3 Steps To Build A Personal Brand

Over 11,300 professionals have subscribed to String's Theory. Learn how to better market themselves. Today, I share the 3 steps to building a brand on LinkedIn.

There are three steps to create a personal brand on LinkedIn. 

1. Be clear with your brand.
2. Reinforce your brand with consistent content.
3. Be a trusted channel on LinkedIn 

A big benefit of building a personal brand is to pull in business and opportunities.

Personally, I built a brand to control my life and narrative. From a young age, I felt like I was invisible. I had to fight to be heard as a young female. I felt like my opinions didn't matter. Building a visible brand online has allowed me to have a voice, a say in what matters to me.

Now, I am in an unusual position where I can share my knowledge in hopes that others can have a voice too.

I found that having a strong channel on LinkedIn has opened many doors of sponsorship and business partnerships.

It's your turn to amplify your voice.

Step 1: Be clear with your personal brand

Inside us all, we all know how we want to be presented. 

Don't judge a book by its cover is a great way to describe personal branding. When you read the title, you know what you're opting into.

It's the same with a personal brand, you want to give a favourable first impression. You want your volks to go around and promote you.

Still, being conscious of being a brand is the first step to clarity. 

The more clear on how you want to be positioned, the more you can build a sustainable brand. A personal brand is also like planting a seed that cultivates over time to grow into a sturdy and healthy tree.

To know more about building a clear brand. Read more about The 7Vs here.

Here's the formula for a personal brand and influence: 

Your Brand = 

Your vision +

Your values +

Your volks (aka your folks) +

Your voice +

Your visuals +

Your validation (or key metric of success) +

Your victory (how do you plan to monetise your influence)

Think about how you want to be known for, that's your personal brand.

So how do you reinforce your brand?

Step 2: Reinforce your brand with consistent content

On LinkedIn, the content that gets the most engagement is when we share challenges and how we overcome us. Maybe it's because we all strive to be heroes of own stories.

That's the power of building a personal brand, it allows you to control the narrative of perception. We don't have to share everything but what we want to show.

Still, to build a personal brand is an exercise of reinforcement.

To reinforce your brand, think about how to regularly drum your messages.

To be a radio of messages means creating content consistently.

Each content you create should be stacked to reinforce your thoughts and brand.

Leveraging on The 7Vs above, think about creating content that fits under 'V for Voice'. 

Think about the topic pillars that reinforces your personal brand. 

What content do you need to create?

Step 3: Be a channel on LinkedIn

Level up your content to feed the LinkedIn timeline by being a channel

After building the habit of consistency, the next step is to increase your volume. 

LinkedIn is still a great space for organic views, meaning you just need to invest your time (blood, sweat and soul) to building a presence.

For non-creators, creating quality content would make sense. 

Unfortunately, creating a quality article once a month is not enough to trigger the LinkedIn algorithm. 

A timeline caters for a volume game. LinkedIn follows in the vein of other social channels like Twitter and Facebook. 

Where you need to create content to cater to the scroll experience.

It's about grabbing and stopping your volk's attention. Stop the scroll is a game I teach to my peers and students. 

I'm not saying creating lots of poo-like content. 

Create content that grabs the attention of your volks and encourage them to follow your channel. Build that trust.

Be the trusted voice in your industry.

To level up on LinkedIn means, you have to think like a channel.

A channel amplifies a niche topic and publishes at least once a day. 

The third step requires you to have a marketer or content creation skills.

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The Trusted Circle Update

Which is why we created The Trusted Circle, it is to support the professionals who plan to develop the creator's mindset and become channels. 

If you read this far, we're increasing the membership to 10% to cater to the demand for support. We want to help increase the success of our members.

So far, members who joined increased their content to 1 post per month to 3 times a week.

A UX designer gained a client within 2 months after he posted 3x a week on LinkedIn.

And this is what Stanely M, a business owner, has to say about being a member:

I originally stumbled on a String video on LinkedIn around the time I started doing video for my business. I was attracted by her genuineness and humor. It helps that I love fried chicken.

I originally joined a group program and later, I increased my level of engagement with her. She is thoughtful & creative, and most importantly, listens. I have limitations in my regulated business, and she heard me the first time.

String has been a great help in being a sounding board and focusing my effort at brand building.

We're rolling out a new chapter/course "Creating videos for smartphone" which is launching in June. 

Become a member of The Trusted Circle and build your brand today.

You can either go monthly or annual.