Personal Branding, pt 1
Definition, virality and pitfalls
This is the first in a two or three part series on personal branding.
It’s a viable tactic as part of a multi-channel approach to your job search, and it can bring opportunities to you.
I'll start off by saying I'm not a fan of the term personal branding. I think it can lead to make-work, which can even get in the way of what you should be doing.
However, writing and using content to create experiences that support a job search is a great idea, and, in this way, calling it personal branding - as a discrete activity - isn’t a bad thing.
I expect there are many mediums through which you can build a personal brand, such as this newsletter, but I'll focus on LinkedIn because of how entrenched it is in other job search activities.
Today I'll cover
What a personal brand is
How it sits in your wider job search
How to construct viral content, and why you shouldn't
In the next edition, I'll look at a nuanced approach to branding, and how you can build a content plan that supports getting a job.
What a personal brand is
Influencer marketing has come to the fore over the past few years.
If proof of its legitimacy is needed, you need only look at the celebrities on Strictly Come Dancing With the Stars.
The idea is that by building awareness of your personality, lifestyle and what you're actually promoting, you also build trust. So that when people are ready to buy, they'll buy your products.
But while the brand is personal, the goal is sales. It’s a B2B marketing strategy.
When you see personal branding on LinkedIn, it’s often essentially a mini-business that promotes their services through the account of the author.
“Here’s my puppy, buy my stuff.”
I’ve no doubt you’ve read a lot of advice on how to build a personal brand but take note that the target audience for these advice posts is the business people above. And these posts often seek to part them from their money, with the hope they’ll make money too.
However, the steps that lead to a business personal brand don’t mean they are directly equivalent to a jobseeker personal brand.
Your goals are similar but different. And if there’s a commercial outcome you want, it’s likely a single job, not a throughput of leads.
You’ll also see that spicy content gets huge engagement, but can also repel readers. If you need a job, what’s the danger of writing overly spicy content? Could a reader make a decision against you based on your words?
How much you need any job should inform the experience you want to create for your readers.
How it sits in your wider job search
Or - what’s the point of a personal brand?
For me, writing content is about raising awareness and starting conversations with the right people.
In many ways the hierarchy of relationships your content appeals to is the same as with networking. Have a read through this article for a reminder.
Content can be writing posts or commenting on the posts of others.
And while it has an effect when it sits in your readers’ feeds, it’s also something you can share directly, say as a reason to get back in touch.
I think of LinkedIn posts like a plumber’s van driving around town. Most of the time you’ll disregard the van, unless it cuts you up with noxious fumes. But when you have a leaky pipe, you’ll surely take note of their number.
It can support an application, if a hiring manager decides to surreptitiously stalk your profile.
And it can work against you, if it suggests problem behaviour.
A good balance for content, is the poster in my daughters’ primary school, from a few years back:
THINK.
Is it True? Is it Helpful? Is it Inspiring? Is it Necessary? Is it Kind?
Achieve those five points and content will rarely work against your job search.
Content should also be integrated into your wider activity. Integrated marketing means that everything that is experienced of a marketing campaign carries a complementary and non-contradictory message.
Content that contradicts your CV or Cover Letter, say, may lead to red flags, whether that’s fair or not.
Content should be intentional, like anything you do in a job search.
HOW TO GO viral, and why you shouldn’t
Anyone who writes content will enjoy the sweet, sweet flow of dopamine when you see likes and comments trickle in.
Such as that first flair post announcing you are available to help your next employer, with examples of your achievements and what you are looking for.
Do that and you’ll get loads of engagement. It’s a great idea too. Why haven’t you done it yet? Tag me in and I’ll support you!
Or you can do what most people do and say “I’m sorry to announce I’ve lost my job, please help” and that will get loads too.
Because it is relevant and relatable to fellow jobseekers, recruiters and sympathisers.
But then you feel the soul-crushing defeat of a well-thought-out post, highlighting a problem in your industry, and tumbleweed follows.
Both types of content have an place. That tumbleweed post is also relevant and relatable, just only to a niche audience.
I try to take a land and expand approach to content, balancing jobseeker advice, recruitment advice / stories, occasional ponderings and satire, which I use to tackle topics from different directions.
Over the past three years I’ve had between 3m to 5m views of my posts, and I’ve got a bit of business through them too.
What I don’t do is try to go viral any more.
Because when I have gone viral, with a couple of 1m impression posts, it’s taken weeks to extricate myself from them, and there hasn’t been real benefit.
Here’s one of my viral posts, for reference.
Moreover, I find my tumbleweed posts start better conversations from lurkers - those that never engage publicly.
The next article will be about helping you find the right balance for you, while showcasing your personality.
I promised you I’d show you how to go viral, so here you go. (feel free to send me plentiful validation tokens)
Relevance + relatability + readability + entitlement.
Maybe add a photo too.
If that seems too simple, feel free to cut and paste this as a post and tell me what happens:
An employee asked me if he can WORK from HOME permanently.
Here is what I told him.
"As long the work gets done I don't care whether you work from the South pole or the office. I hired you for a job and I trust you to get it done."
That employee saved 3 hours on commute. Happy employee = greater productivity.
I learned then that if you focus on presence, you get presence. If you focus on results, you get results.
If you can't trust your employees to work flexibly, why hire them in the first place?
Trust is key.
Agree?
“Does it really work?” asked Charles. I told him to try it as an experiment. He rarely got more than a few hundred impressions per post.
170,000 impressions, 2,000 likes. Pretty viral for a first timer.
But it is very much the wrong path, for a simple reason.
The weight and depth of opinion, which I’ll talk about next time. The weight of opinion of 100 job seekers does not compare to the depth of opinion of one relevant hiring manager.
One might lead to another, but not so straightforwardly as through high volume posts.
I talked about this in more depth in an enjoyable LinkedIn Live with Phil Sterne and Suzie Henriques. You can see it here, if you’re interested. Please don’t judge my wave, which was a private joke!
That’s it for today.
Next week I’ll write about
Building your content philosophy and plan
Types of content to try
Weight and depth of opinion
Why you should start now, even if you don’t see any benefit for months
Thanks for reading.
Regards,
Greg