Today, I want to get a little personal. What I mean by personal is, I want to talk about your personal brand. People say to me all the time, “Hey, I want to get more social engagement. How do I do it?” The answer to that is pretty straightforward. Just have fun!

Now, I’m posting this right after the 2018 midterm elections, and the past couple of months have been brutal, especially towards the end. Many of the closing political campaign ads were just filled with hate, and vitriol, and lies, and all this other stuff. Then people on social media were like, “Grr, you don’t know what you’re talking about. You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Everybody was fighting with each other. And even though the elections are over, and the results are in, and either you feel like you won or feel like you lost, people are still in that mode.

Stay In The Game

So here’s the thing. If you want to stand out, number one, you have to be involved in it. You don’t necessarily have to like or comment or share, but you still have got to post. You can’t just back off … ’cause I’m seeing a whole bunch of other people say, “I’m taking a vacation from Facebook. I can’t take it anymore.” Okay, cool. But that’s not going to help you. It’s not going to help your brand. And it’s not going to help your business. Here’s my suggestion. Have fun with it. While everybody else is fighting and politicizing, and doing all this other stuff, have fun. I have fun every single day. I post a quote of the day, and I post my caption contest. I’ve mentioned that numerous times.

The Contestants

Here’s another example of something that happened. A friend of mine, who happens to be my coach, and somebody that’s been on this show a few times, Marla Tabaka was writing a post for Inc. Magazine, and she asked a simple question: “Does anybody have a question that you ask at Thanksgiving that maybe would show gratitude, or something positive?” She was trying to get on the fun train, too. And so I sent an answer. Lo and behold, she liked it, so she used it, and it was one of 35 quotes. The title of the article, if you want to check it out in Inc. Magazine is, Who Needs Family Drama on Thanksgiving? Pass around these 35 questions to keep the gratitude flowing. Right? Fun stuff right before the holiday.

So anyway, she posted it, I saw it, and I decided to play a little game with it. The game was this. I posted the link to the article and I said to my friends, “Guess which one of the 35 is mine,” and I got all kinds of people giving all kinds of guesses, but so far, nobody’s guessed it right yet, at least at the time of this post. I’m sure by the time you hear this, they probably have. But there were three things about this. Number one, I wanted to alert people that I was in Inc. Magazine again. That’s it. Now, I don’t have my name in there. I don’t get any credit for it, but you know, it’s kind of cool. Right? Wouldn’t you like it? I do! The second thing I did was ask a question, and by asking a question I created engagement. And then, I had to make sure that I’m engaging with the people on their responses, and people are having fun with it.

That’s really what it boils down to, is try to create something fun. When everybody else is posting vitriol, and anger, and whatever it is that they’re doing, if you are one of the people hanging out there doing something fun and positive, you stand out from the crowd. That is your personal brand. Just getting off of social media doesn’t do anything. Nobody’s going to know you exist. Nobody’s going to think about you and your brand.

Be The Brand

So, let’s get back to the core of that. Whether you are a business, you are also your brand. People buy from people they know, like, and trust. That’s a principle. We know that. Hopefully you know that. Let’s talk about posting things into social media that’s going to help you promote that brand. I like to break it down into three separate categories. I call them engagement posts, content posts, and then sales posts.

Engagement Posts

Engagement posts are something that you do very often, on a regular basis, to a very broad audience. In other words, you’re not trying to sell anything at that point, you’re just having fun and that’s the purpose of it. Now, one of the things you have to understand is the algorithms inside of social media say, “The more that people interact with your posts, the more your posts show up in their feeds.” So, if you’re posting fun things, and people are commenting, and sharing, and liking, and doing those things, your posts show up more. If you’re consistent about it, that’s the key. That’s one of the things Marla said to me; she says, “Man, you are so consistent with this stuff.” Yeah. I’m on episode four hundred and something on my podcast, and I’ve been at this for four years. Every single week for four years. It’s an overnight success, right? So consistency is important. But that’s what engagement posts are for: to have fun, to get people to notice, and again, it’s a very broad audience. I don’t think a lot of the people who comment, and like, and share on those posts are really my target audience for my business, but it gets everybody to see more of my stuff.

Content Posts

The second one is the content posts. Now, these I try to do, let’s say, weekly, or biweekly. When I’m posting an episode of my podcast, or one of my blogs, or maybe an article that I was in, it’s content that takes people off of social media. Social media does not reward you when you take people off their sandbox as much as if you keep them in, but it’s going to reach a little bit more of a narrowed audience. The goal of that is to inform them, to educate them, to give you another look, and maybe say, “Hey, this person knows something that I don’t. I want to learn more.” That’s the purpose of the content posts.

Sales Posts

The last one is sales posts. This is where you’re going for the jugular on a very narrow audience … people that are maybe ready to buy from you right now. And the whole point of that post is to convince them to take some action. Maybe they’re not ready to buy today but to get on your mailing list. Maybe they are ready to buy today. Or maybe you can convince them to come to a webinar, whatever it is. But, you’re trying to get them to take some action directly targeted at your business.

Final Thoughts

So, engagement posts are daily things that bring people into the fold, and make you stand out from the crowd. Content posts are posts that build you up and help you engage with your audience. And then sales posts are where you actually make things happen. And let’s face it: you’re not really going to sell things inside of social media. You need to get them off social media. Usually, that means getting on the phone, getting on email, doing something someplace where they’re going to engage with you even further on a personal level.

If you create engagement posts where people know you like dogs, you like golf, you like swimming, whatever it is, it gives you a leg up on the situation. There’s already a connection made. So whether it comes to Facebook, where you can do things like post to your wall, post to groups, or on your pages (which is a whole different conversation); Twitter, which are general posts, everybody posts the same thing; LinkedIn, where you can post to your wall or groups, or write articles; or Instagram, where it’s pretty much just pictures and stories — the ultimate goal is to get people to see your stuff and take action. Being active is one of the most important things. Being open and real, and authentic is the next most important thing. And consistency will always keep you top of mind.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this. Comment below and share your thoughts, ideas or questions about showing the concepts presented. Have you had to overcome any of the presented concepts? What worked and what did not live up to expectations? Do you have any ideas or advice you could share?