10 Simple Ways To Improve Your Branding

Your online presence says a lot about you

With more people using social media these days, branding is the one part most people miss. Your online branding will make or break you. You most likely never got a class on using social media, so consider this your quick overview.

From LinkedIn to Facebook to Twitter or any other social media platform, everything you say, write, and create will be around for years for people to see. The one post you make, people will judge you instantly. Consider this your first impression. As in real life, you want to make a good first impression as you go in for a job interview.

The same applies to social media except you’ll have more than one chance to make that impression. The more you repeat a certain topic, your followers will get an image of who you are. They’ll begin to think If you share politics every day, you like Trump or Biden, you’re a conservative or liberal.

If your posts are funny or depressing, people will expect that from you. So the whole point of this article is you need to be careful about what you share on social media. There are pros and cons to everything you do online.

Branding is what people say about you when you’re not in the room.

Jeff Bezos

You never know when someone may be looking for someone like you for work. What you share online can help or hurt your chances of getting an offer even if you are a writer they are looking for. Some things you share will immediately give them an opinion about you and hurt your chances.

I don’t claim to be a branding expert but these tips will help you immensely. In the past, I have paid for online courses from Kim Garst and Amy Porterfield as well as many other influencers to improve my branding on social media. I have spent a lot of time researching and applying lessons I learned to see what works and doesn’t work.

These are the ten topics covered below:

• Analyze the source before you share it
• Upload a photo of you
• Avoid politics
• Don’t share the news unless it’s about you
• Share quotes
• Share selfies
• Share pictures of you with your family or family pet
• If you want engagement, talk about the taboo subjects
• Ask for advice
• Create your own videos but have a purpose

The ten topics for you to see success online

Upload a photo of you

Use a profile photo of you and not something else. People like to see the real you and not some image you found online. Once in a while, it’s okay to change the photo since you like to share images that interest you from time to time (sports picture, go vote image, and so on).

The only exception is LinkedIn. On LinkedIn, you should share your image. This is a professional site, people use to hire people for jobs.

If someone is too lazy to share their image on LinkedIn, I don’t accept their friend request. There are many scammers online and I was involved in one recently. If someone can’t take the time to upload an image, this shows they are lazy and can’t take a few minutes to upload their photo.

When a person can’t upload their own photo, how reliable are they going to be as a connection to you online? Most likely, they are not worth your time. Ignore the friend request since there are people out there who can help you.

Analyze the source before you share it

With the rise of fake news, it is too easy for someone to read a fake article or meme and believe it as true. Someone can open an image on PowerPoint or another image creator and change the image to create fake news. A person can do this ins a few minutes and turn something untrue and influence others in seconds.

With elections coming up, you may have seen the Biden or Trump memes. Be careful because these are very convincing. The candidates may have said what is on the picture or they may not have.

Sharing fake news will give you less credibility as someone who shares the truth or fake news. Take the time to analyze the information or picture before you click share. Fake news can hurt your reputation more than you think. You want your audience to maintain the trust they have in you.

Avoid politics

I rarely talk about politics online. I consider myself an independent and like views from both parties. Other people like to express their views and that’s fine. When you overdo it, you really do categorize yourself as a true believer of one party or another.

As a writer, this could come back to hurt you. When you favor one candidate or another, you may alienate your friends or future customers. You don’t want to do that.

For writers, you want to get as many views as you can. So talking about politics will push away many people. With less people reading your work, that is less views and less likes.

What talking about politics, this will bring out people who want to challenge your views. Then you’ll end up getting in a back and forth conversation on why you support one candidate or another. Basically, you are wasting a lot of time when you could use this time for better things to do such as writing.

Don’t share the news unless it’s about you

If someone wanted to watch the news, they can go to the source. This may be online or watching the news on television. The majority of the news is negative. Who really wants to hear about bad news all the time?

Unless the information is important and can help someone, try to avoid sharing the news. I may share a news article with a few friends to let them know since they may be interested. For the most part, I avoid sharing news online.

The news doesn’t have a lot of good information that others can’t easily find themself. Sharing the news can be a waste of your time. You have to figure out what your online friends may want to hear and not be a repeat of your daily news channel.

Sharing quotes has a powerful effect

For some reason, people like quotes. Quotes are usually positive or thought-provoking. People are looking for something to brighten their day.

Pick a group of people you like and share their quotes online. There are many quotes to choose from. It can be an old quote from a dead person such as Ben Franklin’s “An investment in knowledge pays the best interest”. The wisdom in these words still affect people today.

A quote from someone famous also has a powerful effect. Elon Musk is one of the popular entrepreneurs of today. One of Elon’s quotes is “I think it’s possible for ordinary people to chose to be extraordinary”.

If you like sharing your own quotes, then do that. As a writer, I’m sure you have a few quotes you can create. You should have some of the best quotes to share with your online community.

Share selfies

Though this probably is a favorite for the Millennial or Generation Z community, there is nothing wrong with you doing it from time to time. People like to see how you are doing, especially with COVID-19 as more people are home. The social distancing and time apart from others has drawn more people online.

A quick selfie lets others know you’re still alive and doing well. The image could be you finishing up your daily walk, or you in the kitchen cooking. Just don’t get carried away taking the picture of yourself and burning what you’re cooking.

The likes you receive from your friends will make you feel better. As a person, you need the attention from others. People like support system even though it’s online. You’ll also get some comments from your friends and you may hear from someone you haven’t talked to in a while.

Share pictures of you with your family or family pet

If you are spending time with family, share those pictures. People want to see how they’re doing. Social media is more than just sharing the news.

Sharing a picture of you and your family always gets a lot of attention from your friends and online connections. I can’t give you a reason why but it just does.

Maybe you had a birthday party or a special event. Share pictures from those events. People want to know a little bit about your life. You don’t have to share too much information but share what you think is appropriate.

If you have a family pet, this also brings attention to your post. Maybe you have a dog or cat, and you’ll see a lot of your friends like your post and commenting. You’ll be surprised at the reaction you get from people when you share your adorable pet.

If you want engagement, talk about the taboo subjects

This one I don’t purposely do but a few times I have shared items that have generated a lot of interest. Maybe it’s a hot topic and it’s a sure way to get attention from people. The topic you share also depends on your age group of your followers as well. So the exact topic will vary by age group.

I have asked questions before about money and that one always gets attention from my friends. Everyone wants money and they are curious to find out how to make more money. Whatever you have an interest in can get attention from your followers. Other topics I have seen that get attention from people are sex, politics, food, and race.

Once in a while share something funny. People like a laugh every once in a while. Sometimes it may be an event that happened to you that could get a few laughs from people.

Ask a question

If you have a general question, ask your followers. Just as some people answer surveys, you are doing the same thing when you ask a question online. Just make sure the question you ask is a little interesting. An ordinary question may not get a lot of responses from your people.

Maybe you need ideas for an article. Sometimes your online friends can be a great resource. Find out what topics they’re interested in and that could be something that may do well for your next article.

The feedback you receive could help you think of a new topic. If you have writer’s block or the list of topic articles you have doesn’t appeal to you one day. Asking your online friends could give you an idea to write about.

Create your own videos but have a purpose

Creating videos will get you a lot of attention online. Videos are a hot platform today. There is YouTube which receives a lot of attention. Other social media platforms have also added the video feature.

Facebook has added this video option and it has done well. Video content continues to grow on this social media platform. Statistics show:

• 100 million hours of video are watched on Facebook every day.
• 20% of videos are Live Facebook broadcasts.
• More than 4 billion video views occur on Facebook.
• 500 million people watch videos on Facebook every day.

Other social media platforms where video content is shared include Snapchat, TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter. You can consider video an extension of watching television except from your phone or online.

The key point is to make sure you have a purpose when you create a video. No one wants to sit around and waste their time when you have nothing to say. You may need to plan out what you want to talk about before going live. Demand for video will only continue to grow. This is a great way to share tips you have used and another way to get feedback from your followers.

Can you think of other ways to brand yourself online?

Tom Handy is a top writer on Medium, former Quora writer, and father of two kids. He retired from the Army and sits on several non-profit boards. You can find him on Twitter @tomhandy1 and his publication Life is Like a Game.