One of the best brand marketing tips for executives is to be active on social media. It’s among the most powerful marketing tools. And yet, many executives don’t take the time. Set it and forget it, right?
Social media can help you expand your network, increase referrals and attract business. However, senior executives may struggle with using social media. Time limitations and overbooked calendars can get in the way. As a result, they avoid social media. They aren’t sure how it may affect their businesses. Therefore, they miss important industry conversations. Furthermore, they lose out on media coverage and chances to connect with new clients.
Step one: Make a plan
Using social media to grow your personal brand doesn’t have to be complicated. But you need a clear plan before you invest time in building your network. Executive leaders who don’t have plans often resort to sharing sporadic updates. These updates don’t have any effect on their goals. Moreover, having a plan simplifies the process and increases the chances for success.
Step two: Set an objective
Be sure to set a clear objective for your efforts. Therefore, understand why you want to use social media. And decide what you want to accomplish before you dive in. Do you want to make yourself searchable when current and prospective clients research your business? Perhaps you’d like to increase your credibility as a subject expert. Or do you want to generate media coverage? Social media can help you with all of these goals. But you’ll need to tailor your approach.
Step three: Craft your story
Show your expertise in a way that differentiates you from other experts in your field. Your social media profiles let you show your credibility as a subject expert in your industry. People don’t want to hear about how great you are at your job. Instead, they want to know your story. What’s your background? What are you passionate about? Reveal obstacles you’ve faced and overcome. How can you help them? Crafting a story for your personal brand helps you be consistent across your social media channels.
Step four: Choose your channels
You don’t need to be on every social media channel to be successful. It takes time to manage new channels, and that’s one of your most limited assets. Consequently, it’s better to invest more time in a few social networks than to invest a little time in many networks. Start by identifying who you want to reach through social media and the channels where they’re active. After that, build your presence on those specific networks. In short, don’t waste time on platforms that won’t help you reach your goals.
Step five: Create your profiles
You want people to be able to find you in their networks. First, create accounts on the platforms where you’d like to be active. Then use the story you crafted to fill in your profiles. Use one photo across all of your social media channels. That way, people can recognize you. Next, invite people from your offline network to follow you on your new channels. Make a list of past and current clients, colleagues and business associates you’d like to connect with. After that, invite them to connect with you on social media. Connecting with people in your existing network is the best way to build a following.
Step six: Create content
The last step in our brand marketing tips is to write content that you can share on your social media channels. You don’t need to share updates every day. Create a plan that works for your schedule. After that, make a list of upcoming events, announcements and other shareable topics. Next, draft social media updates for each item on your list. You can use a tool like Hootsuite or Buffer to schedule your posts. This will give you content that you can use to engage your followers and expand your network. From here, you can decide what other types of content you would like to share. Examples include interesting articles from industry blogs, relevant studies and new blog posts on your company’s website.
