📊Talking Strategy - Building your personal brand
There's a massive shift going on in marketing and social platforms. Social media is becoming more private, the number of creators are growing, and the number of cost-effective marketing channels is dwindling. This has given rise to the importance of having a strong personal brand. As I mentioned, having a strong personal brand gives you the opportunity to connect with others, launch your business with an existing audience, and open doors that wouldn't be possible without having a following. So, how do you get started and how do you keep the momentum?
Find your footing
Before I started to deliberately lean into growing my personal brand, I had no idea where to start or what I would talk about. If you've been a subscriber here for more than the past month, I use to run a newsletter on growth marketing called Growth Roadmap. The problem is that this felt too niche and I started to get bored with the content. I can talk about marketing for hours, but I wanted to give myself the flexibility to expand the content I write about.
This is why I started Talking Growth. I wanted to have the flexibility to build and write a newsletter that extended beyond marketing and felt more personable. Marketing is one of my brand pillars; however, it's not my only pillar. My pillars are marketing, building products, personal development, and transparency.
Your pillars don't have to be completely set in stone. As you grow, new things may catch your eye, so don't feel locked down by your interests/content. Think about this, how would someone describe you if you weren't in the room?
For me, I want to be known as the marketing guy who helps creators grow their business and help others work on the things they're most passionate about. While the title "The Marketing Guy With The Hair" may be too comical for some, I'm not an overly serious guy and felt it was a great touch on showing the humorous side of my personality. Additionally, if someone described me, they'd say my brand title. Plus I own the domain for this.
Take it to market
Before I leaned directly into my brand, I tested different messaging with paid spend via IG stories. I told people what I was about, why they should follow me, and what they would learn in return. I based success on email signups and was able to get a low CPA ($.75-$1.50) and subscribers that wanted to follow me on my journey. With that validation, I then started creating organic content around myself, what I was working on, and building my business. This allowed me to be consistent, with a central theme on helping creators and those looking to grow their personal brand.
If you don't have an audience, record a video of yourself and place a light budget against it and test different ideas of what you would want to talk about. Drive that traffic to email signups or follows on your IG account. If you can't afford that, use the above diagram and start engaging with others, start creating, and start sharing your content. Regardless, take action and be consistent.
Be authentic and be consistent
I don't recommend you spread yourself too thin. For most, prioritizing a single channel is enough. I do recommend you be authentic and consistently post on a social platform of your choosing every day. This keeps you top of mind, reinforces your brand to others, and most importantly helps you build your tribe. Building a brand is a long-term game; however, the more you can shorten your feedback loops (e.g. growing an engaged audience), the better you're able to know whether or not you're going in the right direction.
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