Expert How to build a personal brand from scratch with the help of social networks
A strong reputation arises when your real qualities, experience and approach to work become noticeable to others.
When talking about a personal brand, most often they mean social networks: a beautiful profile, regular content, photos from events and a large number of subscribers. But this is only the external part of the process. Social media itself does not create a personal brand – it helps to make a reputation that already exists visible.
If a person does not have professional experience, results and a clear understanding of his position, no amount of publications will make him a recognizable expert. But when off-screen trust is already being built, social media becomes a tool to help scale that trust and show it to a wider audience.
A personal brand is not only built through content. It appears due to the combination of professional knowledge, real results, acquaintances, publicity and the image that is assigned to a person in the minds of other people. In this article, we will discuss how to start building a personal brand from scratch and what role social networks play in this process.
What is a personal brand
Personal brand. This is what people think of you when they hear your name. This is not only your skills, position or list of services, but a holistic image that consists of experience, values, manner of communication, appearance, professional achievements and the impression you leave after the interaction.
For example, compare Radislav Gandapas and Artemy Lebedev. Both have a strong personal brand, but they are built on completely different principles.
Radislav Gandapas has shaped his reputation over the years through systemic expertise, books and speeches about leadership. His image is associated with deep knowledge, calm presentation and trust, which was formed through many years of practice.
Artemy Lebedev built the brand differently. He is recognized for his direct style of communication, provocative statements and ability to provoke discussion around his ideas.
These two people are completely different, but each has a clear image that is easily read by the audience. This is the hallmark of a strong personal brand: people don’t have to explain who you are and what you do. Your name is already associated with certain qualities and professional field.
At the same time, a personal brand cannot be built by simply copying someone else’s image. Don’t try to become the second best-known expert in your field. A strong reputation arises when your real qualities, experience and approach to work become noticeable to others.
Why You Need a Personal Brand
A strong personal brand offers several important benefits. First, it simplifies sales because it makes it easier for potential customers to trust a specialist they already know and perceive as an expert. Secondly, it increases the number of recommendations: people are more likely to recommend those whose name is already associated with a certain level of quality.
In addition, a personal brand opens up new opportunities: invitations to performances, partnerships, publications, professional acquaintances and new projects.
This is especially true in areas where the individual is part of the product: doctors, lawyers, designers, consultants, experts and entrepreneurs. When a specialist becomes recognizable in his or her field, he or she competes less on cost alone and more often chooses projects on his or her own.
The main mistake when building a personal brand
One of the most common mistakes is Compare yourself to people who have come a long way. A novice expert opens a profile of a person with hundreds of thousands of followers, sees speeches, posts and a large amount of content, and tries to replicate this result immediately.
But a strong personal brand doesn't emerge in months. Almost always it develops from small to large: first, a person knows several dozen colleagues, then hundreds of people in the professional community, and then he becomes a prominent expert in his field.
The first goal is to become a person who is known and recommended in your niche.
Social media as a business card, not as a showcase
The first practical step is to put social networks in order even before the active development of a personal brand.
Today, instead of a paper card, people send a link to a profile. After dating, the person opens your page and tries to understand who you are, what you do and why you can be trusted.
Imagine that you met a person at an event, exchanged contacts, and in a few minutes he comes to your social networks. In a short time, he should get answers to four questions:
- Who are you?
- What do you do?
- Why can you be trusted?
- How can I contact you?
If the profile does not answer these questions, it does not perform its primary function.
In order for social networks to work as a professional business card, they must include:
- clear description in the profile cap;
- fixed posts or sections with cases and results;
- customer reviews;
- convenient way of communication;
- The same visual style at different venues.
If you come to networking with an empty or abandoned profile, it can work against you. The person has just met you, but instead of confirming your words, he sees a page without activity and begins to doubt. Therefore, the packaging of social networks should be done before the start of active promotion.
At the same time, it is important not only to design a profile, but also to have a platform where you regularly show your expertise. For example, Telegram can become a space for deeper communication with the audience: it is convenient to publish debriefings, cases, observations and professional materials there.
Start with thematic events in your city
Most of building a personal brand happens not only online but also in real life.
Find events and communities where your audience is already located. It is important not to confuse your niche with the customer niche.
For example, I have an SMM agency, but my clients are not SMM specialists, but entrepreneurs and experts. Therefore, it is more useful for me to attend business events, not just marketing meetings. If you develop a personal brand in the beauty sphere, the community of salon owners, craftsmen and entrepreneurs from this field will be more useful.
People are quicker to trust people they have seen. After a live conversation, the likelihood of a subscription, recommendation, or further collaboration is significantly higher than after casually viewing a post.
However, one activity is not enough. Recognition comes from regularity. When people start to see you over and over again in a professional environment, they gradually remember your name and associate it with a particular area.
From participant to speaker
The next level of personal brand development is public speaking.
To become a speaker, most often you first have to take the initiative on your own: write to the organizers, propose topics, show your results and prove your competence not with words, but with actions.
Don’t wait until you start getting invited. Most experts create these opportunities first.
Things change over time. When people start to know you as a specialist, invitations come up more often.
It's social media again. Speeches, photos from events, fragments of lectures and professional thoughts are turned into proof of your competence.
Subscribers begin to see not just a beautiful profile, but a real specialist who develops, participates in professional life and shares experience.
Articles in publications work on the same principle.
Another tool for developing a personal brand is publishing in thematic blogs and publications.
Performances build trust offline. Articles do the same thing online. When a person sees your materials in a professional publication, they perceive you as a more serious specialist.
You should start not with the largest media, but with small profile sites, where your audience is already located. At the start, publications can be free and sometimes require investment. But the main value of the first materials is not money, but the opportunity to get an additional point of contact with potential customers and partners.
Over time, when you have a name and an audience, the situation changes: you begin to be invited to write for yourself.
How not to lose what you do offline
One of the most common mistakes is to do something useful and not show it.
You went to an event, performed, wrote an article, or met interesting people, but your audience didn’t know. As a result, most of the effect is lost.
Every action must be converted into content.
After the event, you can make a post or a story with the main thoughts that you took from the meeting, and mark the organizers and participants.
After the performance, it is better not to limit yourself to a photo from the stage. Much stronger work short videos with snippets of the speech, where the audience can see your approach and level of expertise.
After the article is published, don’t just send a link. Disassemble the main idea of the material in your blog so that a person benefits even without switching to an external resource.
All publications, speeches and professional achievements can be collected in a separate section like “Media”, “Speaks” or “Projects”. This is an additional confirmation of your reputation.
All elements must work together.
The most common mistake is to use the tools separately.
People attend events but don’t talk about it. He writes articles but doesn’t show them to his audience. It works but does not save materials.
As a result, each individual step has less effect than it could.
A personal brand grows faster when all actions reinforce each other.
- events give new acquaintances;
- Dating provides opportunities;
- performances confirm expertise;
- Articles increase trust;
- Social networks combine all the results and make them visible.
A personal brand does not appear on its own.
Many people perceive a personal brand as working only with social networks. In practice, the opposite is true.
First comes knowledge, results, connections, speeches and publications. Then social media helps make it visible.
If nothing happens off-screen, no content can build a strong personal brand.
The same principle works here as with a credit card at the institute: first you work for it, invest and build a reputation, and then it starts working for you.
If you simplify the whole process, the scheme looks like this:
- Pack social networks and make them proof of your competence.
- Start appearing in a professional environment.
- Expand your circle of acquaintances.
- Move from event participant to speaker.
- Published in profile publications.
- Show all this way on social networks.
This is how a personal brand is gradually formed, which over time begins to bring new opportunities.
I thoroughly understand the promotion in social networks, content strategies and real cases in my Telegram channel t.me / Savvysmm. There I share tools that I use in working with experts and entrepreneurs, as well as understand how to turn social networks into a source of customers.
