As an agency owner, you’re constantly on the hunt for ways to promote your services.
You already have an all-singing, all-dancing agency website and regularly populate your agency’s social channels with helpful content every week, but you know that prospects today crave a human connection.
image source: Twitter
This is where growing your personal brand comes into play. Putting a face to your agency can help develop deeper client connections, build credibility and trust, raise brand awareness, and secure loyalty - what’s not to like?
In this blog, we’ll explore how you can create a personal brand to promote your agency on social media from scratch. But before diving into the article, make sure to check out our video with agency owner Desiree Martinez on how to grow your agency with personal branding on YouTube.
Why should you create a personal brand on social media?
While it can seem daunting putting yourself out there, the benefits of growing a personal brand on social media far outweigh the negatives.
image source: Twitter
As highlighted in Jessie’s Tweet above, building a personal brand can:
- Present new opportunities through people you have personally connected with
- Help clients know exactly what you stand for and understand your morals, vision, and values
- Secure deals you never would have got if you hadn’t have made a personal connection with the client
- Allow you to charge more since you have elevated yourself to expert status in your industry
- Create a direct line with your audience so you can learn about their needs and provide instant support
Here’s the thing. According to Nielson, only 33% of buyers trust messages from a company while almost 90% of customers trust recommendations from someone they know.
When you become a credible part of the community, clients will instantly have an increased level of trust for you and will be more likely to book your services over another anonymous agency.
How to get started building a personal brand from scratch
Building a brand from scratch is difficult. However, building a personal brand from scratch is often slightly easier because you already have a few crucial details ironed out: namely, your personality and the “image” of your brand (hint: it’s you!).
1. Set up your social channels
First things first, you need to set up your profile on the social channels you want to use. While you don’t have to go all out with fancy branding, it does help to have a few professional elements up your sleeve. For this part, you need to think about:
Your profile picture
It might be a scary thought, but using your face as your profile picture will help clients connect with you. We’re far more likely to resonate and feel drawn to another human over a logo or a generic picture.
Ideally, your profile picture should:
- Be clear and easy to see
- Show your face (bonus points if you’re smiling and look approachable)
- Be professional (remember, you’re still promoting your agency here)
- Showcase a little bit of your personality (just because it’s professional, doesn’t mean you can’t show off a little bit of who you are - try a big smile or a prop that reflects something about you)
For example, Hannah Nieves's Instagram profile picture is clear, professional, and bright.
Your bio
On most social channels you have a very limited amount of space to make an impression. So, it’s important to nail your bio so that you can reach the right people and effectively demonstrate who you are in as few words as possible.
When writing your personal social media bio, consider:
- Including a personal anecdote to separate it from your agency profiles
- Incorporating something interesting about yourself
- Mentioning your agency
- Highlighting some personal achievements away from your agency
- Touching on the topics you’ll be sharing content about
2. Identify your expertise
Once you’ve secured your personal profiles and polished them up with a professional picture and an engaging bio, it’s time to think about what you’re going to share content about.
Think about:
- Do you have past experience in anything particular?
- What parts of your agency are you most knowledgeable about?
- What interests do you have?
- What do you like to talk about?
- What kind of content do you enjoy reading about the most?
Answering these questions will reveal some key topic areas that you’re most knowledgeable on (and that you enjoy). By keeping the topics you write about on social media to a minimum, you have more chance of becoming an expert in that area.
Tina Walczak regularly posts tips for creatives.
image source: Instagram
3. Decide on your content types
The type of content you promote will be different from your agency content because it’s coming from you as a person. While your agency's social profiles might share your company’s latest blog post or an update from the team, you might share more personal things from your own channels.
Content types you might consider include:
- Asking questions
image source: Twitter
- Tips and advice
image source: Facebook
- Answering questions
- Sharing your favourite content
image source: Twitter
- Personal anecdotes
image source: Instagram
4. Branding
Your personal branding doesn’t need to be as polished as your agency branding (the main selling point is you), but it can help to have a cohesive design in place to make sure you’re consistent across all channels and are recognisable in multiple different places.
Having personal brand colours and graphic elements will help instil trust and will go a long way in making you a go-to expert.
Tyler Narducci uses a distinct colour scheme on his personal social channels. Above is his Twitter profile and below is his branded Instagram page.
5. Create a social media schedule
Consistency is key, even if you’re posting from a personal account. People will expect you to show up in their feeds and they’ll come to look forward to your posts if you do it right.
Once you’ve decided on the type of content you want to focus on, you can map out what, when, and where you’ll post each week.
Your schedule might look something like this:
- Monday: answer follower questions
- Wednesday: ask a question
- Friday: share a tip
- Sunday: share a personal photo or anecdote
Not only does creating a schedule hold you accountable, but it also makes it far easier to create content. Instead of scrabbling around every Monday because you “need to post something in the next hour”, you can build out content in advance and schedule it using a social media scheduling tool like Sendible.
image source: Twitter
Top tips for building your personal brand as an agency owner
Now you’ve got your accounts set up and a schedule in place, it’s time to focus on growing your following and generating engagement on your social channels.
Here are some top tips to get you started:
Choose the right channels
Don’t try to be everywhere at once. Instead, choose your top 2-3 channels and dominate those. Start by identifying the platforms you’re already getting engagement on or that your ideal clients are hanging out on and focus on those. You can always branch out to more channels once you’ve established a presence on a couple.
Follow other experts
Surround yourself with like-minded people and follow other experts in your industry. You’ll be able to see the kind of content they’re sharing, which will reveal trends and the interests your target audience might have. Even the most prominent experts like Neil Patel choose to follow others:
Share content that’s not your own
As well as posting personal stories and your own content, share content created by others. This is a great way to get on the radar of influencers and experts and expand your reach. Make yourself stand out by adding your own personal touch to the content you share, like your own opinion, or a word of congratulations.
Here's an example of Shane Cicero tweeting a resource put together by another expert in the field.
image source: Twitter
Respond to comments and replies
Engagement fosters engagement. Make your followers feel special and heard by responding to the comments and replies they leave you. Not only does this spark exciting conversations, but it can also broaden your reach as your comments will show up in the feeds of their own followers.
image source: Instagram
Emma Barrera makes a habit of replying to comments on her Instagram posts.
Mix up your content
Experiment with sharing different kinds of content and see what works best with your followers. Try videos, photos, Stories, threads, and links to content. Dig into your metrics to find out what kind of posts get the most engagement and make sure you post more of that.
Repurpose content for different platforms
Not all social media platforms are equal, and some content performs better on some than others. For example, videos have a higher average engagement rate than images and links on Facebook, while Twitter users are predominantly there to keep up with the news and latest trends in their favourite industries.
Instead of sharing the same things to each platform, think about repurposing content into different formats for each channel. For example, you might turn a Live Q&A into:
- A 10-part Stories slide on Instagram
- Short animation for Twitter
- A mini-blog on Facebook
Make it personal
Don’t be afraid to get personal (this is your personal brand, after all!). Share videos that include your face and publish your own personal thoughts to separate you from your agency. Make sure you’re comfortable with your thoughts and opinions being connected with your agency, though!
Megan Grant’s Instagram page is full of Reels and videos that show her face.
Connect your agency to your personal brand
The most successful personal brands make it very clear that they’re also agency owners. Make sure your followers know about your agency and that you are the person running it. This makes them far more likely to hire you for your services and recommend you to people who are looking for an agency like yours.
Chris Donnelly makes it clear that he’s the founder of Verb Brands in his Twitter bio.
Grow your agency with a personal brand
Agency owners understand the need for a personal connection with clients - consumers today want to put a face to a brand, and will often only invest in brands that they feel a connection with.
Personal branding is the perfect way to do this. It helps you establish trust and build relationships with prospects and existing clients while building your expertise in your industry.
Grow your personal brand with our library of resources and templates for agency owners.
