About 2 weeks ago I posted a matrix designed to help companies decide what social media channels they should be using. I originally intended to outline which channels are best to achieve certain personal branding goals, but as I talked with people who are leaders in personal branding; I started to get a lot of data, and decided to split the posts in two.
This post is dedicated to deciding which social media channels to use for personal branding.
Let me begin by explaining what personal branding is; in the simplest way I can.
3 components come together to create a personal brand: Relationships, Standards, and Style. If you don't define which relationships you want to build, what your brand standards are, and what your brands style is; you're likely going to create an abstract personal brand. Leaving it open to interpretation by your audience.
There are 3 factors you should take into consideration when defining each component. These 'influential factors' are:
- Personality: Ideally, personality defines your emotional and cognitive behaviors and temperaments. In this case, personality is more accurately defined as: how you'd like your audience to perceive your emotional and cognitive behaviors and temperaments. (Meaning, it would be great if I actually was an intellectual, happy, fun-loving guy. But as it relates to personal branding, I want to, at least, GET MY AUDIENCE TO BELIEVE I'm an intellectual, happy, fun-loving guy.)
- Skills: Defined as learned abilities. (E.g. computer skills, medical skills, basketball skills, parenting skills.)
- Traits: This might not be the most appropriate term, but 'traits' are what I'm calling inherent abilities. (strategic thinking, organization, conversation)
**NOTE: Let me just reinforce the difference between skills and traits. Basketballs skills could be a trait, if it's an inherent ability; meaning if you're good at basketball because you have a natural talent for it, it would be considered a trait. On the same line of thinking, organization could be a skill; meaning if you've learned how to be organized, and it doesn't come naturally for you, it should be considered a skill.
If you're interested in my method of personal branding, feel free to contact me and I'll explain how to use the diagram in more detail; and provide you with the worksheet I use.
Ok, lets assume you've already defined your personal brand. What are the best social media channels that will bring it to life?
In the continuum of personal branding; there are 3 extreme categories you could fall into.
- as the name suggests, is either an expert at something; or believes himself to be one. He'll create his own content, and share his knowledge with whomever wants it. Experts are often authors, or want to be authors. They're often entrepreneurs, where they either own, or have a stake in their company and its success.
- is interested in entertaining the community. He could be an actor, musician, sports player; as long as his goal is to entertain.
- is a person who's goal is to be considered interested in a subject. He doesn't want to be an expert, but wants his audience to know that he has his thumb-on-the-pulse of an industry. The interested are often 'tenants' in a position, (e.g. CMO, CFO, CEO) where their aim is to improve a company while they hold the position.
You can be any combination & degree within these categories.
See the below Venn diagram:
When you figure out where you land; you can figure out what social media channels would be the most effective.
If you'd like a definition of these channels, you can refer to my previous post.
As I alluded to earlier; it took an extra couple weeks to sort through all the data I collected on personal branding; and who's doing it where. Essentially, I collected people who have either established, or are clearly trying to establish a personal brand, and plotted them within the Venn Diagram. From there, I was able to collect similarities in social media channels and extrapolate the extreme categories. VERY few of the personal brand's I ran into fit completely into a category.
Someone might have clearly been an expert, but used Facebook as an entertainer; not providing much expert advice or knowledge through that one channel. If you consider the matrix, the most effective experts use their blogs as a primary form of expert communication. The most effective entertainers use social networks as their primary form of communication. So, a person who has an established brand as an expert, in my opinion, would be smart to engage his Facebook audience as an entertainer.
As a final note, all of the data I've collected as given me some fantastic insight on the most effective and least effective ways to monetize your personal brand. I feel like this post is getting long, so I'll leave that for next time.