A low-cost way to increase sales, revenue, and lead generation sounds like a digital marketing dream, but Dan Fleyshman, founder of Elevator Studio, says it can be your reality. At the 2024 Traffic & Conversion Summit, he explained how creating a personal brand with social media can grow your business with virtually no risk or financial investment.
Why Your Personal Brand Matters
Everyone has a personal brand, but they don’t always control it. If you own your story and connect emotionally with users, you’ll be at the top of their minds when your industry comes up in conversation.
Dan provides two examples that show how far your personal brand can take you. He describes how a Las Vegas real estate agent advertises on billboards and buses and shares information about her personal life on social media. Because people feel they know her, her name immediately comes to mind when it’s time to buy or sell a property.
Dan also has a friend who recently posted a video of a Harry Potter-themed gender reveal. Although she has just over 3,000 followers, she got 41 million views of herself and her husband stirring a cauldron to learn their baby’s gender. Now, her email is overflowing with emails from prospective clients.
How to Shape Your Personal Brand on Social Media
While you might not want to share information about your children or spouse on social media, everything else in your life should be on the table. Showcasing your world creates emotional attachments, and there’s no way to know which aspect of your life will trigger a reaction. Sharing many different parts increases the chances of connecting with viewers.
That doesn’t mean you need a massive following of your exact clients. Even if your followers aren’t in your ideal audience, they have connections to people who are and will tag them if your content shows they can benefit from your products and services.
Eliminating Fears Around Social Media
There’s no need to spend money building your personal brand on social media because all the major platforms are free. Likewise, as long as you have an iPhone or Android, you don’t need to invest in a new camera. Highly-produced videos get lower engagement and conversions than the content you film on your phone.
Social media posting also takes very little time. Post the same piece of content on all the major platforms—except YouTube—once a day. In around 6 minutes, you can create a photo or video and repurpose it on multiple sites.
Tips for Building Your Personal Brand
Posting on social media might be fast and free, but that doesn’t guarantee success. Dan breaks down some strategies for getting the most benefit from your personal brand.
Be Proactive
Your personal brand should work alongside your paid ads, not replace them. People will be more compelled to click on your content or make a purchase because they’ve established an emotional attachment through social media.
They’ll also be less defensive and more likely to convert when you reach out to them. People are more open to emails and messages when your social media pages prove your accomplishments.
When and What to Post
Consistency is the key to accumulating followers, so Dan recommends posting once a day and trying to meet these goals:
- Make them laugh: Post original content or share funny posts and remove them a day or two later to keep your page clean
- Teach them something: Offer short lessons on valuable topics, such as getting press, talking to publishers, or interacting with local media
- Show them something time-sensitive: Make a post about a topic as soon as it occurs to generate discussion
- Show them something in a niche: Focus on high-interest issues in your industry to become a subject-matter expert
Remember that you don’t necessarily have to post in real-time. You can plan your posts ahead of time and supplement them with time-sensitive content as necessary.
Explore Scaling Business Strategies With T&C 2024
Dan explains that if you consistently post on social media and establish your personal brand, “it will lead to new friends, new business, new clients, new sales, and everything in between.” He laid out his approach at T&C 2024, and you can get access to every detail. Get your T&C recordings now to dig deeper into his guidance, along with hundreds of hours of tactical content from other expert speakers.
