Three Ways to Improve Your Personal Brand Skills as an Entrepreneur

There is no doubting the fact that personal branding has become huge over the past few years and is only set to grow in popularity over the next few months.

With social media becoming an acceptable (and arguably necessary) place for entrepreneurs to be seen, neglecting to build a personal brand is a rank disadvantage.

Why?

Because people buy from people. While having a strong business brand is crucial, the personal brand of the owner or CEO is equally as powerful. Just look at any mega-successful brand over the past few years.

Whether it is Elon Musk with Tesla, SpaceX, and now Twitter, Michael Saylor with MicroStrategy, Whitney Wolfe Herd with Bumble or Stephen Bartlett with Flight Story, strong brands have strong founders.

Therefore, you need to tell your story and cultivate a personal brand.

How?

Well, it is not the work of a moment and requires you to build a digital marketing skillset and the ability to write online (unless you want to hire a ghostwriter).

However, it is entirely possible and a task that is made easier the longer you stick at it.

To help, here are some actionable tips you can use to improve your personal branding skills as an entrepreneur:

Enroll in a digital marketing course

Before you start posting online or considering what you want to say, you should ensure your foundational marketing knowledge is in place.

Depending on what your existing knowledge base is, this may require you to either brush up on some specific social media skills or join a digital marketing online course at an online business school.

Doing this will put you in the best possible position to grow your personal brand.

After all, there is nothing worse than starting a social media account or appearing on podcasts and it doing your corporate brand damage rather than improving it. By sharpening your digital marketing skills, you will minimize the chances of a misstep.

Start posting on one social media platform

The best place to start building your personal brand is on social media. The reason for this is obvious – it is where people go to share their personal stories, connect with others and cultivate a network.

However, with a plethora of platforms to choose from, it can be tempting to start multiple accounts and post on loads of different social media platforms. Although logic would suggest this increases your chances of gaining followers, the opposite is true.

You need to start building your following on one single platform, because it will mean your content is tailored towards it and you can develop a concentrated community.

For entrepreneurs, Twitter or Linkedin are usually seen as your strongest choices.

Share personal stories and valuable tips

Finally, you need to open up.

It can seem counterintuitive to share personal (or even embarrassing) information in public online as an entrepreneur, but it will attract people to you and make you seem more relatable.

By sharing these stories, your brand will become more human and spark an emotional connection in your audience. You could share your challenges when building a business, private stories that relate to your business, or share tips for other entrepreneurs.