Useful Content — "Make Your Brand Personal"

Juma: I like that fascination point, it's interesting. That's the first time I've heard somebody describe a component of a personal brand as fascination. And let me just get this straight: you're saying that if somebody wants to build their personal brand, part of how they do it, or one component of it, could be that they talk about things that they desire to get into or that fascinates them, but not necessarily things that they are already into and doing, but it's something that they're learning or maybe it's something that they're discovering and things of that nature? Liam: Absolutely, yeah. Because that is in and of itself the most pure form of who we are: what are the things that light us up, what are the things that make us happy? And when you share things about what makes you happy, then you're spreading happiness and you're putting it out there in the world for other people to engage with. And it's interesting because I think we're in a very unique moment in time, right? Like you and I met and we were talking on Clubhouse, and the pandemic hit and everybody was working from home. It was just a crazy moment. And prior to the pandemic, I think in a professional setting, which I consider LinkedIn to be, you would not really put yourself out there and share your fascination or share your passions or share your personal stuff because you sort of kept it at a distance. In order for your colleagues or people that you work with to get to know those things about you, you had to work with them first and they had to get to know you over time. But now that we all work remotely, there's almost this desire to share who we are more broadly and more openly, and have an openness to connecting with new people that you don't necessarily work with, right? Just the fact that you and I are having this conversation is a testament to the fact that we are comfortable making new friends across the globe, right? You're in Trinidad, I'm in Raleigh, North Carolina. We would never cross paths if it wasn't for the internet, for LinkedIn, for Clubhouse. And I think that is the future, right? The future is people being themselves online and finding people across the globe who are intrigued by that and want to build relationships with other people who share the same interests. I very much believe that's the future of connection. Juma: When you say that, here's what I'm thinking. I don't know if you have always been someone who was comfortable sharing online and sharing yourself, because there's a component to which that doesn't come naturally for some people. And I'm not even talking about whether you get into what you do in your free time or your hobbies or your family or any of those things. Let's put that in a different category for now. Let's just talk about the thing you actually do for work, let's talk about the thing that will make you money. People have even problems sharing about those type of things. And I know you work with several clients, and I'm sure you've encountered a scenario where somebody wants to share but also does not want to share. How do you frame personal branding, or how do you encourage someone, or show them the value, not necessarily force or convince them, but show them the value of sharing their personal brand? Liam: Yeah, so I think this is something that happens to everybody, and it happened to me in the beginning of my personal branding journey. The most common things I hear from people are: one, 'I don't really know what to say.' Two, 'What gives me the right to comment about these things? I'm not an expert.' And my counter to that is: well, you don't have to be an expert, right? You can have an opinion about something or a perspective on an approach to something. So whatever your business might be, you have an opinion about how to run that business or how to perform that function, or an experience that you have with a client or at work. Those are things that are just part of your journey. And so I think people get too hung up on 'people will judge me, people will think critically about what I'm saying, people will think less of me because I put myself out there.' When in reality, I have found the opposite to be true. When I started posting on LinkedIn, I got flooded with messages from people that were like, 'Oh, that post resonated with me so much, I love that so much, I wish I could do that.' And I'm like, 'Well, why can't you?' 'Well, I'm not an expert, I'm worried about what people will think if I post.' And it's almost unique to LinkedIn, right? People on other social channels, you're on Instagram, you feel comfortable because you're in a closed environment where your network is already vetted. But on LinkedIn it's like, okay, I'm out in the open for everybody to see. And I think our natural tendency as humans is to think, 'What's the good that's going to come from that, or what's the bad that's going to come from that?' And we tend to think, 'Well, if I put myself out there, people will criticize me.' But it's not true. People typically want to engage with people who are themselves and put it out there.

LIAM ON LINKEDIN'S POSITIVE CULTURE: I like to say there's a self-policing mechanism at play on LinkedIn, because most people don't want their boss or their future employer or their colleagues or their peers to see them being negative or critical or rude to people. And I think that is something that is unique about LinkedIn: there's a very positive energy on that platform. People like to support each other. People naturally gravitate to the idea that this is a place where if you're struggling with something, you can go and you can find support from perfect strangers. I think one of the most interesting things about LinkedIn, and perhaps a silver lining of the times that we've been in over the last five years: people never used to post about being laid off. Being laid off was this, 'Oh, I can't admit I was laid off, that's terrible, that's career suicide.' And all of a sudden people started saying, 'No, forget that. It's not my fault I got laid off. This is happening to me, and I'm going to go to this network full of opportunity and I'm going to share that, and people are going to support me, they're going to try and help me.' And you see all these posts all the time now of people that got let go and they're talking about what they do and the value that they add, and hundreds of people are commenting and sharing and reposting because they want to help each other out. I think that's magic, honestly. JUMA ON 'CRINGE' CONTENT: Someone in recent time told me that LinkedIn is now, there's been an article talking about LinkedIn being cringe. This is a friend of mine, and he is a digital marketer and he's been doing stuff online for a number of years, quite experienced. And when I came across to LinkedIn he was like, 'You know, I've tried LinkedIn, but it's so cringe, people are so fluffy.' And there's two levels there. There's one level of the people who try to be influencers or try to be thought leaders, but then they have these stories that are unbelievable. And then there's another part where the other people who are hearing those things are coming into the comments and praising the story that sounds unbelievable. So he was kind of saying, 'Well, I don't want to be a part of that at all.' So is there any way that we can avoid that type of personal branding? LIAM ON AUTHENTICITY: LinkedIn is in a unique spot because there's still a pretty good opportunity to develop organic reach there, and a lot of other social platforms don't really provide that necessarily. And so where there's organic reach, there will always be growth hackers who are trying to game the system. If that means creating a story that is just far-fetched because they know it's going to get reactions, then that's what people will do. LinkedIn provides, there's an X in your feed on every post, and you can X out of a post and say, 'I don't want to see this in my feed anymore.' That is really the fastest solve for it. As a way to avoid making that mistake, always think about the content that you put out there through the lens of: is this something I genuinely believe? Is this authentic? Is this an accurate representation of myself? Try not to get sucked into the idea that you're creating content with the goal of getting engagement and getting your vanity metrics to increase. Just focus on being yourself. That's why I use the journal analogy. When you're writing in a journal, there's no audience, you're just sharing your thoughts and your opinions and your feelings, and that's the most authentic form of self-expression. It's when you start to focus on 'I didn't get enough likes, didn't get enough engagement,' that's when you start potentially trying to game the system, and that's when the cringe factor comes in. So I always encourage people: fine-tune your feed. Follow people that really interest you. And if there's stuff in your feed that you don't like, X out of it. There are plenty of people on this platform that I used to follow and used to think were a big deal, and then I realized that they were really just engaged in shenanigans that misrepresented authenticity. So they're no longer in my feed. Juma: 'Shenanigans' is a mild way to put it. I saw something recently that said, 'If you let somebody shenan once, they gonna shenan again.' Liam: I call it curating your feed. You keep the people who are valuable. And you let the people who are not so valuable go serve another audience. But for you, when you're building a personal brand, you want to be very, very specific. WHY EVERYONE SHOULD BUILD A PERSONAL BRAND: Juma: I know you believe that it's imperative for everyone to build a personal brand. Why? Liam: Because you don't know what opportunity lies out there if you're not showing up with your eyes open and your voice projecting. Your resume is what you've done, where you've done it, and when. It's very short, it's succinct, it's bullets, it's metrics. But on LinkedIn it's more about who you are, how you do what you do, why you do what you do. So LinkedIn is more like a context mechanism, a platform for you to provide context to support all those bullets on your resume. When you work with somebody, yes the things that they've achieved are important, and yes their skills are important, but their personality and the way that you relate to them and how you get along with them, those are really the ultimate drivers to successful collaboration. Up until people started building personal brands, the only way that somebody would get to know me is through a three-hour or four-hour long interview process where I might talk to six different people and they get 30 minutes each. That's not enough time. If you give people more content and more opportunity to get to know you better before they walk through that door, then you're just increasing the likelihood that opportunity will find you. I'll use a story. I spent the first 18 years of my career primarily working in operations. I got a phone call from a company asking if I wanted to be considered for a revenue operations role. The chief marketing officer said, 'I think you could probably do this, but I have a different job that I haven't really fully crystallized yet, but I kind of think you might be the perfect fit for it. We're trying to stand up this recruitment marketing engine, and I think that with your experience in go-to-market operations and branding, you could be the perfect fit.' And I was like, 'Well, I'm flattered, but what branding? I don't have branding experience anywhere.' And he said, 'Yes, you do. You do branding every day on LinkedIn. All I want you to do is take the same approach that you have there and channel it for our company.' That's when the light bulb went off. If I had applied for that position, if there was a job description, the recruiter would have put my resume directly in the trash because I had no brand marketing experience on my resume. But the marketing officer was convinced that I could do it because of what I put out on LinkedIn. We worked really hard at it for two years. We got acquired. Building a personal brand on this platform has changed the trajectory of my career and my life in ways that I never would have imagined possible. Juma: That's an amazing story. The thing that stands out is that someone else was observing you and discovered that. And that's a massive thing on LinkedIn. Only 5% of LinkedIn members create content consistently. Only 25% of their billion user base shows up on a monthly basis. There's a lot of people that just digest and lurk. A lot of my clients are people that I've never even seen before. They just reach out and say, 'I've been following you for two years and I'd love to learn how to do what you do.' They're struggling with the idea of building a personal brand and they're worried about appearing cringe. PRACTICAL ADVICE - WHERE TO START: Juma: I'm a business owner, I'm running a business, I'm now getting onto LinkedIn, I want to start building my personal brand. Where do I start? Liam: First, have your profile page in order. Have a banner that looks professional, conveys the value that you deliver, has some personal touch. Make sure your profile picture is professional looking and inviting. Make sure that you have a headline that is very effective at conveying the value that you deliver. You have 220 characters. The first 45 to 50 characters are the most important because those are the ones that follow you around the platform. Every comment that you leave, 50 characters of your headline will be surfacing in that comment. And then your About section should convey the value that you deliver, the solutions that you offer, at a high level, why it's valuable, who it's directed towards. Speak to the target audience within the first couple paragraphs, but then also tell your story. How did you end up as a business owner? What's your journey? Give people a reason to want to connect with you. On my About section, I talk about what I do now, the value that I deliver, where I'm from, my hobbies and my passion. I list all of my personality profile results. Just yesterday somebody reached out and said, 'I'm also an ENFP,' my Myers-Briggs result. Anything that you can put on there that makes it easier for somebody to start a conversation with you is worth putting on there. I put my favorite quotes on there. One of my favorite quotes is, 'There are no strangers here, only friends you haven't yet met,' which is my approach to LinkedIn and life in general. Then find your ideal customer profile. What does my ideal client look like? Start finding those people using LinkedIn search. Follow those people. Comment on their content. Connect with those people, build relationships. I encourage people to follow somebody for a while, engage with some of their content, and then reach out to connect, because then you're familiar. It's like a warm introduction. Then you connect. From there you go into your DMs, you have conversations, and it doesn't have to be an immediate pitch. It should just be, 'Hey, really looking forward to getting to know you.' If they are a lead or prospect, set up a bookmark list of those profiles you want to nurture. Then just start building relationships. Spend a lot of time on the platform commenting on the content of your core profile. A personal brand is about getting on the radar of people that you want to pay attention to you. I'd encourage people to spend 30 minutes a day at least just commenting on content from people that they want to get on the radar of. LINKEDIN AS A NETWORKING EVENT: Juma: When people attempt to connect with me, I look to see 'following you since.' If they send a connection request in March, 'following since March,' it's like, you just started. And when you send a connection request, you automatically follow. So sometimes the connection request is the follow. Liam: LinkedIn is so full of little signals that you can use to determine someone is genuine or not. If somebody says, 'I've been following you for a long time,' and they just started following you a week ago, I will probably think less of that person's authenticity. You have to put in the time and put in the work and be really determined and focused on having conversation and building connection. LinkedIn is literally just an online version of a networking event, but it's global and it's 24/7, 365, if you want it to be. You don't have any geographic limitations. You're just thinking about it as shaking somebody's hand: 'I'm Juma, I'm Liam, nice to meet you. Tell me about yourself.' Getting to know people, and then seeing if there's mutual benefit to being in a relationship. You wouldn't go to somebody at a networking event and immediately start pitching them. If you connect that parallel, a lot of interesting opportunity exists. WHERE TO FIND LIAM: Juma: Could you please share with the people where they can find you online? Liam: The best place to find me is on LinkedIn. There's only three Liam Darmodys in the world. One is in North America, one is in London, and the other one's in Ireland and he's not active at all, so you'll see me when you see me. You can also go to my website, which is liamsbrandstand.com. Drop me a line, tell me that you saw me on Juma's show. A friend of Juma's is a friend of mine. Juma: Thank you so much for joining us in the useful content classroom. Useful content classroom dismissed. [Outro: The Useful Content podcast is brought to you and produced by Relate Studios. If you like what you've heard, please follow and come back in 2 weeks for another episode. Follow Juma Bannister on LinkedIn and Twitter. See you soon in the useful content classroom.]