Building Your Personal Brand for 2017 In 3 Simple Steps

DID YOU KNOW THAT CONTENT SHARED BY AN EMPLOYEE, OR OWNER OF A BUSINESS RECEIVES 8X MORE ENGAGEMENT THAN CONTENT SHARED BY THE BUSINESSES ACCOUNT?

Sharing content online as a thought leader is so important, more important than I realised. I recently came across some statistics from Entrepreneur which reinforced the importance of this for me.

According to Entrepreneur.com, 92% of people trust recommendations from individuals (even if they don’t know them) over brands, and brand messages are re-shared 24 times more frequently when posted by an employee versus the brand’s social media channels.

This brings me nicely to building your personal brand for 2017. We are almost in the new year, and it is time for you to take that next step and become a success, as YOU, as well as YOUR BUSINESS.

So, how can you do this? What I am about to share with you has been tried and tested and has helped me achieve 2.5 million impressions, and 75,000 followers online. I have turned this into a 3-step process.

1. PUBLIC SPEAKING

The first step to my 3-steps to success as a personal brand is public speaking. The trust is, without having the speaking platform that I do, I would not be as successful as I am in the Social Media and Digital Marketing world.

Being a successful professional speaker has been years of hard work, dedication and the ability to accept a knock back or two. I have, and still do approach events/trade shows and get turned down because I am not exactly what they are looking for in a professional speaker.

I have found that speaking at industry specific events which have my target audience (small businesses) attending the event, is a great way for me to build my personal brand.

2017 tip: Do your research, and find all of the events/exhibitions/trade shows that have a speaker programme for 2017, and get in touch to see if you can speak at their event.

2. PUBLISHING

Sharing content. If you’re reading this, it probably isn’t the first piece of content of mine you would have read, and that’s because of the personal brand I have built as a successful, recognised blogger in the social mediaand digital marketing world.

I have earnt a 6-figure income off the back of the content I share online, and I also contribute to various industry-lead websites including Social Media Today, and Business2Community.

2017 tip: Share every single piece of content you write on LinkedIn Pulse to increase engagement, and get involved with a 2-way conversation online.

3. BUILD YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA PRESENCE

The third step to my 3-part process to building your personal brand for 2017 is building your Social Media presence. Speaking at events, and creating great content should be two key parts of your business which you can talk about online to in turn, build your Social Media presence.

2017 tip: Only focus on the social networks that are giving you the results you are looking for. If Twitter is driving engagement, and Facebook is not; stick with Twitter and make that your preferred platform just like I have.

I hope that my top 3 tips will help you build your personal brand for 2017 and beyond. Have a great new year, and I look forward to engaging with you next year!