How Millennials Can Grow and Own Their Online Personal Brand

In this post, I’m going to teach you how I was able to strategically use Linkedin and Twitter to grow my personal brand that eventually got me signed by the National Speakers Bureau and land six figure contracts.

How did one grow their personal brands in 1999? We had to pick up the phone, introduce ourselves and shake as many hands as possible.

Today, we can leverage social media to share our story, message and personal brand in a fraction of the time that it used to. Please, don’t think that I’m discrediting meeting people in person because I believe there is a tremendous amount of value in doing so. I believe we should all be using social media to grow our personal brands that will help us get those face to face meetings we covet.

How many social media networks are there? Too many, so I’m not going to tell you to be on all of them to begin. The two networks that provide me with tremendous value are Linkedin and Twitter.

Linkedin:

Once you have determined your passion, you must set up a Linkedin profile. Regardless, of whether your passion is stamp collecting, yoga or hair styling you need to dominate on Linkedin. Ten years ago, we relied on resumes, while they are still important you won’t grow your personal brand without a Linkedin profile.

Once you have set up your account, start using the Linkedin search function to find like-minded professionals and connect with them. When I began using Linkedin, I would connect with people that I hadn’t formally been introduced or met in person and sent them a message like this:

Hi Joe-

Although, we haven’t formally met, I wanted to connect with you because we are both customer experience professionals.

Thank you.

Michel.

Here is what most people aren’t doing on Linkedin, sharing useful content. You must be sharing content related to your industry. For example, if your passion is hair styling and you come across a great post titled “10 Hair Styles for 2014” share it with your network. Slowly, you will become known as the “hair styling person” and when one of your connections is looking for a new hair stylist who do you think they will turn to?

For my business, I don’t spend anything on marketing. A considerable amount of my business has come from people that I first connected with on Linkedin.

Twitter:

I’m well aware that I don’t have a massive following on Twitter (less than 2k followers at the time of this post) but that doesn’t concern me. The people that are following me are people that I have earned “trust” with. They trust me to share amazing content related to customer experience, public speaking, digital marketing etc.

To own Twitter and create a following, you must be sharing amazing content that gets favourited and retweeted, this isn’t rocket science. What most people don’t do is consistently share amazing content.

Everyday, I share at least five articles or blog posts that I believe my “community” will like. Similar to Linkedin, I have come to be recognizable as the “customer experience guy” or the person that you can rely on to share content that is educating.

Search for hashtag weekly chats and join the conversation. On Tuesday evenings, I will try my best to join the #custserv chat for one hour. During this time, other customer service professionals get together and start talking about our industry. If yoga is your passion, go to Google or Twubs and type in “yoga weekly hashtag chats” and see what hashtag or weekly chats you should join. Here, I did it for you http://twubs.com/p/hashtag-directory?q=yoga.

As mentioned, there are dozens of social networks that you can use to grow your personal brand online. Whether it’s Linkedin and Twitter or Pinterest and Instagram, you need to work smart and hard to be recognized in your industry so that you can start earning a healthy and wealthy life.

Have you planned your 2014 social media strategy yet? If not, the holidays is a great time to plan it.

Connect with me on Linkedin and Twitter, don’t be shy.