Social media is not just a place to share vacation photos or stalking your crush. It provides a unique opportunity to help you build a personal brand, especially if you are just entering the professional world and you need to stand out in the crowd.
Do recruiters look through your social media before hiring you? Do potential employers judge you by what you post on you Instagram? Yes, and Yes!
So, what can you do to make sure that your social media presence gives you an edge?
To find out, the Faculty of Social Sciences invited the QI Group’s Chief Communications Officer Ms Ramya Chandrasekaran to lead a webinar on “Building a Personal Brand on Social Media for Professional Purposes”.
And because we care about you, we’re bringing you all the tips right here!
Identify Your Brand
Everyone has a story, a passion, something they are good at. Start by identifying it.
What do you want people to know you as? Your passion could be in sports, writing, photography, music, history, the culinary arts or something completely different. What matters is that you identify what that one thing is. What is the story you want to tell the world? That becomes your brand and your key message.
Once you find that it becomes much easier to develop your persona around it.
Find Your Tribe
Once you’ve decided what your brand is, figure out where your tribe is. For instance, if your forte is gaming, perhaps your people are on Discord. If you are a designer, then you should be on Behance. Whatever the platform is, it becomes your go-to place to learn, to network, to get inspired, and to grow.
Why is this so important? Before you can create great social media content, you should know your stuff. When you’re among your tribe, you are speaking the same language. You can increase your knowledge by asking questions and picking up tips. You can use it as a lab to test your skills, get feedback from those who understand your subject matter, and most importantly you get to expand your network.
Two great places to start are LinkedIn and Quora, which have dedicated groups for all kinds of topics and are a treasure trove of information.
Be Real
Remember when we told you about finding your passion? Doing something you love makes it much easier to create authentic content and express your creativity.
Your content should be an organic extension of your brand personality. Think of your social media interactions as part of a resume of your work and a reflection of your professional attitude.
If you just ape an influencer, it won’t work because their story isn’t your story.
Being fake just isn’t sustainable simply because you will have to put in so much effort to keep up appearances that you will burn out eventually. Also, your followers will smell it out.
Good Planning=Good Content
Your success depends on what you post. Planning out your content helps you map out your story on a long-term basis. For example, if you’re a musician, artist, or chef-in-the-making, you could plan something themed around a particular holiday. That might attract some extra traffic.
It’s also vital to study your data and see what’s working (and what’s not). Also, don’t be boring and just talk about yourself. Give a shoutout to someone you admire, share content from others that you are inspired by. There’s a whole world of things out there for you to work with.
Learn from the Experts
It’s a cliché, but learning never stops. Look for successful people in your chosen field who resonate with your message. See what they’re doing right and wrong; analyse how their followers respond to their content. There is so much you can learn just by observing interactions in comments.
Don’t be afraid to take their ideas but remember to adapt it to your message.
Avoid Common Mistakes
Your social media isn’t a confessional. Don’t use it to broadcast the drama in your life. Don’t be rude and don’t diss people. Also, there is such a thing as oversharing. Don’t spam your followers. Be consistent with your postings, but don’t go beyond 3-4 posts a week or your audience might get sick of you.
How you write is just as important as what you write. Your audience won’t take you seriously if your posts are riddled with grammar and spelling mistakes. Double-check your content—tag the right people and check for autocorrect mistakes.
Before starting a job hunt, do a complete audit of your social media. Remove any of your older posts that might trigger red flags in an employer, because they will be checking.
Be Patient
A brand cannot be built overnight. You have to be patient and consistent. No one starts as an expert. Building a brand involves a lot of trial and error. If you make mistakes, it’s not the end of the world. Acknowledge it, apologise for it, and move on. Your audience will appreciate the honesty. And people have short memories.
Join groups, broaden your network, and learn by asking. Refine your content as you go along.
Most importantly, remember you are not trying to be an influencer. If it happens, that’s great! But that cannot be what you begin with.
None of this will matter if you haven’t asked yourself the tough questions before you begin the process. Figuring out what makes you “you” is the necessary first step to making your brand realistic and relatable — and getting in front of the people who matter most.
Good luck!
Ramya Chandrasekaran is the Chief Communications Officer for the QI Group, with more than 20 years of experience in PR, brand building, social media marketing, digital communications and reputation management. She can be reached at ramya.c@qigroup.com
