If you’ve been on Instagram for a while, there’s surely a list of IG handles you diligently follow and aspire to. You’re captivated by their super engaging content and well thought-of and coordinated feeds. Each post is hard not to like! Just how do they do this? The secret to IG popularity? Strong personal branding. In this video, Linh Podetti, founder of Outsourcing Angel—a company that helps marketing agencies scale with the help of virtual assistants—talks about how she is able to attract joint venture opportunities, leads and sales in the outsourcing industry by building her personal brand on Instagram. Find out how she built her agency with her dedicated virtual team and start working with your virtual assistants today.
Personal Branding: Why You Need It
You may think, “I already have a branding strategy for my marketing agency. What do I need a personal brand for?” Entrepreneur and internet personality Gary Vaynerchuk has been advocating the power of personal brand and millions of fans are following his strategies to a tee to build their brands. Simply put, personal branding means marketing yourself and promoting what you stand for as an individual. “The best companies in the world don’t sell. They brand,” Linh shares. The power of branding is evident in giant names like Apple, McDonalds and Nike. We are drawn in not just by the products they sell but the story, the purpose, the mission—everything—that makes them who they are. Linh firmly believes that, “Your personal brand is your reputation. You may change your business or career, but your reputation stays with you.” This is why it’s important to have a strong and good reputation. Many businesses are eager to make quick sales, trying to convert customers on the first interaction. They are so caught up in the numbers game that they forget about creating a good experience for their target audience. They want to get ahead in the short term at the expense of their long term personal brand. Internet personalities like Gary Vaynerchuk, Marie Forleo, Lewis Howes and Jay Shetty have worked hard on their personal branding and their careers have grown exponentially—thanks to their strong brand. So instead of chasing after opportunities, opportunities come to them. Building your personal brand means playing the long game. But it will surely pay off bigtime.
Instagram: The Best Platform for Brand Building
There’s no doubt Instagram is becoming a preferred platform for businesses. Instagram now has 1 billion active users and brand engagement on the platform is 10 times higher than Facebook, 84 times higher than Twitter and 54 times higher than Pinterest. It’s an effective platform to grow your brand, boost your sales and increase traffic. It is also the best social media channel to grow and scale your personal brand. Here are other reasons that make Linh advocate Instagram as a promising platform for brand building:
- Hashtags – Instagram hashtags allow users to categorise and search content easily.
- Photos – If your target audience responds well to visuals, then Instagram is the best platform for you. You can easily take photos, style them according to your brand and post them for your followers to see.
- Captions – It’s easier to write captions in Instagram than it is to write a 300-word blog. You can write conversationally on Instagram and capture your audience with only a sentence or a few paragraphs.
You too can leverage on Instagram to successfully build your personal brand by following Linh’s simple, no-fuss tips.
TIP 1: Develop a theme
Who are you as a person? What do you want to be known for? Create a theme around your understanding of your personal brand. Your theme should include your color schemes, your voice and tone. This will help you in styling your posts, your photos, and writing your captions. You may take inspiration from your marketing agency’s current branding or build an entirely different one. The key is to create something that suits your personality.
TIP 2: Take photos.
You need to do photo shoots— even up to monthly photo shoots. Your followers want to know who you are so you need to have photos of yourself taken. Linh recommends having high quality photos taken by a professional photographer or a good camera. Your photos should be able to tell stories about who you are. You can take photos of your favourite places, your favourite activities, and put on your most favourite outfits.
TIP 3: Develop your content
One thing that makes personal branding different from your marketing agency’s branding is that you will need to get involved with a lot of content writing. This is because you know your personal stories or experiences well. Your audience will want to read your stories in your own voice and style, and this will make you sound natural and sincere. Linh personally writes her own captions and have her virtual assistant and paste them into their scheduling tool Planoly. Her virtual assistant also helps her add all the relevant hashtags and schedules her posts.
TIP 4: Get help
The best thing about having a virtual assistant is you can offload other tasks to her/him so you can focus on more important tasks like developing branding strategies and creating your content. Some of the things your virtual assistant can help you with include:
- Uploading your content on your Instagram scheduling tool
- Uploading your IG Stories and adding fun GIFs
- Helping increase engagement by following relevant accounts and replying to comments
- Editing videos in different formats and publishing them
TIP 5: Be consistent
Consistency is a vital part of success in Instagram. By committing to go all in and produce content everyday, you will start to see growth and start to build a community of fans. Linh regularly gets messages from followers thanking her for inspiring them through her content and expressing interest in her services. Being consistent also means you get better at doing photo shoots and writing captions. “The more I do, the better I get,” Linh shares. “It also becomes more enjoyable for me.” Most importantly, don’t forget that your personal brand is an expression of who you are, and this will have a great impact on your agency as a whole. So keep your branding as personal and genuine and possible. To help you analyse your personal branding better, download a copy of Linh’s Personal Branding Questionnaire and start to build your personal brand with your virtual assistant today. If you are able to build your personal brand on Instagram, you will see tremendous growth in your agency. In harnessing this incredible tool, you can enlist the help of virtual assistants in Outsourcing Angel who are highly experienced in Instagram and other social media platforms. Your virtual assistant can take care of regular tasks while you focus on refining your vision and your voice.
VA Writer: Jamie S. Ayque
VA Position: Digital Marketer
