8 Tips for Online Personal Branding

We all know that today’s trend is all about social media presence. How do you present yourself on social media? In more fancy words, we call this “attraction marketing”.

To brand yourself, there are simple ways for beginners to get started right away, there are also more advanced skills such as creating landing, email marketing, chatbot and many more.

But today, let’s keep it simple. Let’s focus on simple strategies that all beginners can do easily.

Here are the eight tips for online personal branding:

Tips #1: Choose your avatar

One of the myths is that everyone is your prospects or customers. No, when you are trying to sell to everyone, you will end up selling to no one. 

Instead, you should define who your avatar is. In other words, who are those people that you can easily relate to? Who are those people that have the same affinity as you? 

For example, if you like fitness, then, your avatar could be those that are active in the gym or love nutrition. 

Or, if you are a mother, then mothers would be your avatar.

Tips #2: Pick your topic

After knowing your avatar, now the next step is to decide on which topics you would like to focus on. If your avatar is about fitness and health, you may want to talk more about topics related to fitness, nutrition, health, and wellness.

Or, if your avatar is the mother, then you probably want to talk more about parenting, motherhood, cooking tips, and time management for busy moms.

It doesn’t have to be related to your products or business. In fact, you should not disclose your company’s products. You can read more about this on my previous blog.

The key here is to build your followers or your tribe. Not to sell.

Once people like you and trust you, and when you invite them to check out your products or business, they will be more open to it, or at least, have the courtesy to tell you that they are not interested, rather than just ignoring you.

Tips #3: Think before posting on your social media

Whether you realize it or not, your social media profile is your virtual name card and resume. 

So, think first before you post – what kind of impressions do you want to give to your audience?

Social media is not a proper place to rant and air your dirty laundry. If you have any dispute or disagreement with anyone, it would be wise to talk about it privately with the parties involved. Do not gossip or post any negativity on social media. All these will hurt your online branding.

Instead, you should post something of great value. It can be teaching good tips, sharing positivity, or entertainment that makes people happy.

So, back to the basics – always think before you post.

Tips #4: Remove your negative posts

We all make mistakes on our social media. Me too. But that’s ok, as long as we learn and improve from there.

Now, go and check all your previous posts. Are there any old posts that are sending negative messages or not aligned with your personal branding direction? If yes, delete those posts, or change the privacy to “only you can see”.

If you have too many of those posts, you may not be able to delete them all. But at least, you should remove the most recent 1-2 years of such posts.

Tips #5: Remove your company products’ promotional posts

To understand why you should not be promoting your company products openly, you may read my previous post about this topic.

Similar to Tips #4, you should delete those products’ promotional posts, or change the privacy to “only you can see”. If you have too many of those posts, then you should at least remove the most recent 1-2 years of such posts.

Tips #6: Post consistently

One Of the keys to online branding is consistency. 

Once you know who is your avatar (Tips #1) and your passionate topic (Tips #2), you will need to put up the contents aligned to your branding direction consistently on your social media.

The best is to post on your social media every day. But if you are too busy, then, at least, you should post every alternate day, which is about 3-4 posts weekly.

Tips #7: Consistent branding direction across all your social media accounts

Most people have multiple social media accounts, such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter. 

You should decide on one consistent branding direction across all your social media accounts. 

If you are branding yourself in fitness on Facebook, and then branding yourself in online marketing on Instagram, then you are confusing your market.

Your brand may evolve over time, but make the changes consistent across all your social media accounts.

Tips #8: Have a blog (optional, but good to have)

Your social media accounts do not belong to you. One day, if Facebook decides to shut down your Facebook account, or some hackers hack your social media account, you may lose your branding hard work instantly.

Therefore, having a blog is a great way for your personal branding. This is something that truly belongs to you. The only person that can shut it down is you. 

Blogging is a more advanced skill. But if you can take some time, do learn about it. 

But if you are busy and have no time to learn about blogging, then staying focused on social media is a good strategy for beginners because this can be implemented immediately without much learning curve.