have already established a personal brand.

Check out: Publicity and Media: Building Personal Brands For Business

The 3 Ps of Personal Branding

We know that personal branding with social media can be tricky especially if you’re just starting but it is truly rewarding. To make your personal branding journey smoother our team has come up with a few tips. These tips have been coined “The 3 Ps of Personal Branding”. They will guide you throughout your personal branding journey.

Planning - Have a plan before you start. Building a personal brand on social media takes intricate planning from day one. You need to map everything out before you start, to maintain consistency and target the right people.

You should always consider the following:

• What platforms you would like to use to showcase your personal brand

• Your target audience

• Issues and topics you want to discuss

• Your purpose and goals

Once you have decided on who you want to talk to (target audience) and what social platforms you want to utilize you can get started on the rest of your plan. Note that it is important to go beyond just LinkedIn. There are great networking opportunities on less formal platforms like Twitter and Instagram.

Personal Branding and networking involve curating mutual relationships. You learn from people while they learn from you; list out a bunch of topics you want to discuss within your industry e.g “issues with modern architecture in Lagos”, “digital marketing tips” etc. Another thing to note is that it’s not enough to just have a plan, you need a goal.

Ask yourself why am I doing this? Do I want more job opportunities? Do I want to grow my professional network? Set your goals and intentions, and work towards them.

Patience - Creating a personal brand and building a community takes time. Don't worry if you don't have tons of followers or engagement at first. Be patient, your hard work will pay off. Remember that you’re not the only one building a personal brand on social media so there is stiff competition out there.

All you have to do is keep creating value for your community and showing up as your authentic self. Consider your unique selling point (that thing that makes you stand out) and bank on it. Let your network know what it is and watch how your brand will grow.

Persistence - This relates to the point about patience. Rome was not built in a day and neither was anyone’s personal brand, sounds cliche but it’s true. You need to invest time and effort to see returns. Set out times in your day to post about topics that interest you and engage with people in your network on social media.

Constantly share industry tips, follow up on that request for a chat with an industry professional but use your discretion so you don’t come off as a stalker. Don't give up! Be persistent and keep showing up as your authentic self.

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Other things to consider:

Go beyond social media: We understand how important it is to build a personal brand on Social Media; however, it is also important to build a brand and network outside of social media. Attend networking events, contact people via email, phone call, meet up with them, create a website, etc.

Remember that social media can be unreliable at times and that’s why you should also build a personal brand outside of it.

Authenticity matters: When it comes to personal branding and networking on social media authenticity is key. Don’t put on a facade for your community; share your real experiences, talk about things you care about, don’t sugarcoat your achievements. Just be you, people appreciate authenticity as much as they do your brand.

If you fall into the trap of copying someone else’s style, personal branding will become tedious for you.

Clarity is key: What is it you do? Who do you help? How do you do it? Those are things that you must make clear when you’re building a personal brand with social media. If you’re not clear on that, you will have a hard time connecting with like-minded people on social media.

Audit your social media bio make sure it includes the who, what, and why, add a nice banner on your Twitter and LinkedIn to show what you do. Are you a fashion designer? Use a picture of your latest designs or you working on a sewing machine.

Building a personal brand on social media may not be straightforward, but when you prepare/plan, have a goal in mind, are patient, and show up consistently as your authentic self, you will succeed. Personal branding on social media is vital to growing your business, so take advantage of it today.

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About The Author

Daniella Haastrup graduated with a degree in Mass Communication and currently works as Social Media Manager. Her expertise lies in social media marketing and content marketing/copywriting. When she’s not working towards representing a brand on social media you’ll find her buried in a book or listening to showtunes. You can contact her via LinkedIn, Instagram, or Twitter.