Did you know that the “About Us” section is
the second most viewed page after the home page for most of the websites?
Today, when a lot is being talked about creating the company brand and image,
it is equally important to have a strong personal brand of the founders – this
is especially true for startups because for many startups, the founders, CEOs
and the people behind the company are more known than the company itself.
Think of Apple. Think of Microsoft. Think of
Google. Although these are large organizations, there are some strong
personalities which come to our mind when we think of these companies – Steve
Jobs, Bill Gates, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. We don’t ‘live’ in a virtual world
– we live in a world where we speak with humans, we build relationships with
people and we engage with people. So it is very important that founders think
of their personal branding very seriously.
“But
how do I go about it?” – I get it asked many times. So rather than
preaching more about why it is important (I am hoping that you are already
convinced!), here are some practical ways of leveraging some of the popular
social media platforms for building your personal brand.
LinkedIn
If you have to choose one platform, choose
LinkedIn. It is THE most important professional networking platform. First and
foremost, it is crucial that you have a well-developed LinkedIn profile. It
should very crisply and clearly list your education, experience, expertise, passions
and likings. There are lot of articles available
online on how to create a powerful LinkedIn profile, the do’s and don’ts and
best practices. Follow the advice there. If you think you don’t have time or
expertise to write a killer LinkedIn profile, take external help – but do it.
It’s mandatory.
You
cannot stop after creating a LinkedIn profile. You should aim for following
-
Post at least one status update every week – this could be about
your company, your offerings, an interesting insight, your views about industry
updates and so on. This is important for being in front of your connections.
-
Join relevant groups which interest you and start getting active
there through participation in ongoing discussions.
-
Occasionally, start ask thought provoking questions and elicit
responses.
-
Leverage LinkedIn
Publisher platform - It allows you to write long updates or articles. You can
use this platform to demonstrate your expertise or knowledge.
Twitter
No, Twitter is not for kids or for people who
don’t have any work. Twitter is gaining popularity and is being used as a prime
network, even in B2B segment, for news, updates and information sharing. It’s a
myth that Twitter is time consuming. You don’t need to have Twitter app in
‘always on’ mode on your smartphone. There are schedulers such as Bufferapp or
Hootsuite which you can use to schedule your tweets. You can choose to share
interesting industry updates, your opinions on latest topics, news about your
company products or services. You could also appreciate your employees and
motivate them. You can join ongoing conversations through hashtags. It is easy
to create an image of a curator of interesting information or opinion-maker on
Twitter. Don’t hesitate to show your personal side by way of some casual
updates about your vacation or personal interests like
photography, poetry or sports.
photography, poetry or sports.
Blog
You obviously have
lot of knowledge about your industry and domain or technology. Use blogs to
share that knowledge and demonstrate your thought leadership or expertise to
the world. Based on my personal experience, finalizing the blog topic is the
most difficult task. What I do is, pick up the pain points of my customers and
write a purely educational post around that. Try it, and it might work for you
as well. Don’t try to sell your product or services through your blogs.
Genuinely solve people’s problems or provide answers to their questions. A blog
written in a simple language which honestly provides relevant and useful
information is always appreciated. If your customers approach you after reading
your blog, they will approach you as knowledge partner and not as just another
vendor.
Pinterest
Yes! Don’t be
surprised to see it listed here. Pinterest can very well be used for personal
branding – here is how. Suppose you run an exclusive boutique or a cafe, there
is no better place than Pinterest to showcase your passion, products and
services. It’s very visual, the
interface is very cool and most likely, and your target audience is already on
Pinterest! You could also pin other interesting stuff like your office photos,
customer testimonials, the books you like, your favorite vacation spots -
flaunt your creative side and pin about your passions. There is no harm in
showcasing your personal interest on social networking sites.
Quora
If your
knowledge of Quora is limited to the email notifications you receive when
someone “follows” you there, then it’s time to change it. Quora is a brilliant
platform for personal brand building. It is increasingly becoming popular and
it seems to be favored by search engines too! Lot of discussions (yes, serious
discussions) happen on Quora. Since it is a question and answer format, if you
have a point of view about something or have some good pointers to share, there
is no better place than Quora. Join interesting conversations and respond to
questions. Occasionally, your responses could be supplemented with the blog
articles which you have written – I have seen examples where people have seen a
steady flow of traffic to their blog coming from Quora.
As
we know, Personal Branding is nothing but creating a right kind of emotional
response when people hear your name, see you online or meet you in person. Ensure
that they find consistency everywhere J Always make
sure that your offline persona matches with your online image.
As a startup consultant myself, I agree that a lot (may be all) of these things are necessary, but they are getting increasingly distracting from the core business. startups founders are taking their social media handles seriously but a lot of them are not finding it sustainable for long time. At some stage they outsource it to their marcom person/team.
ReplyDeletePiyush, I agree that startups are always pressed on time and bandwidth, but unless marketing and personal branding is considered as the core business, it will always get sidelined :)
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