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WHAT CAN YOU DO TO MAKE THE BIGGEST IMPACT IN YOUR CAREER?

WHAT CAN YOU DO TO MAKE THE BIGGEST IMPACT IN YOUR CAREER?

by | PERSONAL BRANDING, COACHING, COMMUNICATIONS

Which of these two options is most you? The sugar sweet, gentle woman or the beer swilling, adventurous, fearless one?

Be completely honest with yourself and I’ll be completely honest with you too…

The true answer is this… it doesn’t matter in the least which one you identify with!! The fastest and best way to make a real impact in your career is to be YOU! Be clear that you’re proud of being YOU. Make your messaging about YOUR strengths and their value to clients. If you’re adventurous, be adventurous. If you’re sweet, be sweet. And be anywhere in between that is fully you. There is huge value in whatever personal brand you create. Don’t force yourself into a box you “think” is more valued.

WHICH IS BEST?

It matters not a damn whether you’re sweet or adventurous but it truly does matter that you know which you are and that you very cleverly and strategically craft your Personal Brand around that authentic personality.

I had a very pressurised conversation with a client I’m working with who is going forward for a huge Partnership position. Her feeling is, she sees what other women are doing, that they are being successful and getting credit, they are moving in the “right circles”, sometimes cutting corners and frantically scrabbling to get into the decision making clique. But she hates everything about it, it all goes against her values, her style, her self. It’s simply just not her. So my question to her this morning was “should you copy behaviours and values you see or should you craft your own strategy taking into account your influencers, your audience and your truth?”.

SUCCESS LEAVES CLUES

But should you follow them all? Should you play the politics even if it is detracting from your own value of yourself. I work with a huge number of female leaders who (I believe, wrongly) feel they have to play the politics or lose out. But that is not the decision at all. The decision is, how can we all package our brilliance in a way that is quickly understood and valued by key decision makers. How can we be clear about the enormous impact we make as leaders while never crossing the line into pretence.

you BE YOU

You need to fully understand yourself, your brand and your positioning. It must be consistent, strategic, kind and value filled. But to make a Real, Valuable and Sustainable Impact, it must be YOU.

If you are a female leader going forward for promotion, partnership or directorship why not chat with me on a Discovery Call and let’s see how much messaging clarity and transformational value we will add to your Personal Brand.

DESIGN YOUR OWN PERSONAL BRANDING STRATEGY:

DESIGN YOUR OWN PERSONAL BRANDING STRATEGY:

by | PERSONAL BRANDING, COACHING, COMMUNICATIONS, LEADERSHIP

Everything’s so loud now and so instantaneous that it’s getting harder and harder to stand out. The level of competition is fierce, it’s global and it’s To be seen, to be heard and to be valued amongst your competitors in the eye of a small number of potential clients.

Branding on a business-level is common, but today branding is becoming just as important on a personal level. After all, you might work for a business that works with other businesses, but it’s people working with people and that’s what makes business relationships valuable.  Even if you have your own company, with a great brand, you, yourself need to stand out.

Remember:    “People Do Business with People”

So, how can you go about building a great Personal Brand that stands out, is authentic, is valuable, relevant and engaging?

IT’S ALL ABOUT YOU:

What are your drivers? Your Values? Your Key Descriptors? Stay away from all those wonderfully dull, overused words; Professional, Team Player, Good Communicator. Everyone is all of these things surely? You want to stand out.

No – You NEED to stand out!

Aim to discover words that describe you, drive you and are a bit of a stretch for you. These will be your descriptors and will remind you at every touch point what you want people to get from their interactions with you.  Find words that are Emotional rather than Functional. You’ll always bond with someone a lot faster over emotional connections.

Try out descriptors/drivers like;

Curious, Exciting, Kind, Welcoming, Empowering.  They are all action based emotive descriptors. Before you go into that next Big Deal Meeting – Remind yourself of these words, Be these words and Stretch to Fit these words.

WHO WILL CONNECT WITH YOU?

The next area to really look closely at is who are you dealing with? Who is your Audience? Now, that may seem clearly straight forward. Your Customer – the one you really want to buy from you. But everyone in business (Business Owner, Manager, Entrepreneur, Solopreneur, Blue Chip Sales Director) has numerous audiences, some more critical to the “Yes Decision” than others. But ignore your Influencers, Connectors, Detractors and Advocates at your peril.

Make the effort to delineate those audiences, clearly. What they value, where they have knowledge gaps, what they worry about, what comes between them and a “Yes Decision”, who they need to impress, what’s relevant for them.

Use this information to craft your personal brand that is engaging, valuable, authentic and relevant. Build a series of messages based on your brand for each of these audiences. Show them that you are of interest and of value to them.  Prove to them that you are a giver, a helper, a connector. Be authentic to yourself, your beliefs and values in a way that shows you to be the best match for them. In a way that is energising, engaging and clear.  Be clear and concise in your Personal Brand. It must be easily understood by you and by those who meet you. It must be consistent, every time I meet you I know what you’ll be like; Don’t let me down, don’t confuse me or disappoint me.

A great authentic Personal Brand is the best calling card you can possibly have. Now all you have to do is get it out there!

9 SIMPLE TACTICS TO INCREASE YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA SHARES

9 SIMPLE TACTICS TO INCREASE YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA SHARES

by | PERSONAL BRANDING, COMMUNICATIONS

We all know the effort that goes into creating content right? Wouldn’t it be great to create that piece of content and KNOW that you’re going to get LOADS of social media shares on the SAME piece of content? Here are some easy tips to ensure you increase the amount people share, comment and use your content!

Remember to follow the basics first:

  • Create Great Content
  • Use a Variety of Media – Text, Infographics, Video, Podcasts etc…
  • Store Your Content on Your Website – So You Control It
  • Use a Link Shortening Tool – Bitly/Tiny etc
  • Use a Scheduling Software (for free) Hootsuite/Buffer etc
  • Have Your “Standard Operating Procedures” (yawn) in place! More later…
  • Know Your Keywords
  • Know Your Audience
  • Know Your Message!

SHARE CONTENT MORE THAN ONCE

One of the best ways to get more social media “Shares” and engagement is to share your content more than once. You have one great piece of content, you put it up on Facebook and then you’re done? Seriously? After all that work? No Way…

Get your shortened link, a couple of good quality relevant photos, several keyword rich sound bites and you’re good to go! I’d even suggest you put all this into an excel spreadsheet to make it clear at a glance! Using Hootsuite (for example) you can then choose which platforms you want to use for this content and plan when you want to publish and with what keyword rich message.  Don’t forget, publish several times on EACH platform with a different message at different times of the day. Very effective for very little extra effort…

Getting into the Habit (Standard Operating Procedures – more on this later) of sharing content more than once also lets you get to know what kind of images, messaging and hashtags work with your audience, and can help you to determine when your audience is the most active and what they are most likely to ENGAGE with.

CREATE CONTENT THAT ADDS VALUE TO YOUR CUSTOMER

You REALLY need to know your audience. Know what they value, know what is relevant to them, know what experience you bring that removes their worries, solves their niggles. Notice I’m using the word “Know”. This is not guess work on your side.  You need to know it For A Fact. So, go ask them.

People are much more likely to share content that they perceive as highly valuable to them. If you can consistently create that type of content – they will share it.

CREATE “SNACKABLE” CONTENT

Snackable content is generally short, quick and easily digestible. Snackable content can include quotes, infographics, and stats.  Get creative in the way you present your information and find additional ways to frame and present your ideas in shorter forms. You still need the longer version (like this post) as Google loves 1500+ words but to drive sharing and engagement people often share the quick bites.  It’s all good brand building for you. And easier to create.

SHARE POSTS WHEN FOLLOWERS ARE ACTIVE

Figuring out when your followers are online and active is essential to getting the most impact out of each of your social media posts. Social Media platforms are so immediate that it’s easy to be missed in the thousands of tweets sent every second!

Use in-platform analytics tools to help you determine when your audience is online and ready to be engaged.

PROVIDE CONTEXT IN HEADLINES/MESSAGING

Your headline can make or break your content – research has shown that up to 80% of readers will decide whether or not to click through on a link based on your title or caption. Make sure headlines, sound bites and messaging offer clear context for your content and what the reader will get out of it.  Good keyword research and knowing your audience well will pay hugely here.  Be sure to use Active and Descriptive words to encourage your readers to interact with your content.

MAKE SOCIAL MEDIA SHARE BUTTONS EASY TO FIND

This sounds SO simple but seriously, I don’t know how often I find great content that I know my readers would love but can I find anyway of sharing it? I don’t have time to go searching, make it easy!

Be careful how and where these buttons appear.  There are the coolest sharing buttons that are “Sticky”, they stay in place when you scroll through content and appear at the side of your blog post.  BUT when you read the post on a mobile device you can’t read the content it disappears behind these lovely sharing buttons.

Make sure that its clear which buttons do what – does the big F at the end of your blog post mean I can share your content on my Facebook page or does it mean that I will now follow you on Facebook.  There’s a Big Difference.

IMAGES MATTER

Always include an image in your post as it increases shares and engagement by over 80%. Even better, include an image showing people, better again show those people being Active.

Some platforms, like Pinterest and Facebook will automatically pull the post’s featured image so make sure it’s a good one.  Using software such as canva.com makes it easy to get the correct sized image for each platform as it does it automatically for you. No more excuses for dodgy imagery. Just don’t lose your entire day designing.

TRY “CLICK TO TWEET” OPTIONS

It’s the little things in life! “Click to Tweet” plugins let you choose parts of your post that your reader can simply click on to tweet out to all their followers. Firstly, this makes it super easy for your readers to share key notes of your content. They’ll like that. They look good, there adding value to their followers.  And secondly it lets you highlight the critical take away points from your article.

USE CALLS TO ACTION

Take it back to the old fashioned Call to Action (CTA). Have a think about what exactly it is you want your readers to do.  For example ask them (nicely) to share your post if they’ve found it of value. Include this messaging in all your landing/sales pages too.  Be clear in your Calls to Action, leave no room for doubt and incentivise readers to follow your CTAs!