4 Tips to Improve Your Personal Brand Over A Weekend
Personal branding is hard, especially if you already have a million things on your mind and to-do list. Plus, self-promotion is never comfortable. But you know what I am about to tell you already:
Having a strong, respected, and most importantly, visible personal brand will have exponential effects on your career and business in the long run. - Kaitlin Zhang
With just a few spare hours over the weekend, you can build a solid foundation that follows you to every person you meet and every meeting you attend.
You can be confident to know that if anybody has Googled you, they would have seen a well-crafted brand called YOU. It’s like having an invisible gold plate around all the ideas that you share because you are more credible and respected. So spend a weekend to plant the tree that will bear fruit for you in the years to come. Here are the 4 tips to improve your personal brand over a weekend:
1. Perfect Your Elevator Pitches
Most people don’t know this. There are not just one kind of elevator pitch, there are really four main types of elevator pitches for use online.
The One Liner Pitch - The focus is on the benefits you’ll bring to a specific target audience. Focus on the needs and wants of the listener. Instead of saying “I am the founder of …, ” say "I am [insert your name] and I help businesses like [insert target audience] with [problem they have] to increase/grow/achieve x, y, z. "
Example: “I’m a digital marketing expert who help app development businesses like yours with their email marketing campaigns to grow a following and increase conversions.
Notice how specific this elevator pitch is. It is narrowed down to a small niche so that person can stand out as the expert in his/her chosen field. This is a short pitch suitable for social media website profiles that don’t have a lot of room.
The Bullet Bio - They are just short phrases that string together to show your niche and personality. One example is Twitter; its bio section is only 160 characters, choose those words wisely. If it works with your brand, don’t be afraid to inject some humour or quirkiness into it as well.
The 50 Words Pitch - Building on the 1 sentence pitch, expand on the benefits you bring, and how you do it and what makes you credible. This is the opportunity to show off any achievements you have, and try to use any concrete percentages and number.
Example: "When I first started working as a design and media intern, I helped the company increase the number of Facebook followers by 33% in the first two months."
The 200 - 300 Words Pitch - The format of this elevator pitch should be a compelling story. Take your 50 word pitch and build an emotional connection around it. The aim of this pitch is to highlight your value and service through a story that is engaging, entertaining and memorable. Be personable, relatable and share something interesting or unexpected about yourself. This pitch can be used on your website. And just for fun, you can also include a quote you said in there.
It’s also important to craft your elevator pitches in the 3rd person format, in addition to the 1st person format. The 3rd person format typically would use a tone that is more professional. Don’t be afraid to boast about your accomplishments. If you ever won any awards, been featured in any press, share these achievements with us. Also, don’t worry about anyone thinking that you are snobbish, because so many people are doing it.
2. Make sure your profile picture and elevator pitch are consistent online.
Use one set of profile picture, banner pictures and elevator pitches across all your online presence. Check your social media profiles, email accounts (including email signature) and website. The last thing you want is to create confusion to your contacts and arouse distrust and skepticism. How you protect and manage your online reputation can say a lot about your professional outlook, work ethic and digital savviness. So be consistent and it will make your brand more memorable.
3. Remove Any Unwanted Publicity
There is a tremendous amount of satisfaction when we clear out clutter. And we all know that pressing the delete button is so much easier than creating any content. So this is a simple task of removing any unwanted information about you on the internet. I would start with your Linkedin profile, and get rid of anything that doesn’t directly contribute to your existing career goals. If you are uncertain, ask for a trusted friend for advice or simply leave it out. And while you are there, be sure to insert your newly crafted elevator pitch in the summary section. Then repeat the process for Facebook. Delete any compromising, unflattering posts, photos and videos. Be sure to click on the “view as public” option to see what the public sees on your profile page.
Next, input your name into Google and check the first few pages for anything that’s not actively contributing to your brand and remove them. If you can’t, try to contact the owners of those web content and ask them nicely to remove them. And if that doesn’t work, you’ll have to work extra hard increase your visibility by creating a lot of good associations to push the negative content further down. More on this topic later. Subscribe to my email newsletter for more tips on personal branding.
4. Sign Up for User Names on Social Media Accounts
A strong social media presence nowadays is no longer optional, but a crucial part of your business strategy. It helps you engage with your past, present and potential contacts through platforms that exhibit your skills, but most importantly, it allows people to get to know you and trust you.
You are your business. You want to present yourself with sincerity and care to your contacts to build trust because people like to work with people they like. - Kaitlin Zhang
So, if you don’t have Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Youtube (the 4 absolutely minimum), you really should sign up today and secure your name. Some additional platforms you should sign up for include Instagram, Pinterest, Medium and anything else you use. You can also use a free service like Namechk to see which other platform you may want to sign up with. If you don’t have a domain yet, consider signing up for a domain with your name. I personally use Bluehost. You don’t have to build your website this weekend, but having a domain name is certainly going to help you in the future when you are ready to build your website. If you have a common name, try to use an initial from your middle name, or your middle name, to differentiate yourself, and use this name consistently in all your online presence, elevator pitches and user names.
Take your time to work on these important assets.
All these actions are a one time investment and does not require you to put time and energy on a regular basis. However I do recommend taking a look at these elements annually to evaluate if your brand and objectives are on track.What are some of your personal branding tips that can be done over a weekend?
Photo Sources: Flickr Moritz
