Have you ever wondered how some people seem to be everywhere online. The secret lies in building a strong Personal Brand. So today we're going to uncover the strategies that could turn you into an Online Powerhouse!
 Welcome back to Tech Talks and Soul Walks the Podcast that combines business and IT skills with personal development. I'm your host, Julie, and in today's episode, we're diving into the world of Personal Branding. 
We're going to take a look at the strategies successful Personal Brands use to become influential and how you can start building your own authentic online presence. Personal Branding isn't just a buzz word. It's your ticket to standing out in today's crowded digital world. 
I want to share with you a story, first of all, of how I decided to come upon this episode. 
And it's because I follow a YouTuber who was an influencer, Emily Lucy Rajch. 
And it just dawned on me that things that I am doing are echoed in what she has done in the past. 
Now it wasn't till I was deciding what I was going to base this episode on, that I decided I would go back to review all the episodes and highlights that Emily Lucy Rajch who hit a niche being on Instagram and Tik TOK doing fashion and beauty vlogging. She was specializing in size 12 to 14 fashion and beauty. And she has now gone on to create a unique clothing business, creating body suits for bigger busted and shapely bodies. But she's transformed herself into a Personal Brand, through consistent online presence and authentic content. And I see a lot of similarities between her business and myself and my business as well.
 
So Emily's background, she basically started an Instagram account. And she was a fitness freak. Training about six days a week and putting so much pressure on herself to make herself look good. It wasn't making herself feel good though. And her diet was so extreme. She looked at herself and realised that she would rather feel better than look better. Her mental health was basically being affected. 
During lockdown, Emily launched her own clothing range, which was a range of body suits. And I personally did buy one of those. I was following her on Instagram. And she was then switching over to YouTube. So she did a promotion because she wants to hit 5,000 subscribers. 
So she offered them a hundred pounds and a personal shopping appointment with her, when she hit that 5,000 subscriber count. And the deal was they had to follow her on Instagram and follow her in YouTube as well. 
So at this stage, what we're looking at is the fact she was her own Personal Brand. 
A Personal Brand is how you present yourself to the world. And it encompasses your personality, your values, your skills, your online presence. And in a digital age, a strong Personal Brand can set you apart from the competition. Now she did this through Instagram, TikTok, and obviously YouTube. 
So they're the areas that we're going to focus in on today. But what I that did was it opened the door of trust because people are then buying from people. This didn't click for me till I went to my YouTube event last year and I was talking to other Content Creators. So all of this is a combination of what Lucy's been through, 
like I say, what I've been through myself, to get us both where we are today. 
In a digital age, a strong personal brand can set you apart from the competition. It builds trust with other people because people are buying from people and therefore it opens doors to new opportunities, creating a consistent, authentic online presence. 
So the first key point is that consistency is key. But how do you stay consistent? 
Especially in Emily Lucy Rajch's case, where she was feeling overwhelmed with what she was focusing on then, rather than what she is doing now. 
So you have to look at your Brand Identity and that is YOU, because you are your own business. So you need to have a look at your unique selling points. And what would you want to be known for? So in Emily's case, she wanted to then be known for creating fantastic key pieces to go in a capsule wardrobe for mid-size range people. So the content strategy if I can even say it, the content strategy was to plan all the content around the Brand themes and what the audience is interested in. So by creating this range of body suits and encompassing them into her day-to-day world of her YouTubes, her Instagram, her TikTok's, it then allowed more people to see her, see her product, and reach out to those audiences. 
So straight away, she'd got a target audience then, for marketing her clothing range to. 
So basically on YouTube, what she was doing was, she was utilising video content, showcasing her expertise in the area of fashion and personal styling, and her personality as well. 
So, what this means to you then is if you were to go away and create a YouTube channel trailer, it would encompass everything that you would actually want to share with your audience. So that's your background, your strengths, and why you actually want to dominate that market. 
On Instagram, slightly different. Share behind the scenes content, personal stories, professional achievements, but use the stories and the Reels for more engagement. So you could utilise the videos put them onto Instagram reels, repurpose them. And then show the behind the scenes maybe of how you filmed it, how your day's going. 
So totally different content from Instagram to YouTube. Now if it's on TikTOK then, based on what she was doing back in the day. She's creating short videos that were highlighting her Brand; her personality and key messages that she wanted to put across. So basically everything that you would be doing on Tik TOK at the moment, but, encompassing you as a person into whatever it is you're talking about. 
So don't just talk about particular topics, put your personality into it as well. Share stories with them as well. 

So engagement, isn't just about numbers. It's about building real connections with your audience. 
The reason that is, is because you want to foster a loyal community. And by interacting with them, sharing things, answering questions, and by responding to comments and messages, they know that they're dealing with a real person and not a Bot, not a big brand business. And another way of doing this as you could host live sessions or Q and A segments about your business. Now a friend of mine, Cat, who has a YouTube channel. This is exactly what she has been doing. When she hit, when she hit a thousand subscribers, she did a YouTube live and all of us that know her we were in that live session, to watch and help her along and give her some support really. And it gave people the chance to have like a Q and A as well. She did a giveaway. So all these things were building that community, fostering that engagement and the interaction with everybody in your, or, I should say, on your platform. 
For Facebook, what you could do is create a Group. And it's separate them from your personal Facebook account. That means that your personal Facebook account can be kept just as personal for your own personal day-to-day challenges, highlights, um, family tips, tricks, whatever it is you doing, holidays. But by having a Group for your business, separates and segments them out. 
So you know that if you want to have some time out, you would take time out from the Group rather than your personal page or vice versa. If you wanted to spend more time on your business, you step away from your personal page and spent more time on the Group. It then allows you to create a community and it strengthens your brand. You could also, again, share exclusive content, but you're interacting directly with the members, the people that are only interested in what you're doing or selling, not everybody else. 
For Instagram again, different tactic altogether. 
Use polls on your Instagram posts or Reels. Add questions in stories. And get feedback and ideas. See what your community actually want you to do. So you can use it as a soundboard. If it's on TikTok then, you can engage with trends. And challenges... stupid as they are! Sorry, but I don't like TikTok but it basically increases your visibility as a Brand. Reply, obviously to comments, create duets, if you want to, with other users or other people with similar Brands and similar goals or similar aspirations as you. 
 
Another way that you can expand your brand is with a Podcast. So, have you ever thought about starting a podcast? It is easier than you think and can significantly boost your Personal Brand. 
The benefits of adding a Podcast to your personal strategy is because again, you're building that authority. You're establishing yourself... if I can speak! You're establishing yourself as an expert in your field. 
It's expanding it through different platforms that you wouldn't normally achieve. So you're actually reaching out to people on all the different Podcast platforms. It's all audio rather than visual. People can listen to it in the car or when they're on a train or when the walking the dog. It's something where you're actually hitting them in one of the senses and then not stimulated by anything else. Usually with a Podcast, they are just focused on what they're listening to or who they listening to. 
You can grow your audience of Podcast listeners as well.
You begin to create more intimate or long form content with your audience. And it is a one-to-one kind of relationship then. You're talking to one person rather than talking to a whole host of people, maybe on a Facebook or Instagram live. 
Obviously, because it's your own Personal Brand, you've got to ensure that the Podcast name is unique and it reflects you or your brand. 
You need to think about things like the cover art. And how you represent yourself. So the colours, the themes, the wording, how is it you actually want to be seen? Is it in a jokey comical style? Is it very serious? Is it very um, authentic? And you must make it authentic. So use tools like Canva to design your eye catching Podcast episode covers. 
I would then recommend using Descript for easy recording and editing as well. And then I would obviously recommend rss.com. Both as I've said before, to distribute your Podcast to all the major platforms. From Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon podcasts now. 
And if you then utilise Descript, you can turn your Podcast episodes into the YouTube videos, into blog posts and even social media snippets to maximise the reach. I'll leave the links below if you're interested in using Descript, or if you interest in using rss.com. 
Check out my links below for links on how to access the software. 

So, what do you actually need to build your personal brand? 
I would only ever recommend tools that I've used myself. And as I've just said, there's certain tools that I would recommend, and these are my go-to tools or my palette of things that I use to build everything that I do. Be it a video, a Short a Podcast or a TikTok. So, first of all, I cannot recommend highly enough Canva and I am not affiliated with them. But you use Canva for creating visual consistency. 
If you have the paid version you can create what's called a Brand Pallet or Brand Package. And it allows you to put in there your logos, the photos, the images that you will always use, as a go to. So for Masquerading, I use certain photos that I've taken to use on different promotional pieces of material. So there's certain photos and images that you will see time and time again on my marketing. Then I have a certain font. Which font style do I want across all my different things and what colours do I want? 
And it allows you to pick a colour palette. So maybe you're very bold, like I am for Masquerading. So that's red, that's green, that's blue. With my Julie Kubiak things, I prefer to have red and blue, maybe some white in there. I do like red, white, and blue. Nothing to do with the French flag though. 
I've always loved it. So again, it's using Canva to pull everything together as a Brand. Then when you have your Brand colours packaged together, then you can start thinking about other things that you want to create. So from Canva, you can create YouTube Shorts. You can create Instagram posts. You can create TikToks, you can create your Reels for Instagram too. And the idea of this is it's just simple clicks, you click on your Brand, it chooses those colour palettes and it applies it to their templates. So, so easy! Then you can actually schedule things from Canva. 
I in the past have used HootSuite for scheduling and managing my social, social media posts. 

So now you have all that information. What are you waiting for? Start reassessing or planning your Personal Brand. Don't forget you are your own Personal Brand. Don't overwhelm yourself. Break it down into bite sized chunks. 
 Look at what you want to present to the world as who you are, and what your strengths are, and why you should be the person that they turn to if they want that information or why they should be following you.
Separate your personal brand from you as a person. And keep the two separate. So if you have, for instance, an Instagram account, have a personal Instagram account and then a Personal Brand Instagram account. Same on Facebook. Create your personal account on Facebook. Keep that as your personal account on Facebook, I should say, but create a second account just for you as a business. 
And that way you can keep your family and friends away from your business as a whole. 
Also then on TikTok. There's nothing stopping you having 2 TikTok accounts, but make sure that you post consistently with one or the other. There's nothing stopping you, having one account for each of the platforms, for everything, from your personal to your business brand content. But some people do get very frustrated when all they see is you sell sell selling all the time. So best to separate the two out. 
And then if you really want to do something different, create a Podcast! Encompass some personal information in there. Some of your business information in there. Show the real you, the authentic you across the video Podcast or the audio version of the Podcast. And then let people find you that genuinely want to follow you. 
 
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Like I say, it's mainly technology, personal life, or personal development, so the Soul Walks parts of it. So thank you for listening into this episode of Tech Talks and Soul Walks, and I'll see you back here for the next episode. 
 
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