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How Professional is Your Personal Brand?

So how professional is your personal brand when it comes to your online presence.

For Creative Professionals, Details Matter for Personal Brands

Your customers, clients, and suppliers are smarter than you may think. In fact, they are gaining more intelligence about what’s average, what’s good, what’s great, and what’s outstanding everyday. We are all bombarded with an array of choices daily. So, things that are exceptional tend to stand out from the noise. As you build your brand or undergo a brand makeover, I want you to know that details matter. They communicate to your client that you’re paying attention to the big picture and the finishing touches that make your work exceptional. So, let’s take a look at how professional is your personal brand!

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1. The Devil is in the Emails

AOL - YOU GOT MAIL! - PERSONAL BRAND AND PROFESSIONAL EMAIL.Email is one of the most personal aspects of our online identity.  In particular, our email address communicates a lot about our personal brand at a glance. For example, you can typically guess a person’s age by the their email domain (e.g. Hotmail, AOL, MSN, Yahoo, etc.) These old domains let you know that they have had these accounts for awhile. At least with Hotmail and MSN, the email platform is modern, while the addresses themselves are old. Outlook.com and Gmail accounts are free and popular email domains. Anyone can setup a free email account. Therein lies the problem for building your personal brand. Anyone can do it. So how will a business know if they are actually talking to the right person? Build your professional brand with your own business domain for email.  You can use the same tools as Gmail and Outlook. However, you’re own email domain reinforces your brand with every message.

2. Is This Your Website or Is it Powered By Someone Else

Speaking of web domains, what’s up with the powered by “A Company That’s Not You” on your website? Everyone has to start somewhere. Often times, that means people start with a freemium website. A freemium website or service lets you use the service at no costs. In exchange for the free usage, you are a marketing vehicle for their brand and not yours. If your business goal is to build someone else’s brand, kudos, you’re a winner! If the goal is to build your own brand, you should pay for the premium service and remove their branding from your website. Remove all of it. Ensure that your social icons on your site, actually point to your social channels and not your host’s profiles. This is the easiest way to lose your hard earn traffic. In the attention economy, you have to minimize distractions or your clients may start chasing squirrels.

Powered by Wix.com Not Your Personal Brand or Professional Brand. Distracting Images from Freemium Web hosts.

3. Real SEO Is Not For Show

You can read more about Becoming your own SEO Expert in my previous article. However, there are simple tells on your website that suggest whether you’re running a business or just holding hard drive space on the Web. Your content age is the biggest tell. Search engines and social networks like dynamic fresh content. That means there is a bias towards websites and content creators that regularly produce content. Your content age on your website is based on the last time a page, post, event, product, or media was updated. On the simple end, update your website copyright to the current year. If you can automate it to stay current, do it. We’re in a new decade. Yet, many websites haven’t been updated since they were created. Check your site for link rot. Some links are dead ends because the content is no longer on the web. Update them or remove them. A final SEO note, if you’re not updating your brand at least every six months with fresh content, are you really in business? Old content is great when it’s authoritative. Old content is bad when it’s just old.

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4. First Things First

A lot of people say they put her customer first. However, in practice, her brand story doesn’t reflect that in the digital brand. I have six first things for personal branding.

  • People First — Who’s problem are you solving? Tell me that so that I can identify if I’m your target customer.
  • Trust First — Everyone has had their identity compromised in the last decade. Have you secured your website? Do you have a privacy policy? Is it working?
  • Mobile First — Research shows¹, that at least half of your web traffic comes from mobile devices. That doesn’t mean you need just website that looks great on mobile. Responsive design is a given. It also means that you need to consider voice and location-based content.
  • Local First — My global strategy starts with being hyperlocal. I create content specifically for my customer’s geography. This is not about stuffing keywords into a web page for a city. My brand is focused on specific local content that I want my customers to find and enjoy.
  • Video First — Another study² highlighted how brands that use video grow revenue 49% faster than non-video users. Could your personal brand benefit from faster monetization? Facebook has forecasted that by 2021, video will make up 78% of mobile data traffic. Are you ready?
  • Engagement First — Every piece of content you create must have a purpose. Specifically, all content must have a call-to-action or CTA. Without a CTA, you can’t assume that people know what you want them to do.

Old content is great when it’s authoritative. Old content is bad when it’s just old.

5. Introduce Yourself

I’m surprised by how many websites don’t actually have a picture of the brand or business owner. The age of the faceless brand is over. Your client really wants to know who they are doing business with these days. Here’s the rub, you need to be consistent with your visual narrative across all channels. However, your can increase your image on your website and your social channels. This is a challenge for introverts and people who are generally private. I don’t live my life online. However, I am intentional about being present online and building my professional and personal brand in the public. So, hire a professional photographer to make a lifestyle portfolio for your brand. You’re going to need a lot of professional images to offset the selfies.

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6. Make Your About Page, About Your Audience

What is your About page really about? So many entrepreneurs find the About Page the hardest thing to create. It can be uncomfortable writing about yourself. Personal brands are suppose to be personal, right? The irony is that your about page isn’t about you. It’s about your “Why.” However, you need to reframe your “Why” in the context of why it matters to your ideal client. It may take some time before you get it right. For help, get some trusted and objective peers to read your About Page. Use their feedback to edit, revise, and update the content until it drives a clear call-to-action.

7. Back to Basics

Another name for the basics are often called frequently asked questions. What are your hours? What’s your location? How do I make an appointment? How can I contact you? Are we making it easy for our customers to buy from us. Are we taking care of the basics so that we can have a higher value conversation. The lack of these details undermine the value of your brand. Your hours of operation should appear in your search results with your contact information. That information should be repeated on Facebook, LinkedIn. etc. Make it easy. Then make it easier. Some people are still going to take the long way. But, don’t make everyone take the long way. Make it easier for your client to buy from you.

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8. Use Under Construction, Constructively

Kill your under construction page. How long does it take you to build a website. One page? Really!? Well, if it’s going to take you a considerable amount of time to button up your site, then let’s do something to make the suspense worthwhile:

  • Create a teaser trailer video to run on your site until it’s ready for launch.
  • Make a countdown clock to give your audience an expectation of when your site will be live.
  • Add a sign-up form to be notified and build your subscriber list.
  • Point them to another channel to keep up-to-date while your site is built.
  • Create a lead magnet for your ideal customer to download while they wait for your grand reveal.

Whatever you do, don’t put a coming soon graphic on your website. If you do, you increase the likelihood of your customer not coming back. Only your true fans will endure.

Level Up the Professional Look of Your Personal Brand

So how professional is your personal brand?  Over time, those little things start to add up and become hurdles to getting business done. Remember, your website is never done. It’s a living part of your business. You can always make updates and revisions to increase your professionalism for your personal brand. So don’t get overwhelmed. It’s about continuous iterative development. In time, you’ll have a premium brand that reflects the trust and authority you’ve been building all along.
Leave a comment below and let me know how your personal brand is doing? I’m curious and truly want to know.


Elevate Your Brand

Want to learn more about building your Immortal Brand or have personal branding question?

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Interested in learning how to elevate your brand story above the noise? Subscribe to our Momentum Maker newsletter for action-oriented, no bullshit strategies and insights.  Also, you can attend one of our upcoming branding, strategy, and creative workshops for entrepreneurs to get hands-on help removing the blockers to customer delight and brand success!

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Endnotes:
¹ Statista.
². Renderforest.

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