Finding Your Voice by Building Your Brand

If you’re reading this on LinkedIn, you have a major advantage: you’re already building your personal brand. But do you know just how important this is?

Social media has awarded celebrity status to millions of people across the world. Realistically, you might not recognise them if you bumped into them in the supermarket, but the power of Instagram and Twitter has elevated ordinary people like you and me to superstar status. These influencers are idolised by followers, courted by brands, quoted in schools and homes. They are personal megabrands. For you and I, we’re talking a little lower profile. But building a personal brand is still essential to further your career. You might not be Zoella or Dan TDM (Google them), but you are a unique and credible professional with valued experience, and how you market yourself must reflect this. Here’s how:

1.     Identify your expertise: you’re an expert. But what sets you apart from others? Can you be a ‘thought leader’ on French business-to-business translations, or on enterprise sales? Can you offer an inside view from a successful business you spent several years with? Are you a leader, coach or mentor, or can you share your experience finding work after a long period of redundancy? Your area of expertise doesn’t have to be a skill – it might be something that’s happened to you which could benefit others. If you’re not sure, ask a colleague, a partner or a friend. It doesn’t have to be an awkward ‘What makes me unique?’ conversation but can be a simple feedback session, even just a coffee and a chat.

2.     Think about what really interests you: a successful brand has a strong identity. As well as your professional expertise, build out your brand with interests. You might be in talent management but have a personal interest in engineering, or public speaking – or the automobile industry, or medicine. It might be entering triathlons, or mountaineering.  Whatever it is, you can build these interests into your social profiles. Share articles on what interests you. This adds authenticity and depth to you as a person, and helps new connections find common ground. It’s also a great conversation opener.

3.     Become an influencer: excuse me stating the obvious, but to be an influencer, you must influence. This means you need to find your voice. You need to post, share and engage with a diversity of content. Write and publish articles (it’s very easy on LinkedIn) or blogs (try WordPress), video, graphics and slides, and leave your posts open-ended to generate feedback and engagement. But remember to be consistent with style and content across all your platforms

4.     Take an interest in others: visit your networks, publish and post on a frequent basis, be visible, meet others - either on line on forums, groups or communities, or in person (see below). Follow other people who inspire you – what did they post, and what kind of a reaction did it generate? Your personal brand should be multi-faceted not one-sided (“that’s enough about me. What do you think of me?”).

5.     Go to networking events IRL: IRL = In Real Life. As effective as social networks are, there is nothing like a face-to-face event to generate conversations, inspiration, motivation, connections and friendships.

6.     Keep on Learning: the average adult has a reading age of 9. Expand your skills and keep on learning. Read magazines, click on posts which interest you, get recommendations on motivational books (and read them). Learning is not only crucial to your career development and personal brand, but it’s good for your state-of-mind, your confidence, your relationships – even your life expectancy. Still not convinced? Read what Deb Calvert has to say in her LinkedIn post here.

7.     Boost your LinkedIn profile: LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network, with 562 million users and 106 million monthly unique visiting members, across 200 countries. There are other business social networks that you could invest your time in, depending on your location – Xing in Germany, for example - but LinkedIn is the biggest. Spending a bit of time on your profile will pay off. You’re already using it, so that’s a start. But here are some key LinkedIn tips which might just give your LinkedIn presence a bit of a boost:

·       Customise your URL: More and more people are adding their LinkedIn URL to their autosignature. Ever noticed how some people just have their name, while others have their name and lots of numbers? Those with just the name look professional and smart. It’s simple to change: go to your profile screen and in the top right-hand corner, you’ll see a prompt, ‘Edit Public Profile and URL’. Click on that, and you’ll see ‘Edit URL’ with a pencil next to it. Just create yours, then press Save.

·       Make sure you have a decent photo: without a photo, you look like you’re hiding something. Plus adding a photo to your profile makes you 36 times more likely to receive a message on LinkedIn and 21 times more profile views than those without a photo. Whether professionally-taken or a photo snapped on your iPhone, make sure it’s a photo suitable for a business network, and not your latest holiday snap.

·       Don’t be shy about listing your achievements: for some of us, it’s hard to promote ourselves without feeling like we’re showing off. The truth is, if you don’t do this then someone else will, and they’ll beat you to the job of your dreams. Well, I exaggerate slightly but it’s so important to think carefully about what you’ve achieved and be proud of it.  

·       Ask for endorsements – and don’t be afraid to hide them if you’re not happy with how they’re written. Open your profile, go to Recommendations, click on the pencil by your recommendations and you can move the slider by each one to ‘Show’ or ‘Hide’. Or you can ask for a revision. Just don’t forget to click ‘Save’.

·       List your skills: listing five or more skills in your profile will get you up to 17 times more profile views.

·       Include multimedia and blogs: if you’ve been filmed making a presentation, photographed at an event or just have a favourite video, photo or presentation appropriate to your working life, share it. Equally if you have a blog that’s nothing to do with your professional life, you can include a link.  This goes back to positioning yourself as a human rather than a corporate robot.

Do you have recommendations you’d like to share? Please join us in Dublin our session is entitled, ‘Finding Your Voice in the Workplace’. When: 13th November, 11.15am – 12.00pm. You can register for the conference here https://aa-isp.org/register/dsw18/dublin