How to harness your personal brand for maximum effect – 5 lessons for SMEs and major brands

It’s a common misconception that personal branding is all about ego. 

It's not. 

Nowadays the majority of people who create a personal brand do so to benefit their company. 

And it does. 

With organic reach for branded pages now incomparable to personal accounts, people have begun picking up the slack.

To that end, personal branding has become nearly as integral as influencer marketing – depending on the brand, agency or company.

According to Nielsen, 82% of customers trust a company whose senior management are active on social media. 

That’s not a shocking revelation; people have long bought from people, which is why successful brands tend to be more human.

However, for the same reason influencer marketing exploded on social, personal branding has reached new heights because trust is both low and in demand/

In addition, knowing that individuals are more engaging and companies will pay a premium for reach, platforms have also tipped the balance in favour of people.

With that in mind, here are five personal brand tips that apply at all levels.

1. Decide why you want to create a personal brand

To coin one of Simon Sinek’s most well-known marketing theories, start with why.

Why do you want to create a personal brand?

Is it that you’ve just left a senior post at a well-known brand to start a new company that requires more exposure?

Is it that your company is sitting on valuable data, research or insights that would benefit some but not all of your audience?

One of the most common motivations for starting a personal brand – for agencies, at least – is to obtain speaking opportunities and a platform to promote the agency.

If you can work this part of the process out early on in your personal branding journey, you can better tailor your content strategy to a specific aim or KPI. 

2. Be consistent with your content and generous in your insight

Consistency is one of the hallmarks of a successful personal brand but a lesson many people neglect. 

If you can’t commit to a posting schedule, any audience you’ve built up will quickly grow tired of waiting for your next post and look elsewhere. 

Equally, there’s no longer any point in making audiences jump through hoops to get your content – unless you plan to monetise your services as an individual. 

By and large, however, if you’re creating a personal brand to benefit your company, you want to be as active and accessible as possible, particularly across social. 

3. Don’t be an all-rounder – select your subjects and stick to them

Imagine for a second you head up social media for Mercedes-Benz in the UK. 

You’ll likely come across information and insights in your day-to-day role that a large proportion of Mercedes’ brand page audience won’t care about. 

But this information might be valuable to a specific demographic of petrol heads, car journalists or non-Mercedes drivers with no loyalty to the brand. 

It doesn’t matter that you’re not pushing a hard sell strategy; the fact you’re advocating Mercedes on some level on your channels still counts as exposure.

By providing a specific type of content for audiences who wouldn't engage with Mercedes’ brand pages or ads, you’re helping the company travel further. 

But specific is the crucial word here. If your content is too broad, you may find yourself reaching many people but engaging very few.

4. Promote a culture of personal branding within your organisation

660 million people use LinkedIn in 200 countries. 

The irony is it’s probably the channel that's least equipped to brands. 

It doesn’t have the targeting tools of Facebook and it certainly isn’t a place to create impressive short-form content like TikTok. 

But nine times out ten, in the bio of every member of staff at your brand or agency is your company’s name, from junior execs to c-suite level.

As long as these individuals work for you, you should be leveraging their channels by creating a culture that encourages staff to post more.

Reward personal branding with mentions in reports or make an example if a post about the company goes viral or leads to new business. 

5. Listen to your audience and treat personal branding as a two-way conversation

If you’re unwilling to experiment or test different types of content or posting times, prepare for your personal brand to have a limited impact. 

Everyone’s audience is different, which means the strategy that works for your brand may be the opposite on a personal level. 

Likewise, you can’t treat personal branding as broadcast-only. 

People who hone personal branding are constantly interacting with their audience, whether that’s replying to comments or tagging users. 

Go as far as commenting on posts from other brands in your industry, as you can use your expertise to critique, praise or add value to the conversation.

Remember, the aim is to indirectly get your company’s name out there in organic conversations it wouldn’t be a part of usually. 

With marketing budgets under strain and social media channels becoming more people-first, it’s never been more important to take personal branding seriously.

Kunal Pattany is a public speaker, technology commentator and the founder and CEO of Digital Human. With 15 years’ experience in marketing for leading companies like Kantar, a WPP data and insights company, he has turned his attention to the impact of digital and AI on humans and society’s response to innovation. To find out more about Digital Human, click here. To talk with Kunal about speaking opportunities, email [email protected] ??