Almost anyone with a smartphone and an Internet connection is using a social media network.
Numbers don’t lie.
Facebook is still the leader of social media networks with about 2 billion monthly active users. Instagram has about 700 million users, while Twitter has about 328 million.
So building your personal brand includes having a presence on social media.
Here are six personal branding tips for your social media profiles.
Before you get started with anything regarding personal branding, do a general clean-up.
You may have some embarrassing photos you posted years ago. You may have left some foul language comments at a certain point. Do a complete sweep of your profiles. Including games – clean those up as well.
Then turn everything towards professionalism.
Use great quality photos that showcase your professional side. In case you don’t have any, get to work. Dress nicely, put a smile on your face and take the best photos you can. Use a white background.
It is vital to be consistent on all social media networks you are using. This doesn’t involve posting the exact same thing. No, it’s about having the same style of images and including your logo. This is how people recognize you.
You want to send a steady message to your fans and followers, not confuse them.
Be consistent on all social media networks. That's the first step towards a great personal brand. Share on XSo if you chose a specific color for your most popular social media profile, use the same on the rest. If you picked a specific style, implement it everywhere.
It is also essential to make sure your style and colors present on your social media profiles match the one on your website. If you have great SEO, many users might find your website before getting to see your social media profiles.
Creating a vanity URL is an important step. Since your name is what defines your personal brand, it should be visible. For example, your Facebook profile URL should be www.facebook.com/YourName.
Creating a Facebook Page for your brand is a must. Granted, content that you share on your page might not reach a lot of people. But pages let you manage things better – including ads. A page can be followed by people you don’t personally know as well.
Instagram is owned by Facebook. As mentioned before, it has about 400 million users. So it is a place where you should be. However, the decision should be based on your niche.
If it makes sense for your personal brand to be on Instagram, you should do the following:
Create an Instagram landing page on your blog and link it to your profile. Do everything you can to make it mobile friendly. Instagram is mostly a social media network for smartphone users.
Personal branding tips for Instagram: Keep a balance between fun and professional posts. Share on XLinkedIn is the place where you should emphasize your professional side the most. Think of it as your online resume. Don’t neglect the SEO aspect.
Here are a few personal branding tips for LinkedIn:
Consistency is a must. So your Twitter profile should look pretty similar to your Facebook profile in terms of colors and profile picture.
To grow your followers and increase brand authority, do the following:
A tweet is limited to 140 characters, so it shouldn’t be that hard. You’ll spend most time retweeting thought leaders in your niche. Twitter isn’t as time-consuming as Facebook.
Personal branding on Twitter: engage with thought leaders - retweet, reply, start conversations. Share on XThese personal branding tips will get you six steps closer to achieving your goals. It will take time, so you need to be perseverant and stick to your plan.
If you’re using other social media networks – like YouTube or Tumblr – the same “rules” apply. Keep in mind that Tumblr is more popular for the fashion niche. To be successful on YouTube, you’ll have to dedicate a lot of time and effort into creating great video content.
If you’d like to learn more about personal branding, we got you covered. We’ve put together a great eBook on this topic that you can enjoy for free. Get it from here.
Back to you: What other successful personal branding tips for social media you know? Tell us in the comments section below.
