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Identifying your personal brand style is the first step in creating and curating a cohesive brand on social media. There are many ways to find ideas and visual inspiration (here at UNUM, we love perusing Pinterest), but it’s important to keep in mind the following to ensure that your brand identity is authentically you!
STEP 1: DIG DEEP
Ask yourself the following questions and keep them in mind while curating all your content to maintain a cohesive brand aesthetic.
What are your goals? What is your mission and purpose for your brand? Do you want to educate? Inspire? Inform? Entertain? Sell?
How do you want to present yourself? Based on your previously determined goals, how do you as a brand want to be presented to the rest of the world?
What is your unique value proposition? What do you bring to the table? What separates you from all the rest? What do you have to offer your audience and how do you differentiate from others like you?
What do you envision your personal brand looking like? How would you describe your individual personality? What words come to mind when thinking about yourself and how you want to be seen by others? Is there a particular theme or aesthetic that you feel speaks true to you? Whatever you choose, be sure to remain AUTHENTIC! People appreciate authenticity; it’s not only endearing, but it’s often hard to come by.
Who are your clients/fans/followers/etc.? Why do/should they follow you? This is perhaps the most important question you think about.
Let’s say your goal is to inspire your audience with travel ideas and experiences. You want to present yourself as being adventurous, wanderlust, and carefree. You’re different from all the others because your job as a writer enables you to work remotely and traveling is one of the many ways you find inspiration. As a result, your followers are most likely going to be travel enthusiasts and dreamers who look to you for inspiration as to where to go next. That means they probably won’t care about what hair products you use (unless it’s part of your ‘travel kit’) and don’t want to see random posts of you at the movies. Basically, our point is: keep in mind who your audience is and what kinds of things they actually want to see.
STEP 2: REFINE
Taking into consideration your answers to the previous questions, now try and put yourself in your audience’s shoes:
What do you want them to think when they look at your profile and feed? What kind of image do you want to portray?
Will your audience view you/your account the way you intend to be seen? Is the message you want to send clear and easy to comprehend? If not, what can you do/change to ensure you’re seen the way you want to be seen?
Is your newfound personal brand easy to follow across all platforms?
Are you able to carry your newfound brand style and aesthetic across all of your online platforms and offerings (Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, portfolio(s), website(s), etc.)?
STEP 3: STORYTELL
It’s your story, time to share it.
