Lessons Learned from the Building Your Brand Workshop hosted by Rachele Wilson Circa 2019
In a world of curated lives, people want to know if you’re real. Do you really have the academic expertise and real-world experiences to deliver?
Looking to level up your social media presence? This article is a reflection of my takeaways following the Building Your Brand: Grow from Ideation to Launching Your Business workshop with Rachele Wright Circa 2019, digital marketing trainer, strategist, and CEO of Wright Outcomes.
1. Social Media Platforms Are Tools
Just like a hammer. If you don’t use the tool to swing at something specific or know how to use the tool correctly, you’re not going to get much work done.
There is a learning curve to using social media tools correctly. Your attempts to use social media may not be successful for a period of time, and that’s just part of the process. The most important thing you can do is get started.
Facebook is a tool for engaging an audience. Instagram is a tool for getting to know them. LinkedIn is a tool for educating. Pinterest is a tool for sharing inspiration. YouTube is a tool for demonstrating and showing.
2. You Must Identify Who You Serve
You’ve launched your labor of love. You’re passionate about what you do. You’re confident that everyone who learns about what you do will be just as enthralled as you. Nope!
The end user’s perception of your product or service is what determines its value. What’s the difference between a $50 purse and a $5,000 purse? Or a $100 watch versus a $10,000 watch? The end user’s perspective regarding the value of each product.
Thus it is critical to understand who your ideal customer really is. An ideal customer is someone who is predisposed to patronize you because they see the value you provide. They don’t need much education about your value proposition, and they can easily afford your services.
Your branding, marketing, prospecting techniques, and how you execute your client services should all be geared to attract and retain your ideal client.
3. The Success Story: Facts Tell & Stories Sell
Here is a great format to follow when generating ideas for social media content:
What is your ideal client looking for? What is their challenge before meeting you?
How does your service or product save the day?
What does your ideal client like to do? How will their life be changed as a result of knowing you or what you do?
Share success stories. Share the process of creating - the product, preparing to deliver the services, the sweat equity you’ve put into delivery, and the deliverables themselves. Share the excitement, exhaustion, elation, epic failures, and the end result of the happy client. If you’re doing the work, you’ll never run out of stuff to post.
There is a musician I work with periodically who occasionally shares content of his preparation before performances, when he’s practicing, or just musing with his instruments. It took me months to convince him to do so because he was afraid he might be giving too much away and people wouldn’t pay for his live performances.
On the flip side, he felt like he didn’t have the bandwidth between traveling, performing, practicing, and life life-ing to set aside time to create content. As a result of inviting people into his creative process his fan club is growing and his content generates curiosity resulting in greater attendance locally and nationally. It works.
4. Peel Back the Onion: Tell Your Story
In a world of curated lives, people want to know if you’re real. Do you really have the academic expertise and real-world experiences to deliver?
Your audience is looking for inspiration. Are you sharing what truly inspires you?
People don’t buy chocolate chip cookies because they’re cookies. They buy the cookies because of the love and goodness that is baked inside. Until your wares are branded, you are the brand. If you’re being your authentic self, this will serve you well.
5. Choose Quality over Quantity
Don’t get it twisted. In order to stay relevant, you must be present. The more regularly people are exposed to you, the more they will feel familiar with you and be willing to do business with you.
However quality also impacts the end user experience of engaging with you on social media. Identify 3-5 topics that capture who you are, what you do, and why you’re doing it. Consistently drive messaging about these 3-5 topics across all your social media platforms. Begin with the platforms that have given you the most traction, and then spread out to the other platforms. Keep your messaging consistent so that your audience can easily learn who you are and what you do.
6. “Social Media is Intended to have Conversations.” -Rachele Wilson
Nothing else needs to be said.
This aged well, didn’t it?
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The world around us wasn’t built by the exceptional. It was built by everyday people who were willing to do exceptional things. Go build something.
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