The super-simple 7 step process to building your Personal Brand on LinkedIn from nothing…

You see, we all have a personal brand already. You’re known for talking about certain topics. Dress in a certain way. Have an individual tone of voice. What we’re going to talk about is transforming that offline personal brand into an online one. Where you’ll be able to open yourself up to more opportunties, generating business leads and connecting with like-minded people. It all starts by being a little more intentional about it and creating content.

Step 1: Define your goals & what you want to be known for

Step 2: Start building out a strategy with content pillars

Step 3: Work out what makes you DISTINCT

Step 4: Optimise your profile for conversion

Step 5: Ideate & create winning content

Step 6: Engagement & networking with like-minded people in a similar space

Step 7: Content hacks so you can stay consistent

Step 1: Define Your Goals & What You Want To Be Known For

Working Out Why You’re Using LinkedIn

90% of my clients fit within one of these 2 categories.

1. Community Building - all about sharing your story and creating a following of people interested in your values, journey, areas of interest.

   How to do it:
   - Sharing personal stories related to your experience and values
   - Giving an honest look at your highs and lows in your current life
   - Showing insights from your life - travel, speaking events, team meetings

2. Lead Generation - you’re not interested in followers or virility in comparison generating pre-qualified, high-quality interest from your posts.
   How to do it:
   - Sharing knowledge based posts around your niche
   - Showing results, testimonials and lots of social proof
   - Subtly talking about your service/offering
   - Ensuring you use your content to show your USP's
   - An inside look at the business & how you deliver projects

The first step to building a successful personal brand is getting clear about your WHY.

The 2 different strategies above require different positioning, different images and different content in order to make the best potential that LinkedIn has to offer.

What You’re Going to be Known For

When people land on your profile - what do you want them to say about you. If they were to summarise you in a sentence what would it be.

You can then start to position yourself from there. And build a profile & create content which leads them to that sentence with what you’ll become known for.

Examples can be:

• Personal Brand expert who shares unconventional thoughts creating content online.

• Someone who has built a series of diversified income streams whilst being a solopreneur.

• Sharing controversial views around leadership from their 20 year experience in the corporate world.

• Inspiring stories from your own experience of being a female senior executive.

Step 2: Start Building Out a Strategy With Content Pillars

Knowing your goals and what you want to be known for write down a few related big-picture topics.

• Make sure you could talk on these for hours.

• What do you naturally discuss with friends?

• What activities do you do at the weekend?

• What do family members/kids say about you?

• What content do you enjoy consuming and why?

Circle the most relevant and impactful topic areas - You want to aim for 3 of these.

I recommend having some variation, for example:

1. A very random niche thing you enjoy - that you haven’t seen many others talk about

2. A niche topic related to your business

3. A wider more thought-leadership topic that links to your background/story

Within these different topics you can brainstorm all the different possible sub-categories you can talk about. Try come up with 10 bullet points for each really braking down that topic.

Step 3: Working Out What Makes YOU Stand Out

I believe in the power of distinct Personal Brands. Otherwise you’re pumping noise where everyone else is and you won’t become undifferentiated. It’s all about positioning you as completely unique, in a market of one.

It’s so easy to end up blending into lots of others, all talking about similar ideas in a similar way. So work out what makes your journey/story/experience unique and draw insight from that.

Also think about some of the more visual elements of your Personal Brand that can be made uniquely you.

• A couple emojis you always use

• A vivid colour that links to your personal brand

• A bold fashion choice that makes you quirky

• A style & aesthetic for your photos

• Owning a couple of words, phrases or hashtags

I really believe that sweating the small stuff and getting these small details right makes a massive difference. As when your content is getting seen by 10 million people and you're building your Personal Brand over the course of years... these tiny things add up and are what make you Distinct.

Step 4: Five Tips in Creating Winning Content

There are 2 key types of LinkedIn content:

1. Outreach content - focused on getting eyeballs on your brand/service/name
2. Nurture content - focused on solving pain-points of prospects

Plus, I wanted to share 5 tips to help out:

1. Spend time creating an engaging and attention-grabbing hook. The first 2 lines above the fold, are key drivers of performance. Hooks should be original, short, concise, use powerful words and tell the whole story/concept of the post.

2. Focus on posts that are clear & easy-to-read post with plenty of white space. Posts should be kept short, broken into concise paragraphs, bullet-points used where possible.

3. Conversational & conversational last line to spark a discussion. The very last line should leave the audience with a question driving lengthy, meaningful discussion in the comments section.

4. Use of emojis throughout - Add emojis to your posts to add personality. Certain emojis can become distinct and unique to your personal brand too when used frequently.

5. Your content should have an authentic tone of voice. The style and tone of voice should be casual and informal and read more like a text message compared to a report. Loose language that isn’t complicated with some colloquial words works best.

Step 4: Creating an Optimised Profile For Conversion

Your LinkedIn profile is your best conversion tool. It’s not all about converting to business leads. It is also about ensuring people hit that follow button, maybe send you a message…. whatever your key goals are for LinkedIn ensuring your profile is optimised to deliver them is key.

- Ensuring it shows your credentials.
- Showing you in action - from speaking, podcast appearances, meetings.
- Making sure it gives everyone a flavour of your personality & story.

But most importantly it should look like lots of love and attention has been poured into it - and it doesn’t feel neglected.

I see so many poor profiles so here’s my process of levelling them up:

Step 1: Profile Picture

- Check your profile picture is visible to 2nd and 3rd connections (click your profile pic, then click the eye in the bottom left corner and hit 'visible to everyone'
- Ensure your profile picture is high-quality, shows you clearly and is dynamic - nothing worse than a boring one

Step 2: Cover Photo

- So many have these blank - this is more space to inject your personality and demonstrate what you're about
- Include a short-phrase that sums up your interests or what you do
- Make sure the style & look is inline with your profile picture and any other assets on your profile
- Use it to drive a specific outcome: driving newsletter sign-ups, pushing people to your website or to follow you.

Step 3: Header

- This, after your name, is the text that is visible in all your content, comments, likes, so make sure it's good!
- In 7 words you need to 1. Tell people who you are 2. Tell people what you do/who you help. 3. Tell people what they should expect if they follow you

Step 4: Website link

- LinkedIn recently introduced the website link feature so make sure you make the most of it - direct people to a LinkTree, an enquiry form or your services page.

Step 5: Featured section

- Demonstrate your key achievements and most important posts.
- Feature a link to your email list or a recent podcast you featured on (direct people to longer form content)

Step 6: About section

- There are 2 options with this…
- Option 1: Landing page - if you sell services use this space to describe what you offer. Be sure to feature key stats/figures
- Option 2: Story - if you're employed than use this section to tell key moments in your story, journey & interests.
- Regardless of what you choose make sure you inject a few emojis and ensure your personality comes across
- And add in the best way for someone to contact you (and only one)

Step 7: Experience

- This is easy - just make sure it's all up to date.
- A one sentence sum-up goes well alongside each experience (I would also try and ensure every piece of experience has a logo)

The last things to check are:
- Is your word choice, formality, colours, style coherent
- If you were looking at your profile, would you follow it? Do you think it sums up you well? Would you know the services on offer?
- Every 3 months or so it's good to do a refresh/update

Step 6: Engagement & networking with like-minded people in a similar space

LinkedIn as a platform and the traction on your posts is increasingly becoming based on your engagement. This means the more you spend time liking and commenting on others posts, the better your own will perform.

• Spend 10 minutes replying to comments on your posts.

• Spend 10 minutes going through your feed adding comments on relevant creators accounts

• Add in new people to your network each week and introduce yourself on a message.

This is something to do on a daily basis. All my clients have engagement time built into their process with me but if you are doing it yourself you’ll need to set aside time.

Step 7: Content Hacks So You Can Stay Consistent

Staying consistent with your posting is vital in order to see traction on your posts. This is my super easy method of creating content weekly (I’ve been creating my own content for 14 months on the platform).

1. Note thoughts down as you go through your week on your phone. Think about the decisions you've made, the impact you've had, lessons you've learnt, voice-notes you've sent, meetings you've had with your team.

   Usually these will be one-liners that will form the basis of your post.

   Have an idea while in the shower, out on walks, or just before you sleep... write them down!!
   
   2. Collect a couple of relevant photos as you go about your week.

   Have you delivered a great presentation? Get a photo
   Have you been to a cool event? Get a photo
   Have you had a team lunch? Get a photo
   Have you had a great focused work session? Get a photo
   
   3. Block out a couple hours a week (I do this late on a Sunday).

   Go through your post ideas from your notes section. Choose ones you think are relevant to your audience and align with your content pillars.

   Start creating the posts themselves.
   - Use a powerful hook - that grabs attention and explains the overall post
   - Share a personal story with an insight/lesson
   - Or an actionable step-by-step value-based post
   - Use your post to start a conversation where others will want to comment their thoughts.

   Add a few of the photos so people get to know YOU!
   
   4. Life is busy so do yourself a favour and schedule everything so you don't have to worry about hitting post. I use Buffer (it's free and very easy)

I also highly recommend creating specific how-to content. Focus on your target customers pain-points and share step-by-step guides on how you solve them. If you’ve just raised funding - write a post explaining your top tips. If you’ve just doubled your team - how did you think about creating a culture.

And finally, the LinkedIn algorithm is fundamentally driven on comments… so create your content with the goal of driving someone to leave a comment.

If you want to build a distinct Personal Brand on LinkedIn, but are looking for some help, let’s chat on a short Discovery Call