Top tips for marketing your personal leadership brand. After all your hard work in creating and building your personal leadership brand, the final step is to make sure it’s noticed by the audiences that count to you.
Over the past five blogs, we’ve explored together what a personal leadership brand is and what goes into an effective one. In this final blog, I want to share with you some of the main ways in which you can “market” your personal leadership brand—that is to say, how to make sure it is prominent and attracts the right sort of attention.
It goes without saying that you have a clear understanding not only of what your personal leadership brand stands for, but also of the key strategic priorities you are driving at the present time.
Position it effectively on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is probably the best business platform, but most people use it woefully badly. Make your LinkedIn profile work for you. A good first step is to move away from the bog-standard short CV, and craft a profile that communicates who you are, what you stand for and the unique value you deliver as a leader. Make sure that you publish everything you do on your LinkedIn profile, and check it regularly.
Determine what other social media platforms would work for you. There is a great (and increasing) variety of social media platforms out there. Spend some time sussing them out and decide which ones harmonise with your personal leadership brand and are used by the people you would like to reach. A CEO is unlikely to be well served by an Instagram or Pinterest account—unless he or she is in a specific industry like interior design or landscaping.
Beware of taking on too much — social media needs to be used for it to be effective.
Look at other channels you can use. There’s an online world beyond classic social media. Hosting a podcast that showcases your take in industry issues, or that features you talking to other influencers, could work. Is there a local TED Talk you could present at? Maybe a YouTube channel would be something to consider?
Speaking at conferences and webinars is still a great way to build profile with desirable audiences. It’s not clear whether the in-person conference circuit will ever get back to its former state, but take advantage of the virtualisation of conferences which enables you to attend and present at more than you could do when lots of travel was involved. Even when events are virtual, there are still good networking possibilities via online chat rooms and the chat line—use them.
The bigger point is that you need to use a range of channels to make sure your message gets through.
Make sure your actions as a leader align with your personal brand. How do you allocate your time? How do you make decisions? How do you communicate with your team? Do you celebrate wins to build up your team, do you provide guidance on how to negotiate change?
Use these top tips for marketing your personal leadership brand intelligently and diligently, and you will find that you will build a profile for yourself as a leader. And who knows where that will lead!
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