Build Your Social Brand in 2019

The season of resolutions is upon us and I suspect that many of you are thinking about tackling a new skill, landing a new job, eating healthier, exercising more or generally being a better form of yourself in 2019. For those of you contemplating how you can crush your sales targets or become a savvier marketer, surely digital selling is on your radar as something you personally or your organization needs to tackle. If so, read on. I have some tips to help you get started with digital selling by establishing yourself as a thought leader and expert.

Step 1: Define your brand and update your online profiles

Before you start engaging in random acts of social, I suggest starting by defining your brand or what you want to be known for professionally. Think about what you are passionate about, what makes you stand out from your peers and what job you want to land 5 years from now. If you are in a sales role, think about the value add you provide to customers. Update your profiles on LinkedIn, Twitter and other professional networks you participate in to reflect your personal brand, experiences and passions. As it related to LinkedIn, focus primarily on your headline and summary and make sure you use a professional close up picture of yourself, ideally with a smile on your face.  

I also suggest checking your LinkedIn Social Selling Index for insights into how you can improve your social presence and how you compare to your peers within your company and industry.

Step 2: Build and engage your network

To build a strong social presence, it is critical that you dedicate time towards building your professional social network each day. Not a day goes by that I don't make a new connection via LinkedIn or Twitter. I have made it a practice to proactively connect with people on LinkedIn prior to meeting with them so I can learn a bit about their background and experience and more easily find common ground when I meet with them.  

I also proactively look for thought leaders and experts in the industry that I can either follow or connect 1:1 with by searching key words or joining industry or special interest groups in LinkedIn.

Finally, I dedicate time each day to check my feed and make contact with at least a handful of people each day. This can be as simple as commenting on or sharing an article written by a connection, congratulating a contact on a new job they have taken, or sending a follow up message to a connection I met the day before. If you are in sales, your feed offers an excellent source of data to understand what your customers and prospects are interested in, reading about or looking to purchase. 

Step 3: Start curating and sharing content 

Now that you have defined your brand and are connecting with new people who can inspire you each day, it is time to start curating and sharing content to help reinforce your brand. This is often the hardest step for newbies. When I have talked about this in my presentations and trainings, the most common response I get is "I don't know what to talk about". Here are some ideas to get you started:

• Brainstorm a list of topics you are an expert on based on your career and life experiences
• Interview customers or experts in the industry for best practices
• Write articles about how you have been able to take a unique approach to addressing a customer's need

To supplement the content you create, be sure to dedicate time each day to identify and share 3rd party content that helps reinforce your brand and interests. At Microsoft we leverage LinkedIn Elevate as our content sharing platform and have content aggregated into channels such as industry, solution area, customer audience and role, and region. I’ve found that people love top tips lists, predictions lists, and industry data. Your influencer list is also a great source of content to share. As you share more of their content, your relationship with these influencers will deepen.

Once you have your list of topics together it helps to set a goal for how often you are going to publish content and then build and stick to a schedule for doing so. When I was getting started I set up a 30 min block on my calendar each day. Tools like Elevate allow you to schedule content for up to a week in advance. Once it became a habit I found that I no longer needed this dedicated time and instead I leveraged those few minutes at the beginning of meetings when attendees were filtering in or moments in my commute or lunch hour to conduct my 10 minute daily LinkedIn routine.

I hope these tips get you started on your path to establishing yourself as a thought leader, the first step in getting started with digital selling. Happy New Year!