How to Use Social Media for Personal Branding

Business Tips and ToolsVisibility

Oct 25

Written By brandmerry

How to Use Social Media for Personal Branding

Personal branding is more important today than ever, thanks to social media.

The reality is if you’re not focused on creating your personal brand, others will do it for you. And for those of you selling a service or product, that means it’s your reputation and therefore you're livelihood.

I love this quote from marketing guru Seth Godin, that I believe explains branding perfectly.

“A brand is the set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer's decision to choose one product or service over another.”

So how do we do it?
How do we use social media for personal branding?

That’s exactly what today’s post is about.

Before we dive into the content I want to make sure you’ve done the work. If you haven’t set the foundation for your brand nothing I share below will matter. The reality is you need to understand your brand as a whole before you can add the vehicle that is social media.

If you’re just at the beginning or need a brand refresher, be sure to check out my free masterclass on The Build a Better Brand Method. Sign up here.

Ok, assuming if you’re still reading you’re ready to master social media for brand awareness than these five steps are for you.

1. Personal Branding Tip #1:
Share Your Story on Social Media

There is no better way to tell people the memories and stories of your brand than through social media. How lucky are we today that we have this free tool at our fingertips to attract our dream clients?

Yet, so many brands are missing this crucial step...storytelling. The reality is when you incorporate storytelling into your content on social media you’re posts are 22x more memorable to your audience.

Since, we now have the attention spans of goldfish, this is an important piece! You want your audience to remember you and nothing does this better than story.

Actionable Step: Include micro stories into your social media content. These can be as few as 1-2 sentences that you interweave into your content that tell a story. Paint a picture for your audience and invite them in by using the power of story.

2. Personal Branding Tip #2:
Position Yourself as an Expert

The first step is to nail down your niche. If you don’t know what you do or what you specialize in, no one else will as well #truth.

I know it stings, but I see so many entrepreneurs showing up on social media, looking to create brand awareness when they lack awareness about their own niche. Take the time to nail down your niche so you can carve out your own little place in the market.

Actionable Step: Share your expertise within your content for social media. Create videos and posts that share very specific tips and tools for your audience to get them closer to their desire.

For instance, I can share tips on storytelling on social media for my audience. This not only positions me as an expert, it gives my audience valuable information and carves out a very specific niche I desire to create, “brand storytelling.”

3. Personal Branding Tip #3:
Invite Others into Your Mission

A very powerful part of the branding process is identifying your mission.

I worked for almost ten years in various nonprofits and have such a love for the work they do in the world, but one of my favorite parts is actually “why” they were created.

Every nonprofit needs a mission and they use that to tie everything together. It’s such a powerful and beautiful piece that they use to build community.

More brands and businesses need to focus on this piece. You can use your brand mission to connect your community, bring people in for a bigger purpose and create an audience of people who are invested in your long-term vision.

Actionable Step: Create a mission statement for your brand. For example, my mission is:

“To empower more women to uncover and own their story and share their authentic voice with the world through their brand and business.”

4. Personal Branding Tip #4:
Connect Deeper with Your Audience

Brand emotions are powerful. If you have no idea how impactful they can be, be sure to check out this post here.

The idea behind brand emotions is that you connect on a deeper level with your audience, pulling them in and making them feel something when they think of your brand.

This is important because people buy based on emotion! If your brand is lacking emotion, my guess it’s lacking a community and sales.

Using social media, you can play to these emotions by including them in your content, your images, your stories and more.

Actionable Step: Read this blog and then identify 5 emotions you want your brand to portray for your audience.

5. Personal Branding Tip #5:
Create Better Connection through Content

Social media only works if your content is relevant and irresistible to your audience. In order to do this I follow the 2 L’s: Look and Listen.

Seriously, people tell you exactly what they want you to create content around, if you’re willing to pay attention. Carve out time on social media to look at other brands and influencers in your space and see what people are asking of them. Then create content around that to grow your own tribe.

In addition, if you have your own community, make it a point to regularly ask them what they would like you to create. Trust me...they will tell you.

Brands that listen to their audience and create content that speaks specifically to their audience create a better connection and trust.

Actionable Step: Schedule 15 minutes every week to brainstorm topic ideas from what you’re seeing online and/or create a poll of questionnaire (I love Insta Stories for this) to survey your audience.

Social media can be one of the greatest assets to build your personal brand if you’re willing to focus on community and fans over follower count.

If you’re ready to take further steps to create your revenue-generating personal brand, be sure to sign up for my free masterclass on The Build a Better Brand Method.

Join here

Please share your biggest takeaways from this blog post and how you’re going to implement this information in your own business!

Branding and Business Coach | Michelle Knight of Brandmerry

P.S. Are we connected on Instagram? No? Well lady what’s happening here we’ve got to fix that. Come hang out with me on my favorite social media platform. Follow for inspiration and send me a DM to know we’re connected.