When it comes to building a brand, no one knows better than marketers. But what about personal brand? How you present yourself online is becoming increasingly important.
Meet our panel of experts:
- Jimmy Daly, Founder of Superpath
- Eric Doty, Content Lead at Dock
- Jess Cook, Head of Content at LASSO
- Tommy Walker, Founder of The Content Studio
Building your personal brand is quickly becoming a marketing prerequisite
Your personal brand is a serious marketing tool—for you and your future company. Building your network online can be a major selling point in interviews, open doors for new opportunities, and positively impact the trajectory of your career.
“Encourage the people on your team to build their own personal brands. Because if you hire people with strong personal brands, actually you end up with built-in distribution.”
Jimmy Daly, Founder of Superpath. Listen on episode six.
“I grew a Twitter following. I was posting about hockey, but I was able to get my first two or three jobs partly on the back of saying I understand how to grow an audience.”
Eric Doty, Content Lead at Dock. Listen on episode fifteen.
“Now more than anything is your thoughts, your positioning, how you present to the market. Content marketers are a dime a dozen. In a lot of cases, you could take a byline, do away with it, and it could be any single person out there. It does not matter. What is important is that people get invested in your byline and not your headline.”
Tommy Walker, Founder of The Content Studio. Listen on episode four.
“You should really develop your own personal brand. Start a newsletter, tweet a lot, do LinkedIn. You become very high leverage the more people follow you.”
Jimmy Daly, Founder of Superpath. Listen on episode six.
Start now with what you know
Someone out there needs to learn what you know. Building a personal brand on social media doesn’t have to be a daunting task. When the blank page syndrome gets you down, our experts have a few helpful tips for finding your voice.
“Every time someone asked me a question for advice, I just write it down and I write bullets of the advice I gave them. Now I have a notion document of like 150 ideas. Uh, that, that I will never struggle to think of something to say.”
Eric Doty, Content Lead at Dock. Listen on episode fifteen.
“What would you tell yourself two years ago that would’ve really helped you? Post about that. That’s the stuff people need to hear.”
Jess Cook, Head of Content at LASSO. Listen on episode eighteen.
Use your unique perspective
A personal brand is just that: personal. You don’t need to conform to the same six talking points you see recycled on LinkedIn. Make stuff you love, and people will love it back.
“What’s important is that, no matter what you do, you are always approaching it from your own place. Even if it pisses people off. ”
Tommy Walker, Founder of The Content Studio. Listen on episode four.
“I’ve only been doing content marketing for four years. I am not an expert, in content marketing per se. But I have a unique perspective because I’ve done B2C marketing, I’ve come from an agency, I’m now a SaaS marketer, and I made a mid-career pivot. All of those things together create something unique that no one else has and focus on that.”
Jess Cook, Head of Content at LASSO. Listen on episode eighteen.
“Don’t try to copy what’s working with the big B2B content people. Take your interests or the sort of marketing things you’re used to in your hobbies, whether that’s YouTube streams or TikToks, and then bring that into your own personal brand. Think, what are you uniquely able to do that other people aren’t doing? And then do that.”
Eric Doty, Content Lead at Dock. Listen on episode fifteen.
Your job depends on it
A personal brand is an impactful tool for your company’s marketing machine. It’s a distribution channel that cannot be overlooked. (And honestly? We’d all love to see more good content on LinkedIn.) Whether you’re ghostwriting for your CEO or pushing out carousels on your own profile, here is what our experts had to say.
“The person who wrote it or the person whose voice it is written in needs to be really bought into building their own personal brand, because the more followers or subscribers or whatever that person attracts, the easier it will be to distribute things written in their own voice.”
Jimmy Daly, Founder of Superpath. Listen on episode six.
“Using your employees as a channel is much more personable. It gets more engagement, it gets more interest. So while not everyone who follows me is going to be our target market, when you’re a startup and you need to generate excitement, it’s a great channel because we don’t own any big channel yet. We don’t have that many followers on our brand page, but we all have lots of important connections that we can lean on.”
Eric Doty, Content Lead at Dock. Listen on episode fifteen.
Wrap up
At Verblio, we know how important your reach is. Make your content go farther by producing content at scale, creating kickass content briefs, and knowing when to refresh your content. For more insights, listen to Content Bounce House, where I pick the brains of content marketing leaders (accompanied by a jazz trombone soundtrack.)
