Why is it important to build a personal brand?
“Be who you are and embrace that.”
Find out more about building a powerful personal brand in this week’s podcast episode.
2:34 What is personal branding?
5:19 Tips on how to optimize your branding
20:09 exciting guests for this month
Transcript:
Hey, friends, Megan here, have you ever had a day where you’re just like everything is working out awesome and like everything’s flowing, you’re super pumped, things are going amazing and you’re just being crazy productive? That is my day today. And it did not start that way. But I had such a good call with this guy who’s going to show up later named Rob.
We recorded this podcast interview and it’s so good, dude. It’s so hard.
I can’t wait for you to hear it and I can’t wait to talk to you and have, like, um, just like giddy and so giddy about that call and how awesome this day has been and how I have just felt like I’ve been killing it since I started very late today.
But it started and that’s what matters.
So before we get into the monthly topic with the people who you’re going to be hearing with, the people who you’re going to be hearing from, Megan can talk, I swear, later this month.
I want to talk about personal branding and.
Is it as important as it used to be, so if you’re not aware, personal branding is essentially the.
Let’s say the like the public facing side of you, and if you are an entrepreneur, whether you’re like me and your name is behind it, then that’s incredibly important. But it’s also important for people who have brands or businesses that are not them. Like when I had Metropolis Soup Company, Metropolis was its own brand, but. As someone who was. Running it and involved in it in a critical way. It was important that my brand, the Megan brand, was.
Polished the polished, but that it was considered, I guess I should say, and I think that now more than ever, making sure that your personal branding is just tip top and killer is so important because no matter if you’re the brand or something else is the brand.
People buy from people now more than ever, it’s think about the research that you’ve done or what has made you, I don’t know, invest in a coach by a course or, you know, influencers like think about influencers and putting their audience up as.
Fought, not fodder, but do you know what I’m trying to say, like the weight of their audience because of what they recommend is so precious to companies who want to do sponsorships and things like that? So I feel like now more than ever, it’s incredibly important to consider what your personal branding is and how to optimize it and how to make it better, not only for you, but for the company.
And the most important part, in my opinion, as a nerdy marketer, is making sure that your branding, your personal branding is hitting the right people and it’s making them understand who you are. It’s getting them through that know, like and trust funnels that they learn about you. They realize how fucking awesome you are, and then they buy from you because not only are you fucking awesome, but you’re the one who is solving their problems and you’re doing it in the most fucking awesome way.
And that’s why I think it’s important to consider what your public facing side looks like and how to optimize it.
So I want to give you a couple of tips that I’ve given my marketing clients that I just want to say, like they come up often enough that it makes me think like, OK, this is a trope, if you want to call it that, just because my has been killing it and I’m all giddy doesn’t mean I actually know what to talk about or what I’m saying.
So you’re just going have to you know, you this is not new for you, I’m sure, if you’ve heard this podcast before. So let’s just all chuckle at Megan idiocy and move on.
So here’s the first thing I think is super important when it comes to having a powerful personal brand and that is drawing a line in the sand. What I mean by that is you can’t be wishy washy about everything. You can’t try and please everybody. You’ve got to pick a side on something and live that truth and be that person. You know, it doesn’t have to be controversial about politics. If you don’t want it to, though, that is just becoming more and more prevalent in this world.
It has to be about something in your industry that could be seen as controversial or.
I don’t want to put something that will make people say nah or yeah, totally. So just to give you an example for me, my line in the sand is you do not need to be everywhere.
And I have fought like not fisticuffs, but gotten into heated professional conversations when I was director of marketing communications about what platforms our business would be on when I worked for corporate and what platforms it would not be on, and my arguing for why I wouldn’t want it everywhere.
People were not happy with my loud professional arguments, but I was the director of marketing communications.
I was the only one running the business that shop the department, I guess you to say. So my final say went, but that was my line in the sand.
We do not need to be everywhere. Your business does not need to be everywhere. It needs to be where it is most effective if you are not. This is getting into my little.
This is getting into my line in the sand. But if you are not a visual company, you don’t need to be on Instagram. If you cannot deliver consistent visual content, don’t be on a platform that is all visual content. Be where you’re most effective. That’s my line in the sand. I’ve had arguments about it.
Some people think it’s true. Some people think it’s not true. That’s fine. My line in the sand is beware, you are effective. Don’t be a buckshot, be a sniper.
Second thing I think that is critical to being a powerful personal brand is having a unique perspective.
And what I mean by that is allowing yourself to have your personality. And you don’t have to be someone else’s personality. You have to be yours. You have to be your own.
And when you hear me talking to you on this podcast, or if I’m interviewing somebody on this podcast, if you seen me on YouTube or Instagram or things like that, you’ve seen me, you know that there’s a way that I speak and there’s a way that I move my hands when I speak, which I’m doing right now, even though you can see it.
I’m a hand talker.
The way that I do what I do is what propels my brand to success or decline depends on your perspective of it.
But me being myself and not trying to be somebody else, not trying to emulate another person is the thing that keeps me going as a full time, self-employed, advanced digital marketing strategist. I can’t be on Melissa Griffin or the content bug, Caitlin, I’m sorry, I know her name and I can’t think of it right now.
I can’t be these people and I can’t try to be these people because that’s not natural for me. And I feel like when you try to be somebody else who you try to emulate someone else’s success, it never works out the way you think it’s going to work out.
It actually works to your detriment, because that person, that brand, the whatever that you’re trying to emulate has a loyal following and you are not bringing anything new to the table to get them to come to you.
If you’re just trying to emulate somebody else, so be who you are and embrace that as a feature and not a bug, because that is the thing that keeps people ride or die with you.
That is the thing that just you know, that I have a very strange vernacular and that I like to swear that’s just who I am. I can’t apologize for it. I could apologize for it, but I’m not going to stop being who I am. And neither should you lean into that and love that, because that is what makes your branding, your business, your empire so powerful. Next, have a consistent message. So don’t talk about both sides of things.
I guess this kind of goes back to a line in the sand, but.
Make sure that when you’re talking about whatever you want to talk about, whatever your platform is, the unique perspective that you take, your USP, your unique selling proposition, whatever that is, go hard on that and make sure that whatever you’re doing complements that. Don’t try and be.
Don’t try and be the social media expert, be the LinkedIn expert, be the LinkedIn post expert, be the LinkedIn video post expert Neach Down. And talk about that, but if you feel like I can’t talk about linked in video posts for the rest of my life, I’ll kill myself and Megan I’ll probably come after you and kill you.
But saying be consistent forever, but make sure that what you’re talking about flows into something else.
So when you start a business and you nesh down into whatever you niching down to, let’s stick with this and say linked. You’re becoming the linked in video post expert. You’re talking about that, how to create one, how to edit one, how to optimize one Honold engage how to market it, blah, blah, blah, blah, once you do that, you feel like you’ve exhausted everything there is to know about LinkedIn video posting.
Then you start expanding into you can either go towards I was going to say you could go towards like Instagram video posting but or TV like expanding to other platforms. But I feel like it’s probably actually better that you stick to LinkedIn.
So you go to LinkedIn engagement and how do you engage with people that you don’t know how to engage with people you do know how to get recommendations on LinkedIn.
You begin to create this flow so that you’re taking people through a journey of one very small thing that is on LinkedIn to a little bit more about LinkedIn, to a lot about LinkedIn, to you are the LinkedIn expert when you have that consistent message of I am the authority in this space. This space is small right now because it’s about LinkedIn video posting, but it’s about LinkedIn video posting because that’s what you were you the person that I’m targeting were most interested in finding out about.
And now you’re following me on this journey to optimize your LinkedIn profile. And here’s this course that I have or whatever my selling thing is.
This all flows in such a way that it makes sense and it makes it’s a natural transition. And that’s what your consistent message delivers.
So don’t feel like you have to be the person who knows everything there is to know about Instagram or the person who knows everything there is to know about skin care. You have to be the person who knows a lot about organic, vegan, sustainable skin care recipes or the person who knows a ton about auto scheduling, IAG, TV to your account.
That’s what you need to know. And once you completely exhaust that vertical, then you expand and it makes sense for your followers.
I hope that helps. The last part is I feel like this is something that a lot of us struggle with, myself included. It’s an ability to be wrong. And I found that.
If you recall, back in June, twenty twenty, there was a very big reckoning for white influencers and white content creators that were excluding people of color, either in their messaging or they were doing just they even if they weren’t being intentionally exclusionary, their messaging ended up excluding people of color.
And there was a reckoning for that.
And what was most interesting to me were the people who doubled down on. Their inability to I’m not trying to be I’m not trying to be PC, I’m trying to actually think about the words that I’m trying to say.
So they were trying they were doubling down on. You’re wrong. I’m not I’m not being exclusionary. I’m being inclusive. You just don’t see that.
And that was so fascinating to me as a marketer and just as a person who’s a nerd that. These people were so unwilling to listen to what was being said to them specifically. That they doubled down on their hatred, even though they had no idea they were doubling down, they weren’t able to say.
I hear you, I am wrong. Thank you or I hear you, I’m wrong. I’m going to be better. The I hear you. I was wrong. Was missing on. The biggest influencers accounts, there were some who were very good with it, and I give them all the credit in the world, there were some who sucked hard at it and they had to like.
Closedown comments and, you know, go into hiding for a couple of weeks, and when all you had to do, if you were that person, was just say, I’m listening, you’re telling me things that I wasn’t right with.
I didn’t know. I wasn’t right at the time. I’m going to be better. I’m going to try better. I’m going to try different things.
The people who were able to do that got so much of a better benefit through this Black Lives Matter movement, even if they weren’t black or a person of color because they were able to say, your point matters. I am not infallible. I am going to learn how to live in this world with you and make sure that you are included. And that’s what you need to do as a good marketer.
You need to say that you are an authentic person who has faults, who has shitty moments, who stumbles and you’re learning and you’re trying and you want to be better and you’re going to help people be better to that’s whatever your business is. Your business is here to solve a problem for someone.
Whether it’s skin care, clothing, paint, artistry, knitting, coaching, whatever, you solve the problem for someone and for you as a personal brand to say I am an authentic person, I am not in an ivory tower, I am fallible, I stumble, I fall.
I need you to help me. I need help being picked up. But I will be picked up. I will pick myself up. Thank you. I’m wrong. I’m wrong.
And I’m learning and did once you are able to handle these four points and embrace them into just a daily mindset of I’m awesome, I have my own ideals, I have my own ways of doing things, I have a line in the sand on what I will do and what I will not do. And I’m learning and I will keep learning and I will keep you on this journey with me that is so powerful.
And that is what I teach my people, my marketing clients when they want to create a powerful personal brand. And that’s what I want you to do, too.
So I hope that was helpful. I really, really want you to take this episode and think about the different ways that you can use these four points to your advantage.
Now, the rest of the month, like I said, I was stupidly, stupidly giddy today talking to Rob, who you’re going to hear later on this month. Rob is from TubeBuddy and he’s going to talk to you about how to create a baller YouTube account and how to get those first thousand subscribers. You’re also going to hear from Jenny, right? She’s going to tell you how to build an amazing mailing list, how to do summits, whether you want to run one or be in one.
And you’re going to hear from Tracey Lamourie.
She is a PR goddess. And oh, my God, the amount of energy she has in this interview is just like she’s going to blow your mind with how much enthusiasm and love she has for PR and for being a publicist.
And all of these things going together are going to help you create the most amazing personal brand you can. Whether I said whether it’s your name behind it or not, these three interviews you’re going to hear going forward over this month are just going to help you.
Oh, my God, skyrocket.
All of these made me so excited. I was so excited for you to hear them. I can’t wait. I hope you love them, too. I will talk to you next week.
Me and Tracy Lamourie, we’re going to be talking about publicists and PR and I’ll talk to you then.
