Your personal brand content plan can include all sorts of fun things like live videos, Instagram stories and podcasts… But before you run off and go mad with all the shiny things, you want to make sure that you have the foundations in place for building your personal brand online.
That sounds simple enough, but it can be overwhelming to know where to start – whether you’re just beginning to create your online presence, as a new business owner or freelancer, or you’ve been active online for some time but you’re wanting to shift direction. To help you out, this week I’m also sharing the opportunity to get my hands-on support in helping you execute your branding plan online. Make sure you check out these resources if that sounds like something you would appreciate – whether it’s that you don’t have time to spend on reviewing and optimising your online presence, or you’d just prefer that an expert does it for you.
Where to start
Your website about page
A well-written about page can help you share your story, establish your authority, and attract your ideal clients. It will bring to life your unique personality and style while increasing your value perception among your target market, weaving in your background, skills and strengths, and communicating how you can help your audience.
In fact, your “about me” page is not really about you after all, but about your prospective client. Yes, you want to be establishing yourself as the credible expert who can solve their urgent problem, but this needs to be framed in the context of that client and their wants, needs and desires. It’s not meant to be a self-indulgent treatise on how great you are, a promotional piece that’s all about “me” and “I”. Getting the balance right to attract and convert clients effectively can be tricky.
Your website services page
Having a strong “work with me” page will help you communicate what you do and attract more of your ideal clients, clearly demonstrating the value you can bring and converting your website visitors effectively into clients. You want to have a coherent page that builds your credibility with distinctive services that speak to specific customers and pain points and get people taking action to work with you.
This is not a list of every possible thing you can do with or for your client, nor should it be a long essay on your life philosophy. Assume that your visitor has no idea what you do and start high-level; speak in everyday language, not the jargon of your profession; and include a call to action for what you want them to do next, if they’re interested in working with you.
Your social media profiles
As much as building your brand is all about the content you create and share every day, every week, your basic presence across key social channels is critical to bringing to life your brand as you want it to be portrayed. Whether you’re looking to establish your authority in a new field, attract more of your ideal clients, or simply share your personal story with the world, you want your social media profiles to be working hard to help you do just that.
This means telling a coherent story using both imagery and copy that is consistent across your different profiles, with professional profile pictures and cover images, complete information in all the sections of each platform, and clear next steps to help your prospective client get in touch with you to find out more.
Moving forward
Spending some quality time on reviewing your website, specifically your “about” and “work with me” pages as well as your main social media profiles, will give you a strong basic presence and will ensure that you’re showing up online as you’d like to appear to your audience. However, this is only the first step, as if you leave it there you won’t have a lot of people who actually see the wonderful work you’ve done on your website and profiles!
Next week, we’ll be moving on from these basic elements to look at building on those foundations with the content that you’re creating every day, every week.
