Building a profitable personal brand using social media
Over the weekend, I was asked by a WhatsApp group to give a lecture on “Building a profitable personal brand using social media.”
I will share my take on the subject matter as follows:
Let’s start with, what is a brand?
A brand is a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that identifies one seller’s good or service as distinct from those of other sellers. Brands are used in business, marketing, and advertising.
Basically, a brand is what people perceive you to be.
Perception is said to be made up of three things
Visibility — what people see you do.
Social proof — what people say you do
Consistency — the “spirit” you invoke in doing what you do.
Please note that consistency is a spirit, more on this later.
So how do you build a profitable personal brand using social media?
The above is the obvious question.
But it is not the right question to begin with.
In order of priority, the right question to begin with is:
Why do we need to build a personal brand?
Why
How
What
Why do we need to build a personal brand?
We can use the analogy of farming.
This is if a field with crops is left unattended to, weeds will begin to grow alongside the crops.
We can also take it from another angle.
All of us have three Cs:
Content — what you studied/ know (I’m not talking only about degree or certificate)
Competence: what you have mastered aka attained a certain level of expertise on based on acquired skill/ sharpened talent and experience.
Communication: we have eyes to see and take in content, we have ears to hear and take in content. But we also have a brain to process content and a mouth to speak and pour out content (or hands to type in this particular instance).
Content, competence, communication
Let’s go back to farming analogy.
If in your area of specialty, you don’t share knowledge, you don’t speak out, you don’t correct negative or wrong assumptions, weeds aka wrong information will soon overrun the industry.
Nowadays, we have people they call SME aka Subject Matter Expert.
These are people who are usually called/ invited and asked for advice or opinion on specific matters.
If the SME is a pretender, he or she will say “nonsense” and the ignorant general public will take it as “sense” and adopt same.
Thus if you have content and competence in a particular sector, then the onus is on you to always communicate and educate people on the sector.
Social media is a tool of communication and much more.
Content, competence, communication
Nobody lights a candle and put it under the table.
You are light, so shine.
So how do you build a profitable personal brand?
Let’s start with the word “build” and let’s use a Veterinary Doctor based in Nigeria as our case study.
To build his personal brand,, he need adopt only one major principle or method.
Document don’t create.
As far as VET doctors in Nigeria are concerned, I am yet to see a VET dishing out advise on social media.
And if there is, they are few and far between, so that means there a lot of space for a Nigerian VET to showcase his content and competence.
He doe not necessarily have to create content to share on social media.
He simply has to document what he does daily.
For example:
If he is operating on an animal, he should have it recorded.
If he is treating an animal, he should record it.
If he is explaining something to the owner of a pet, he should record it (with the permission of the pet owner).
If he is training or teaching interns, subordinates and / or staff in the office, he should have it recorded.
So document content don’t create content.
Of cos you can create content if need to. Maybe to address a particular issue not captured in your daily activities.
For example:
We should have your opinion on coronaviruses, the animals that can infect people and how to prevent transmission of the virus from animal to people.
So what will make your personal brand profitable?
By providing content, you will be answering questions that:
People have asked
People are asking
And that
People will ask.
And if your content is “well” shared on major social media platforms, it will always pop up on search engines and refer people to you.
And if content is provided consistently over a period of time, you are perceived as a SME and people will always seek you out for advise, opinion and consultation.
But like I said when I mentioned perception,
CONSISTENCY is a spirit.
You will have to keep at it for a while before you gain traction.
Depending on how big the void that needs to be filled in your area of expertise, you can gain traction sooner than later.
People that will seek you out won’t be limited to people in your location or country.
Remember what the Good book (aka the Bible), says,
You are the light of the World.
Not the light of Lagos or Nigeria.
Also a city set on a hill can’t be hidden.
But first you have to find your hill (content and competence) and build on it (communication).
And as long as you never stop building (consistency), you will never be hidden but will always shine and be consulted.
Major social media platforms that you can use to communicate your content and competence are as follows:
WhatsApp
Facebook
Instagram
LinkedIn
Twitter
YouTube
Tik Tok
Telegram
Snapchat
I hope with this few words of mine, I have convinced or confused on why and how to build a profitable personal brand using social media.
Any questions????
Questions are guaranteed in life, answers are not…
Signed
Olumide Holloway aka King Olulu not from Zulu.
+2348025070892, olulu4ever@gmail.com, Twitter @olulu4ever, Instagram @olulutheking
