10 Tips For Branding Yourself On Social Media When YOU Are Your Brand
For many businesses, it seems simple to brand yourself on Social Media the same way you brand your more traditional marketing materials. However, one of the questions we get the most from individual entrepreneurs is how do I brand myself when I am my brand? Whether you are a Real Estate Agent, Financial Expert, Dentist, or a Consultant, you may struggle to build a clear Social Marketing Strategy surrounding yourself. It is important when you are the face of your brand to not only provide a clear message of who you are, but also to stand out from the crowd. Here are 10 tips to help you brand yourself on Social Media and capitalize on your uniqueness!
1. UTILIZE YOUR FACE
The one thing you can be sure no matter what industry you are in; No one will have your exact face! Using photos that include your face will make your brand more personal and allow people to build a stronger connection to your business. Instagram photos that include faces receive 38% more engagement.
Pro Tip: Make your display picture on all social networks a photo of your face!
2. MAKE SURE ALL YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA HANDLES ARE CONSISTENT
Decide on a consistent handle to use for Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and any other networks that you use that will be consistent. This will allow you to be easily searched on all social networks and will allow your followers to find you on all platforms.
3. FIND YOUR VOICE
It is crucial for your Social Media captions to have a clear and identifiable voice. Identify a consistent pronoun you will use (ie. “I or We”), and use coherent language depending on your brand and market. This will allow your following to recognize your content in their feed before they even see your name!
4. ALLOW YOUR PERSONALITY TO SHOW IN YOUR CONTENT
Your personality is part of your brand. Include Instagram photos of your meetings at your favourite coffee shops, make longer form captions to allow followers to get to know you and your company, and include photographs on your platforms with you in them. Not only will this drive engagement with your entire following, but it will allow your warm network to interact even more with your content.
5. COME UP WITH 5 SOURCES OF CONTENT THAT ARE UNIQUE TO YOU AND YOUR BRAND
This will help you to find content and allow you to narrow your vision for your brand on Social Media. For 365 Day Media Group, we focus on the behind the scenes of our business, Digital Marketing tips, posts regarding our clients, our team, and lastly to add some fun and personality we post our furry office assistants!
6. KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN YOUR PERSONAL & BUSINESS CONTENT
While it’s important to show your face and personality on your business profile to give a face to the brand, it’s important to know where to draw the line. Identifying your core content sources will help with this, allowing with creating separate profiles on platforms for your personal and business content.
7. CREATE COHESIVE VISUALS
Brand your social feeds the same way you do traditional marketing materials and your website. Your visuals should not only complement each other visually, but also help to express your brand’s personality.
Pro Tip: Stick to using only 1-2 filters on your photos and create branded graphics to use throughout your feed.
8. MONITOR YOUR COMPETITION
In order to make your brand unique and innovative, it can be helpful to monitor your competition. Follow hashtags on Instagram that are relevant to your market and create lists with your competitors on Twitter.
9. DEVELOP YOUR OWN HASHTAGS
Hashtags are an extremely important element of Social Media, and they can be useful to your branding too! 7 out of 10 hashtags on Instagram are currently branded, and this is an extremely valuable marketing strategy. Develop 1-2 hashtags that are unique to your brand to use consistently in your posts. This will allow your following to begin to use these hashtags to connect with you and allow your brand to grow beyond your own profiles.
10. BE AUTHENTIC
Branding yourself on Social Media can be difficult to maintain, and this is only made more difficult by attempting to portray a brand that isn’t you! Make authenticity a priority and allow your content to follow suit.
Social Media is an amazing way to market yourself online and allow you to build connections with your audience. Yet, even more than that, it is an opportunity to showcase your brand. Treat your Social Media like a gallery for your brand and allow your content to express what makes you and your business different from the rest!
This week’s blog was written by our Digital Marketing Manager & Photographer Brynn Featherstone, a recent graduate of the University of Victoria majoring in Psychology, with a minor in Business.