As a consultant working in the career development field, in addition to professional knowledge and skills, you may need the skill to build a personal brand on social networks. There is an idiom, “Good wine needs no bush,” which means that “there’s no need to advertise or boast about something of good quality as people will always discover its merits.” However, this is only applicable in the context of small communities and in professions with little competition.
In the age of technology and globalization, being good is the first step. Making sure other people know what you’re good at is the next. So, how can you increase awareness of your services and attributes? In this article, I will share with you some basic steps.
1. Determine the target audience
Each consultant targets a different target group that needs counselling. Each of these groups has different personalities, habits, outlooks and interests. For example, I work with students who are internet-savvy, like creative and fast content – so I need to create short, creative and diverse content. A financial consultant targets people who are educated, long-term investors – so she creates in-depth content that requires a lot of time to read and reflect.
Identifying the right group of people to focus on helps you avoid spend time and resources on groups that do not bring you much benefit. To determine the target group to serve, you can answer some basic questions below:
- How old is your target client? Where do they live or work? What is their academic level?
- What content do these people consume online?
- What topics are they interested in?
- What are their dreams and desires?
2. Find a focus social media channel and create a website
After you have identified the target audiences in the previous step, you can use that information to choose your primary social media platform and create a personal website.
Although there are many social networking sites today, I still encourage you to create a personal website first. Personal websites are more customizable, can store more information and last longer than social networking sites.
Determining which social networking sites are the focus for content production depends on your strengths and the interests of the consulting audience you serve. For example, if you love to write, Facebook and LinkedIn are suitable sites. If you love to create images, use Instagram. If you like to speak, YouTube and TikTok are suitable. If you are targeting Gen X or Y, choose LinkedIn. If you are targeting Gen Z, choose TikTok.
3. Producing your unique content periodically
The next thing you need to do is produce content related to the consulting topic you’re working on. This is a boom time for content production, so if you want your content to stand out and be known, you need to ensure two basic criteria: that you present a unique style and have a recurring publishing schedule.
Having your own taste means presenting content in your own style. For example, some people choose to write deeply and academically, with many references. I choose to write in a short and simple style and offer many action plans. Every form of content has its merits. What is important is choosing a style that you are comfortable with and maintaining a consistent style across all of your content.
Recurring refers to how often you produce content on a regular basis on your chosen website or social media site. Maybe every day, every 2-3 days or once a week. In today’s era of too much content, you should be publishing new content at least weekly. Currently, there are many individuals who are making personal brands on social networks in many different fields and content, leading to the fact that every day social network users receive a lot of information. Producing at least one piece of content per week gives your personal brand the opportunity to appear again and again in users’ minds, thereby increasing personal brand awareness.
4. Expand content to other social networking platforms
Once you have a certain amount of content (more than 50 pieces) on the website or social media site of your choice, you can find ways to share it with more people by editing and expanding the content to other platforms. For example, after recording a video for YouTube, you can record the spoken content into a blog post or upload the audio to a podcast channel. This diversification of content helps you reach a broader audience because some people like to read, while others prefer to listen and watch. You could consider hiring freelancers to help you with this task.
5. Constantly updating new changes
This article focuses on some simple steps to build a personal brand on social networks. However, social media changes constantly. New algorithms, rules and websites appear every day, requiring you to regularly evaluate and update your approach to ensure your content is reaching your target audience. For example, in the past two years, many individuals and brands have converted their content from written on Facebook to short videos on TikTok.
In short, besides constantly learning to improve knowledge and skills, a consultant needs to learn more methods to help enhance their personal brand on social networks. Doing this gives the consultant the opportunity to reach more clients and help more people. There are so many ways to promote your personal brand on social media. I hope that the five ways shared in this article can give you more motivation to start launching your own personal brand.
