I have been working with several of my team members on developing some brand pillars and social media marketing strategies, and I wanted to share some of the exercises that I do with them with you.
Personal brands, do you think you have one or do you think you need one?
If you are not an online entrepreneur, is it even necessary to have one? I would argue that you want to be intentional on how you show up in all parts of your life, particularly on social media. Sometimes showing up online without a specific plan or purpose can work just fine. Other times, you can create unintended consequences to your behavior on this platform. Please be thoughtful about that.
I am a big believer in being super intentional about all the things you do in your life, especially how you show up when it has a reverberating effect on other people.
As a social media expert and an online entrepreneur, myself, I want to share some of the things that I coach my team to do. I will debunk a few myths because I really believe that we are all multi-passionate people. While I think it is important to be very clear about what you’re offering to people, I do believe we can also be a lot of different things.
Personal Branding Tips
#1 Brainstorm your own personal values and personal priorities
I often hear branding experts advise to narrow your key core values down to three core values. Personally, I don’t have just three core values; I have a lot of things that are important to me.
For example, I am a huge believer in personal growth. Our goal is to grow and learn and we grow as we go. The more we learn, the more we know. Failure is feedback and I believe everything is happening for me, not to me.
My personal growth journey and philosophy leads to other values, such as self-forgiveness, empathy, forgiveness of others and a desire to try to show up as the best person I can be every day.
Personal growth is one of my core values.
Another one of my core values is congruence. Congruence is “I say what I do, I do what I say”. I don’t always get it right, but that’s my goal. My goal is I don’t say one thing and then do something else that’s completely out of alignment with my character.
Having authentic connections is another one of my core values. I believe in seeing the commonalities between people, and really trying to find ways that we can connect authentically from one human being to another. That drives a lot of the way I show up in my whole life.
Personal wellness is another core value of mine. Selfcare, helping other people take care of themselves. Figuring out how to feel our best, knowing that we’re not always going to get it perfect. Family, love, connections, and community.
I write out many of my core values and when I interact online through posts, comments, actions I make sure my core values are reflected. My core values are the lens I look through. Sometimes I will say things knowing they’re not always going to make everyone happy. However, if I don’t say them, I’m not being congruent and authentic.
My core values really give me a lens through which to see my behavior or my social media marketing behavior.
So, as a first step, write down your core beliefs and highlight some underlying trends.
#2 What are your 3 to 5 Brand Pillars?
Think of any social media strategy you do. The three to five brand pillars are in your wheelhouse of expertise. They are the things you’re passionate about, the things that you really want to communicate as part of who you are as a human.
My Five brand pillars are:
- Priorities. I’m always looking at what the most important thing is for me, for my life, for my family and I put that on the front burner. I really make the time to be super intentional about setting priorities and making sure I’m doing what matters most.
- Mindset. I am a huge fan of the law of attraction, the law of vibration. I believe our thoughts manifest. I believe everything we put out, is bringing something back to us and it starts with how we think about things.
- Selfcare. Self-care comes in a lot of different ways. It comes with the health products that I often tell you about. It comes with the exercise classes I do for my clean plate club. It starts with how I wake up every morning and listen to my law of attraction podcast. How I meditate, how I exercise, how I take a break when I need one, etc.
- Community. I believe the company you keep matters and if you’re not being surrounded by people who share your values, who are forward thinking people, who are determined to grow and to be better, they will either pull you back or move you forward. The world’s moving forward and you can’t stay the same. You’re either moving forward or coming back. Surround yourself with the right group of people in your personal life and in your business, it all matters. One of the things we’ve learned in this past year is that we need community more than ever again. I show up on my clean plate club very intentionally all the time, because I want it to be that olive branch for the online community for people. You can find out more about my clean plate club here.
- Magnetic marketing. Magnetic marketing is really helping entrepreneurs. I have a marketing mind and love to be creative. It is definitely my core strength. I can come up with ideas and help other people implement them. I am determined to use that to help as many people as possible.
Those are my brand pillars, yours might be different. There are different brand pillars, and you want to come up with three to five of them. Even if you have a super niche, for example, intermittent fasting. Your brand pillars could be intimate, fast and sport. Those could be the things you want people to learn. Make sure you’re showing different parts of your brand. What’s important to you? What’s valuable to you when you show up on social media? Some of these things overlap, like mindset and marketing Therefore, there are a lot of different ways to look at this.
#3 Do an audit
When new people join my team, this is usually one of the first things I do. I take a peek at their social media to see what they are doing. I can get a very clear understanding of who someone is from their social media feed. I can tell exactly what’s going on with them because we leave a footprint. I would really encourage you to look at what you’ve posted recently and the kinds of things you’ve commented on. See how you’re showing up on social media and if it lines up with your values. Check if your content relates to your brand pillars.
By doing these steps, you’re going to get a very clear understanding of what you’ve been doing.
Remove anything negative from your social media feed. It is unhelpful and unproductive. In general, as a life rule, don’t post anything negative. Nobody needs more negativity in this world. Clean up your feed and start getting super intentional about what you want to post.
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