So, what is personal branding?
Personal branding
Personal branding is all about individuals promoting unique company messages and goals so prospects, partners, and clients understand who they are — and why they need the company’s services. In other words, it’s promoting a company through an individual leader. It not only gives prospects a relatable face to put with a name, so they know “Jim” from your company, but can also help build brand familiarity.
In influencer marketing, businesses hire well-known people to promote their products or services. This focuses on targeting consumers with specific interests who may already be interested in the person promoting the products and helps build business and brand awareness. Personal branding is similar but individuals may not have the same volume of followers as influencers. Instead, they influence the small niche of people around them and promote their company brands.
Why choose personal branding?
A cohesive and consistent message goes a long way in gaining client trust. After all, business-to-business (B2B) sales is still made up of person-to-person interactions. So, how is your business different from your competitors’? Who makes up your company? Showing your CEO’s personality does not make your CEO look unprofessional. Rather, it gives your company an individuality that distinguishes it from your competitors. Make your audience feel like they are in on a secret and allow them to get to know you in a way others don’t.
As Active Blogs Marketing Strategist Connor Dube says, “You trust other people, not nameless, faceless companies.”
Letting your clients know what makes you unique — what you excel at and why you’re passionate about what you do — helps create a personal B2B experience. Keep it professional, but do it with your own personal style.
Personal branding tips
Here are some ways to insert personality into your branding to distinguish your company:
- Show your work.
Create a portfolio prospects and clients can look through. Good work can speak for itself, but providing a narrative alongside the portfolio can go far to explain your vision and part in the project. - Maintain a steady content stream.
Business blogs individualize companies, establish them as leaders in their fields, and connect businesses to more clients. According to a HubSpot study, “B2B companies that blogged 11+ times per month had almost 3X the traffic as companies that blogged only once per month.”
Producing frequent material is important, but good content means quality before quantity. With a focus on quality, you can produce meaningful content that’s informative and interesting. Why would anyone continue to read a blog that lacks substance or follow someone on social media who doesn’t offer value? Your content should be thoughtful and authentic — adding value for your prospects and clients, allowing them to build trust in your company. You can also use your content to introduce audience members to other professionals inside the company, opening up more personal branding opportunities.
Don’t have the time to create well-written and unique content or simply don’t know where to start? You may want to consider outsourcing your blog and social media writing and posting to professionals who specialize in B2B marketing. When you have a team of creative minds and writers on your side, you can tap into their content creation experience and build a successful marketing strategy based on metric reporting and analysis. - Pay attention to your social media presence.
Actively using social media platforms is a great method for building a more relatable, personalized brand. LinkedIn — the most-used content marketing social media platform — is a fantastic tool for B2B content distribution and attracting leads. Use this as a place to showcase your portfolio and your consumer-centered content, such as blogs. Be sure to engage frequently with prospects on multiple platforms, reaching the largest possible audience, but focus your efforts: Pay attention to where your core audience is and cater to their needs.
Posting information on your company page within a platform such as LinkedIn is a great start; however, the company page itself likely has a limited number of followers. Ask your teammates, partners, and reach out to other personal brands to actively promote your company by posting and sharing links to content as well as advertising company achievements.
Personal branding is necessary to stand out in this sea of content. Each company is different — be it in size, environment, mission, or products — so demonstrate the difference your brand makes to emerge from the monochrome pool of content marketing — and attract more clients.
