How To Build Your Personal Brand On Social Media

In today’s world, if you’re someone who is trying to build their personal brand, likely you’ve considered the possibility of tapping into social media to accomplish this feat. I spoke to an expert to get some intel on tricks for building your personal brand on social media that might be helpful to you as you start to explore these various channels, and as you begin to boost your following, engage with users, and move towards establishing and perfecting the best accounts possible.

With the wide range of platforms available — and the potential reach — utilizing social media channels to build your personal brand is an ideal tactic. A major bonus to using social media is that it can be a free tool for you. While there are options to put money behind social media promotions (which we’ll get to below), there are many ways in which you can use social media for free and have it benefit your brand tremendously. It’s all about using the right tactics and being sure not to bite off more than you can chew on the onset. To get some insight into the best ways to build a personal brand on social media, I spoke via email to social media expert and Udemy instructor Diego (Davila) Martínez. His expert tactics can prove truly helpful in starting (or growing) your brand. Try some of these tactics on for size with your own personal brand, and you might be seeing results before you know it. Here are 10 tricks for building your personal brand on social media, according to an expert.

1. Take It Slow On The Onset

According to Martínez, many times when people are beginning to launch their personal brand in the social world, they’ll hit the ground running by opening accounts on all of the popular social media channels. While this might seem like a great plan, what it sometimes results in is burnout. “…after a few weeks they feel overwhelmed and unable to keep all channels up to date,” Martínez adds. Consider taking it slow to start out — slow and steady wins the race here.

2. Start With One Or Two Platforms

How slow should you take it, exactly? Martínez suggests beginning with one of two social channels that you’ll focus on. “I think the best strategy is to choose one or two social media channels to start building your brand and invest time to make that happen, posting every day and interacting with your followers,” Martínez says. “For most people, the two channels I recommend are Facebook and YouTube, but that can be different depending on your niche.”

3. Give Your Accounts A Consistent Look & Feel

In a world where there are so, so many accounts and pages —sometimes even with the same or very similar names — it’s really important to keep the look and feel of yours the same so that people can recognize your brand easily. Martínez suggests being as consistent as possible with your profile picture(s), logo, and the like in order to help your followers to identify who you are in each platform.

4. Post Every Day

Consistency is key in more regards than one. When it comes to how often you’re posting, Martínez says you should also be consistent there as well. “If you can, you should be posting every day, and soon your followers will be captivated with your content and looking forward a new post,” Martínez adds.

5. Always Reply To Your Followers

Here is a very important point — do not neglect your followers. If someone asks you something on your page, answer them. If someone leaves a comment, engage with them. This is so vital that Martínez suggests blocking out a bit of time every day to interact in this way. “For social media channels, such as Facebook and Instagram, I recommend that you schedule some time every day to reply to the new comments,” Martínez explains.

6. Be Certain To Link To Your Website

Your social media channels are the prime outlet to advertise your website and/or blog, and to get people clicking to it. You can help build your personal brand instantly by remembering to include that URL, according to Martínez.

7. Try Paid Ads (When The Timing Is Right)

Paid advertisements on social media are yet another effective way to build your personal brand. However, Martínez recommends waiting for the right time to use this tactic. “In the beginning, I recommend establishing your brand on the channel, creating a few posts, and getting your first 50 to 100 followers,” Martínez explains.

Then — Martínez adds — start targeting new followers using paid ads. “It is important to have a well-established account before doing ads so when the paid followers arrive at your channel they can find good content and start engaging with you,” Martínez says.

8. Encourage Your Facebook Followers To Be “All On”

If you’re using Facebook as a channel to build your brand, Martínez says a good way to ensure your followers aren’t missing the important things you’re posting is to encourage them to set their notifications setting to “All On” and “See First” (when you’re looking at a page, the options will appear over your Cover Photo to the left of the “Message” tab). According to Martínez, this will guarantee that they will get notified every time you create a new post, and it will also place your new posts first in their Newsfeed.

9. Don’t Neglect The Power Of YouTube

YouTube might seem like a simple channel to avoid, especially if you’re not a video guru, but in reality it’s a vital platform to tap into. According to Martínez, you might consider challenging yourself to use YouTube, even if you’ve been hesitant in the past. “For YouTube, I usually propose a challenge of creating a new video every day for 30 days,” Martínez says. “You cannot imagine the results you will have.”

10. Use A Variety On Instagram

Only using photos on Instagram? Try to amp it up by adding a variety of videos to the mix as well, according to Martínez. Martínez also suggests having variety in the look. While certain niches might benefit from having a defined theme on their page, Martínez says it’s essential to add a bit of variety to your images here and there.

With this tricks in hand, you can easily start to build your personal brand on social media. Just remember to start slow in the process as to not overwhelm yourself with the endless platforms out there. From there, you’ll be on the upward path to social media success.

Images: Pixabay (11)