Personal Branding Mistake #3: LACK OF FOCUS

Listing too many skills and posting content on your social pages that have no connection to your personal brand may be confusing. Be clear about your brand promise and support it with consistent messaging. 

Social media pages are checked by recruiters 63% of the time. Having irrelevant and unnecessary content on your profile places you at a disadvantage. Your profile should focus on content that compliments and supports your brand promise. Include only relevant information that supports your brand story. Make sure your profiles have clear information and imagery that presents you in a favorable light. Consistency is important with personal branding. While it’s perfectly fine to adapt content to a specific platform, one cannot assume that your audience will only be looking at LinkedIn. Keeping your content consistent and focused delivers a strong message to your audience.

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Personal Branding Mistake #6: NOT CHECKING YOUR FEED

Your have a professional network, now use it! 

Having a social media profile just to have one is unproductive. Why have 500+ LinkedIn connections if you don’t engage them? Posting relevant content opens up new relationships and new opportunities on the web. Providing comments, feedback and insight on network posts is a very effective way to engage with your connections. The stronger your brand’s connection, the more valuable your brand becomes. And, 85% of your visitors feel more connected when you’re following them on social media. In order to reap the benefits of a strong online presence, regularly check your feed and participate. Don’t be viewed as “out of the loop”. 

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Personal Branding Mistake #12: TOO MANY POSTS

You are focusing on quantity not quality posts. One quality lead is worth 100 leads that do not have much hope.

One of the biggest mistakes you can make in personal branding is posting too much content. There’s tremendous pressure to be constantly visible in your ever changing social media feed. The volume of posts will depend on the specific platform. LinkedIn for instance is a low volume/high value platform. Twitter is a high volume/low value platform. Our instinct is to just post, post, post. It’s not about the quantity of your posts; it’s about the quality of your posts. Quality content is what makes your brand stand out. Engage your audience and attract new relationships and new opportunities with great content. 

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Personal Branding Mistake #16: NOT KEEPING IN TOUCH

A good social network with lots of dialogue can set you apart from the competition. Reach out to professionals around you and make your personal branding message louder.

Developing and maintaining a strong relationship with your network is good for you and good for your connections. Engaging with your audience is essential to building a sustainable brand. 71% of your viewers who interact with you are likely to recommend you to others. Communicating with your network on a consistent basis strengthens your brand. The most effective form of communication is brand promise driven dialogue. Share your content and provide feedback to others. Make it personal as often as you can. Get ahead of your peers by regularly keeping in touch with your network. 

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Personal Branding Mistake #18: YOU'RE A LITTLE STIFF

Professional profiles are important, but your social pages shouldn’t read like resumes. You want to communicate with your audience not confuse them by being overly academic. Be clear and creative. 

Social media profiles are not resumes. Don’t make them look like one or read like one. It’s about your brand promise and your brand story. Experience counts as support for your branding, use it that way and stay away from the resume. Social media is effective because it’s social and interesting. If you do it right and it’s a job you’re looking for, you’ll have plenty of time to show your resume. Having a profile filled with experience, academic accomplishments and recommendations is good if it points to your branding. If not, your connections will not see it as relevant and may not be engaged. Showcase your creativity by presenting your brand in a manner that is socially appropriate and innovative. Spice up your social media platforms with visuals, as 65% of social media audiences are visual learners. Think about it as a party conversation. Would you read someone your resume or would you tell them a story? Bet they would rather hear a story!

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Personal Branding Mistake #24: WATCH YOUR BACK!

Although a great profile picture is key to your personal brand, don’t forget about the imagery directly behind it. Incorporating some background art is an easy way to harmonize the look and feel of your brand and support your promise. 

Visuals are the most engaging type of content on social media. For instance, adding a photo URL to a tweet can boost your engagement by more than 25%. Video works even better as an engagement device. Approximately 40% of online users have a better and more favorable response to outreach when visuals are used over text. Visuals are processed 60,000 times faster by the brain than text. LinkedIn, for instance, offers great opportunities to customize your personal brand with background, portrait and downloadable visuals throughout your profile. It’s said that people are not reading these days. Make it easy on your visitor and boost your profile with visuals. 

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Personal Branding Mistake #28: NOT TAKING ADVANTAGE OF OUR PERSONAL BRANDING ASSESSMENT

Great personal branding starts with an assessment of how you stack up to competition. Do you stand out from the crowd? Check out our complimentary personal branding assessment.

Personal branding is all about your promise, what makes you different and better than competition. It’s tough to have a unique brand promise without a competitive audit. Stand out from the 97% of business executives who use LinkedIn. 43% of employers hired a candidate because they were creative on social media. Harness your creativity and show your audience why you are different and better than your peers; Be a purple cow in a field of brown cows.

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Personal Branding Mistake #31: A FRIEND IN NEED IS A FRIEND INDEED

You need your connections and they need you too. Don’t hesitate to give appropriate endorsements or recommendations. They may just want to return the favor. 

Did you know that 35% of LinkedIn users access the site daily? Stay in touch, recommend and nurture your connections. There are over 1 billion LinkedIn endorsements making their profiles 4X more likely to be viewed. The more endorsements you make, the more you will receive and the more attention you will get. So get on the endorsement band wagon!

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Personal Branding Mistake #33: YOU'RE NOT SUPPORTED

What you write on your profile needs support. Attach relevant documents, links and images throughout your page. Keep it fresh and interesting.

94% of people regularly share content online that add value to the professional lives of people in their network. Before sharing, consider sharing only informative and useful content. The average person reads only 20% of text so it’s wise to include visuals (particularly video) to optimize your brand presence. Your social media posts and shares work best when supporting your brand promise and story. 

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Personal Branding Mistake #37: YOU'RE HIDING YOUR BEST QUALITIES

Although you never want to be too personal on LinkedIn, listing organizations and causes you’re affiliated with can definitely give you an edge over the competition. Employers want to hire real people with interests and passions, not just a picture and a resume.

58% of employers hire people because they got a good feel for the candidate’s personality on social media. 42% of LinkedIn users update their profile regularly to keep it fresh and showcase their brand’s value. Visuals, organizations and causes are great places to get your visitor interested in your brand personality. 

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Personal Branding Mistake #40: THE CLOCK IS TICKING

Start reassessing your image now, not when transition inspires you or calamity strikes. Don’t wait until the final hour to revamp your personal brand; you might just miss a great opportunity.

Waiting to take action on your social media profile may cost you a valuable opportunity. For instance, adding an industry to your LinkedIn profile can get you 15X more views. Establish your personal brand and constantly update it. Active social media users follow brands that interest and engage them. 51% of user profiles on LinkedIn are 100% complete so make sure yours is one of them!

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Personal Branding Mistake #44: YOUR HEADLINE FALLS SHORT

Your headline is the single most important written component of your profile. Don’t just list your title and company – heighten the appeal! Bring in new business by adding important keywords.

After your picture, your headline is the most viewed item on your profile page. It’s like the headline on an ad. If people are intrigued, they will go further.  The optimal length of a headline is 6 words. We live in a world where people have short attention spans, so less is more. However, make sure your headline reflects your brand promise. Google displays up to 66 characters of a title tag.  Keep that in mind when crafting your headline.

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Personal Branding Mistake #45: THE MORE THE MERRIER

Be sure to list all relevant companies you’ve worked for, schools and credential programs. Make sure all your experience points to your brand promise. 

LinkedIn users who have education listed on their profile receive an average of 10X more profile views. Adding an industry to your profile can you get 15X more views. Adding keywords to support search will generate further engagement with your platforms. With personal branding for social media, more is more.

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Personal Branding Mistake #94: IT'S IN THE DETAILS

Literally. Look at the Additional Information section on the profile of someone you’d like to connect with. Maybe there’s a common interest that starts the conversation! 

Finding a way to initiate conversation with a new connection can be tricky. Often, many professionals include little details about themselves in the Additional Information section on LinkedIn. Use this information to find common interests and start up a conversation. 48.7% of LinkedIn users believe that the direct messaging feature is the most important method to start that conversation. Try to find common ground and use it to send a personalized direct message. Capitalize on the information connections provide and successfully reach out!

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Personal Branding Mistake #96: NOT MAKING RECOMMENDATIONS A PRIORITY

Endorsements are great, but any friend or peer can quickly click a button to endorse you. Recommendations however, require thought and time, and create credibility. Do you have good recommendations for your personal brand? 

Endorsements are important because they help LinkedIn members build their professional profiles and make them 4X more likely to be viewed. However, recommendations are an even more powerful why to build brand value. LinkedIn makes the recommendation process simple: Ask your connection to search for your name on LinkedIn. When your profile appears, tell them to click the “message” tab near the top of your profile. In the drop down menu, they should choose “recommend” and from there they can write a recommendation. Don’t be shy. Ask for recommendations to strengthen your profile.

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