The way I see it, as you work on your personal brand, you’ll begin reaping the rewards in stages.
I’ve bucketed them into three: Discoverability, Trust, and Authority.
Let’s start with Discoverability.
We already know that in order to be a thought leader, you need to have deep expertise in your field.
Maybe you’ve worked as a nurse in a downtown emergency room for ten years.
Maybe you grew up breeding and training labradors.
Maybe you were the first-ever acrobat to perform in Cirque Du Soleil.
It’s no doubt that you know you’re the expert, but who else does?
How will complete strangers see you as the go-to person in your field of expertise if you’re only doing cartwheels in your basement?
That’s what Discoverability is.
As soon as you open the door to your studio and invite people in, the word about your talent and expertise begins to spread.
I know what you’re thinking. This sounds like an invasion of privacy.
But here’s why it’s not: you’re not opening the door to your bedroom, or your kitchen. You’re opening the door to your area of expertise. This is what people will know you for.
Maybe you’re thinking - but there are already so many famous acrobats out there! Who’s going to care about me?
This is what the professionals call “self-limiting beliefs” - a restrictive set of false assumptions and accusations we make about ourselves that stop us from doing the things we’re capable of!
And, if we can push past these beliefs, we’ll find that it’s actually not that difficult to get people to see you.
I’m sure you’ve heard this before, but it remains true:
Only 3% of LinkedIn users post regularly. The other billion members are lurking, reading, scrolling.
If you start posting content that speaks to your expertise, people will start to notice. They may like, share, comment, follow…
But how do you actually become discoverable?
How do you ensure that your expertise stands out in the sea of other people posting, sharing, liking, commenting…
It’s not as hard as it seems. While yes, there are 1 billion LinkedIn members. But, only around 3 million users share content on a weekly basis.
This means that only about 1 percent of LinkedIn’s users are actually creating content.
This is great news for you!
But how do you become discoverable?
Three proven practices :
Work Off of a Strategy
And no, posting when you feel like it is NOT a strategy!
Building a content strategy forces you to think carefully about why you want to say what you’re saying, how your pieces of content need to build off of each other, how often you should be posting what, where it should all live, what audience you should target… the list continues.
2. Post Meaningful Content
While an occasional puppy appreciation post might make sense, unless you’re a dog breeder, these should be few and far between.
Your content can’t just be posting the new plant you bought, or sharing your favorite mac and cheese recipe.
It needs to relate back to what you know best, always.
3. Consider Search Functionality and SEO
The digital landscape is constantly changing. If you truly want to be discovered, you need to know the tools to help you land in that number one search spot.
Understanding how and why SEO works, and implementing small changes into your writing, your URLs, and even your pictures, can bring significant upgrades to the number of people who are finding you.
Once you and your content is easy to discover, you’ll begin to attract more followers. And, we’re a herding species. So once I see that you already have 5000 followers, I’ll jump on board and follow you too.
All of a sudden, you're DISCOVERABLE.
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