Regardless of where you are at in your career, it’s never too late or too early to level up your personal brand. The easiest way to do so is to leverage the power of digital marketing to drive targeted eyeballs to you.
Think about your brand for a minute. When someone is getting ready to do business with you, they stop and Google your name. Google calls it, “the zero moments of truth,” I call it marketing in the moment. If there is anything negative about you online, they second guess their decision.
Your mission is to take control of what is out there about you online. From there, you will make certain your image is portrayed in the best light. Here are five steps a man can take to improve his brand:
Step 1: Conduct a digital brand audit.
Before you can start improving what’s online, you need to know what’s out there already. The process is simple.
Pick a few different search engines; Google, Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo. Next, Google your name, and any variations you use. Scroll through the first few pages and take stock of what is out there. Depending on your past, this may be shocking.
For example, you may find old fraternity photos you thought were private, myspace pages, and a lot more.
Step 2: Clean up the junk.
Get to work on cleaning things up from the accounts you found. This process could take five minutes or even five weeks. It depends on how active you have been online and what your digital footprint looks like. Remove anything that doesn’t fit the man you are striving to become before it bites you in the future.
Step 3: Optimize your social profiles.
Doing some light optimization on your main social media profiles will start to drive attention to you quickly. The secret sauce is to leverage keywords that you want to be found for.
For example, I use keywords like digital strategy, marketing authority, and online marketing. If you are looking to make an impact in the sales world, leverage sales keywords in your headline, bio, and throughout your profile. I recommend starting with LinkedIn as it’s the platform for business.
Take some time to load in all the various places and organizations you have worked with or at, all your accolades, and education. The more you load in, the better, just make sure to sprinkle in the keywords and buzz words throughout but don’t overdo it.
Step 4: Create a brand site.
The first thing you need is a domain name. Consider this your new virtual home. In a perfect world, “yourname.com” is available to register. If the .com version is not available you have a few options to consider.
First, you can grab a domain that includes your middle initial or your middle name.com. Second, there are hundreds of non .com extensions to look at. For a brand site, I would focus on .net, .me or .info.
Once you have your domain name registered, the easiest way to get a website built is to use a template. The three easiest to use options include:
- Squarespace
- Wix
- Weebly
These platforms allow you to pick a design and essentially drop and drag a website to completion.
On your site, build out an about me page, a contact page and something like a “here’s what I’m up to” page. Like your social profiles, leverage some keywords on each of the pages for phrases you want to be found for and known for.
Keep in mind that you won’t just magically appear on page one of Google for competitive phrases. The chances are high you will rank well for your local area and cities.
For example, if you were a sales trainer ranking for “sales trainer and a city is very realistic. As you grow, update and evolve your website, don’t let it stay static for too long.
Step 5: Find your people and contribute.
The final step in this process is to make a contribution. The way to get ahead using digital marketing online is to drive lots of organic traffic to your optimized profile(s) and brand site.
The best way to do that is to find where your target market hangs out and be of service. Post answers to questions, give feedback, ask questions yourself. The goal is for the users to see you as a resource. This is like selling without selling.
As you post more helpful content, people will become curious about you and want to learn more. You will find the more you post, the more direct messages you get, the more eyeballs you get and the faster your brand and career will grow.
Execute these steps to precision and I promise you, as a man, your brand will grow along with your influence and income.
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Photo Credit: @dadaben_ on Unsplash