Whether you are an individual or represent a company, branding is an important aspect of how you can succeed with your public relations. An effective brand expresses your personality, tells your story, and highlights the subjects that you want to address. With a wealth of data about people and groups already out there in the digital age, managing your brand helps you control what people will likely come across anyway. Five key steps for strengthening your own brand were detailed by Jenn Chen on SproutSocial entitled “The Ultimate Guide to Personal Branding.”

  1. Choose the goals you want to achieve. Start by considering what the result of your brand should be. Being a top choice for keynote speaking opportunities can differ from the broader status of being a thought leader in your profession. You may find inspiration from others who play roles similar to what you want and how they brand themselves.
  2. Once you have an idea of your aspirations, analyze your brand as it stands by searching yourself online. Notice who and what else appears in the search, and consider how you can make yourself stand out from them going forward, including how certain keywords can help your cause. Examine your website and social media profiles as well, paying particular attention to coordination. Consistency in your photos and profiles, colors, and the link of all your profiles back to your website strengthen your presence online. Using the same handle for as much social media as possible also creates a consistent image that avoids confusing anyone looking for you.
  3. With your goals and current status in mind, create a strategy for moving from one to the other. Search the keywords commonly associated with what you want to be, and plan out content to create and share that is similar to what others in that role use. You don’t need to share material about yourself all the time, but a good way to start is engaging with the community that already exists and making yourself familiar to them while building associations with yourself and that subject.
  4. Examine your progress after you have executed your strategy for a while. Look at your analytics to see if you are making an impact, or if you aren’t attracting the attention you want. Distributing content on its own may not be enough if your metrics show that people aren’t engaging with it. Make the effort to share content from others and respond to the engagement you get to build an audience and draw notice to yourself.
  5. Finally, if becoming a thought leader or influencer in your field is a goal for you, consistent engagement with the industry community may ultimately build that status for you. You can see how you rank among the influencers on your subject with platforms like Buzzsumo. Even if becoming an influencer is not your primary goal, you can still use these sites to see in another way how you appear to brands looking for these thought leaders.

If you’re in healthcare, insurance, technology or other professional services industries, and need help with a PR, marketing or social media campaign, contact Scott Public Relations.

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