Building a personal brand takes time.
Fact is, it’s going to take 3 years consistent effort before your brand really takes off with constant media interviews and event managers asking you to speak.
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Building a personal brand requires tenacity and dedication (along with a touch of insanity) to become a stand-out, in demand brand.
First you’re going to have to choose the #1 thing you want to become well known, well paid and wanted for to gain the clarity of purpose with a set direction, otherwise you’ll get distracted and overwhelmed.
Once you’ve done that, you will need to be really active if you want to rocket launch you, your brand and your business and you’ll need to have some useful tools to help you grow your brand and to track and measure your progress.
Here are 10 FREE Personal Branding tools to help you stand out and really get your brand out there...
Branding Tool #1: Sourcebottle
Having your image and story in print or on the TV or radio is one of the best ways to build your brand. But how do you know when a journo is looking for your story?
Simply sign up to Sourcebottle and get media alerts into your inbox, so you can respond directly to the publication, channel or journalist.
Here are some tips to make it work:
- Respond quickly. The media work on tight deadlines, and remember to consider each response as a unique opportunity to share something their readers/viewers would like.
- Make sure you are answering a relevant call out.
Don’t respond to requests that would be a real stretch for you to answer in an interview.
- Don’t respond with the same generic message every time and make sure you include why they should listen to you, include your bio, background or credentials.
- Add an image to the response. The media love it when you give them everything you need.
Don’t worry if it takes a while before you get an answer, keep responding to the requests that come through.
Keep an eye on what gets published. On many occasions my response has been used in an article without the journalist even getting in touch.
Which brings me to the next free personal brand building tool and it’s a really good way to keep track of when your name is mentioned online…
Personal Branding Tool #2: Brand Yourself
Sure you can Google your name to find out what’s online about you…(remember to do an incognito search to avoid seeing what your search history brings up)…
But what if you could not only discover what’s being said online about you, and rate it as important or not?
You can monitor the influence you have online with a simple tool you can get for free called www.brandyourself.com
The nicest thing about brandyourself.com is that not only can you manage your online presence, you can also track where your comments, articles, mentions take etc have appeared, and share them in your own feed, creating great interconnecting links.
So what kind of content is the best to share in order to rocket launch your personal brand?
Here’s the next free personal brand building tool…
Personal Branding Tool #3: AnswerThePublic
As a stand-out specialist, you need to be creating good content that you KNOW will get clicks and comments.
And it’s all about asking the right question.
Wouldn’t it be great to read the minds your prospects to discover what questions they really, really wanted answers for, so you could create content and headlines that engaged?
That’s exactly how AnswerThePublic can help you build your personal brand.
Simply type in the topic you want to know the questions for, buying a house, appointing an accountant, hiring staff, finding a lawyer, using a coach…and get all the questions that are asked on search engines so you can format your headlines and content.
If content is king, then engagement is the queen of hearts, so by sharing valuable, relevant content when it’s most needed, is the best way to engage with your ideal prospect.
The benefit is that not only do you get to share your top tips and best content, you are almost guaranteed it will get engagement.
Tip: It’s also a great way to find keywords to include in your website, blogs and marketing to improve SEO.
You can use this tool to create headlines that generate the most engagement and there is another very cool, free tool to check if your headline is going to resonate too…
Personal Branding Tool #4: SubjectLine
The headline you use on your content can make all the difference between going viral and hearing crickets…
SubjectLine gives you a score out of 100 for your headline, along with tips on what you’ve done well, what you have missed out and how to improve it.
Use it to check the headlines on your ads, emails, landing pages and even your printed marketing material.
Now you have some great content, with perfect headlines that improve your chances of being seen, and listen to, how do you ‘get it out there” without taking up all of your time?
Bringing in the next tool you can get started with for FREE to schedule all your social media…
Personal Branding Tool #5: Buffer
Scheduling posts makes huge sense when you are building your brand and Buffer has got to be one of the easiest tools to do exactly that.
It can schedule your posts to Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter, Linked-In, Google+ and Facebook.
It’s free to get started with 10 posts and if you want the full package with as many channels as you like with as many posts as you like, it’s just $10 a month.
Buffer also gives you stats about your posting, enabling you to repost the popular posts and tells you what day and time your posts should go out on based on your audience behaviours.
SuperTip: To become a well known and respected personal brand online, your content still needs to be engaging, not just me, me, me all the time…
So here’s a formula for you to share the right content that builds a trusted personal brand, because the last thing you want to do is only talk about yourself.
The 30/30/30/10 Rule:
30% about you - your story, content, events, case studies etc
30% news about your industry - shows you’re at the coal-face
30% information - be generous with your top tips to create value
10% fun or inspiration
So where do you find all that great content to share with information and news pertinent to your industry?
That’s the next fabulous free personal banding tool I absolutely love…
Personal Branding Tool #6: Google Alerts
Google Alerts sends the latest topic relevant news into your inbox for free.
Simply go to GoogleAlerts and set it up to automatically direct any article posted online about the subjects you have chosen to get alerts for directly to your gmail account (gmail is free too).
Tip: You can select which inbox it goes to - I use Forums to put all my google alerts so they don't clog up my primary email.
Get started by selecting a couple of topics that you could get information and news for, perhaps 6 to start with and set it going.
Once you have a few alerts, set aside perhaps 1 hour a week to scroll through for relevant articles to share.
You can always update the alert topics you get over time, based on the results you get.
So what’s the point of sharing other people's articles and how does that help your brand?
Sharing news indicates that you are up with the latest happenings in your industry, that you are an informed specialist and worth listening to.
There’s also a very cool free tool that adds your brand to what you share….
Personal Branding Tool #7: snip.ly
When you share any article online, you can now add a call to action footer to encourage viewers to click back to your brand and business.
This includes an image (which I suggest is your headshot so people know they are dealing with a real person), a short headline and a clickable link to your web page.
You can get 1000 clicks and one CTA for free and upgrade to do more, including split testing.
At time of publishing, the basic personal branding package is just $29 per month.
snip.ly also integrates with Buffer, making it a very cool way to automatically share great content that helps your expert authority and gives your followers a clickable link to your brand.
Big tip: Always use an image when you post online. Posts with images get noticed 100 x more than simple text based posts. Video is even better, but at least an image can stand-out for your brand.
Of course there is a free tool for doing just that which you are going to love…
Personal Branding Tool #8: Canva
Sharing images is great but it's even better for your brand to become recognised.
Canva enables you to create branded images and memes (an image, video, piece of text, typically humorous in nature, that is copied and spread rapidly by Internet users) using eye-catching images and quotes.
You don't have to have a creative bone in your body to use Canva either. The easy to use, pre-created templates and ‘drag and drop’ style tools enable you to generate impressive images that look great.
You can also upload your own images, but you get a huge number of templates for free when you get started.
Tip to make the most of this tool: Inspirational quotes get massive coverage and are often the posts that are liked and shared the most, spreading your brand far and wide.
Simply go back through your blog content and select a segment that stands out as a great quote you can use. Then find a template and image that suits in Canva, add your name, business name or logo to the image and share. Voila!
You can download the meme to post whenever you want, and even share to social media direct from Canva.
Sharing images on social media and in blog posts is great, but remember to also share your fantastic content with your raving fans, delivering your ‘gold’ direct to their inbox…
Personal Branding Tool #9: MailChimp
One of the first activities you need to do to build your brand is to “Grow your list”.
Having a database of clients, prospects and leads creates a solid foundation for you to build your brand reputation.
MailChimp is extremely popular, with over 15 million users and is possibly the easiest email marketing tools to get started with.
It’s free to get started and you can easily use one of their many templates, with simple drag and drop function to create great looking emails.
MailChimp also helps your email avoid your recipients spam folder and handles images and video links with ease.
You can upgrade to get an opt-in box to put on your website and it links with Facebook so you can capture leads and use auto-responding emails to connect with your audience when they opt-in to your database.
It now also has an e-commerce function, with great reporting so you can use MailChimp as your sales funnel.
It’s also vital to build your list of you want to become a best selling author and you can do that with the next free personal brand building tool...
Personal Branding Tool #10: Amazon
There’s nothing better than to add the title ‘Best Selling Author’ to your bio to build your brand, and you can do it for free!
Yes, that’s right, you can upload a book to Amazon Author Central and it won’t cost you a cent.
It takes an investment of time to create your book but here’s an outline of the steps to make it easy:
- Decide who you are writing the book for - who is your reader
- Braindump everything you know that you could share to help them?
- Mind-map your book to outline the chapters and flow
- Record each chapter and get them transcribed
- Get the transcription edited by a good ghost writer
- Create the cover and format the text for Amazons platform
There is a definite marketing process after that to become a best-seller, which I share in the Maximum Velocity Program, but Amazon is an awesome channel to build your personal brand with a book, even if it's not a best-seller.
Writing a book and becoming a best selling author does gives you the edge if you want to build your personal brand through speaking, because event organisers want speakers who know their stuff.
Speaking for free is a great way to get started, not only giving you exposure but also allowing you to test and practice your content and presentation.
Approach organisations or clubs like Rotary, Lions and other community groups to offer your services, or attend other events who have regular speakers and offer to speak when they need someone new - check out local Meet-ups.
Tip: Make sure you have an up to date speaker bio available on your own website, including testimonials, photos and video of you speaking, plus bullet pointed topics and clear outline of who your ideal audience is.
But there is also a free personal brand building tool to become an in-demand speaker…
Bonus Free personal Branding Tool #11: SpeakerHub
SpeakerHub connects speakers to events and offers you a free listing to be found, but more importantly, they send you loads of tips to get gigs, create professional presentations and alerts for speakers wanted.
Go sign up to SpeakerHub and get on there!
Have you found these Personal Brand Building Tools helpful?
I share loads more cool personal branding tools, tips, media opportunities and speaking gigs in the UBPers Members Only Facebook group, which you can join if you are in the Award Winning Authority Rocket Personal Branding Program.
Become Well Known, Well Paid & Wanted... get started for FREE, Just CLICK HERE.
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