If you want to choose the best platform to build your personal brand on social media, you will first need to have a deep understanding of your niche, your personal style, the services you sell, your available resources, and the type of content you enjoy creating.
When you first start building a personal brand, one of the key steps you need to do is to build a social media strategy. In order to do that, you will also need to choose which channels are the best for you and the different purposes you’re aiming for.
In order to do that effectively, you must take into account the previously mentioned variables.
Keep in mind that balance is indispensable for a successful social media strategy: no matter how tempting it may seem, you can’t be in every social media channel that exists, but you can neither post on just one. Achieving your digital goals is about identifying the pros and cons of every channel.
Even though nowadays there are hundreds and hundreds of different platforms, for this article, we will talk about the ones we work with at Latinpresarios and are mostly known for the general public:
- Youtube
- TikTok
Keep reading and learn how to choose the right platforms, strengthen and build your personal brand on social media by doing so!
Contents
First of all, we need to understand and have a clear idea of what social media is good for. Each platform has a concept and a target behind that will determine its users and functionality.
Keep in mind we’re speaking in general terms: social platforms have a wide user range and they fulfil different types of goals. This is not an irrefutable truth!
You should deeply think about your goals as a professional in order to make the right decision and build your personal brand on social media in the best way possible.
YouTube
YouTube has been going around since 2005, and has a potential advertising reach of 2.291 billion users. It is also one of the biggest search engines on the internet, right after Google. This is why it is a great place to find new followers and clients.
As you may already know, YouTube consists of users uploading videos about all kinds of topics. They may be really short or really long, and it’s great to showcase projects and explain products or concepts related to your brand and niche.
If you enjoy public speaking and feel comfortable talking, YouTube could be a great platform for your content. If your customers will need some explaining about your products or services before purchasing them, it’s also a good way to inform them.
The basic resources you’ll need to make YouTube content are:
- Video editing skills
- A good camera (it could be your phone camera)
- Studio lights
- A quiet place to film
LinkedIn is the most professional-oriented platform you’ll find in this article, and it was founded in 2002. Today, it has an estimate of 740 million users. This is the place to showcase your professional achievements and connect with people with similar goals or skills.
Even if your digital strategy’s focus isn’t LinkedIn, you should have your own profile on this platform. This is because people will look you up on this platform to know more about what you’ve done, where you’ve studied, and what’s your experience.
You can share written posts, images, and videos on your profile and share them with your connections. Because of its active users, this is a great place to network, put yourself out in the world and make your acquaintances know what you do and what are your professional goals.
The resources you’ll need are:
- Knowledge in your area
- Writing skills
- Creativity to come up with new topics to talk about
- Social skills to make connections
Facebook is one of the most famous and used social media platforms in the whole world. Even though its fame has been decreasing in the last few years, by the beginning of 2021 it had 2.740 billion active users each month, which is the highest number you’ll encounter on this short list.
Facebook it’s a great way to promote any kind of business, because of all the tools it offers and the huge number of active users it has. Just as you will see in the next platform, you can pay little amounts of money and be promoted to people from your niche, via stories, posts or formal ads.
You can post text, photo and videos, and it’s really easy to interact with your followers.
The basic resources you’ll need for this platform are:
- Creativity in order to come up with post ideas
- Design skills or a design team to make posts
- Writing skills
- Social skills
- Scheduling app for your posts
Instagram was launched in 2010, and slowly became one of the most used social media platforms in the world, with a current potential advertising reach of 1.221 billion users.
It also has the option to pay little fees for effective ads. However, if you want them to work out, you must have clear strategies and clear goals that resonate with your potential customers.
Even though lots of platforms have “stories”, Instagram has the most optimized ones. Besides, its hashtag search allows users to connect with different topics, at the same time that it allows content creators to reach their niche on the app.
Another big advantage Instagram has is that it has many different options to post content. It has traditional posts with a photo and a caption, stories, reels, filters and IGTV. All of these are ways to reach different people and eventually turn them into loyal followers and loyal customers.
Since Facebook bought Instagram some years ago, many of its functions are connected and targeted towards sales. It’s your duty to take advantage of this and build strong strategies to grow your revenue!
The resources you’ll need to keep your Instagram active are many, and they will depend on the format kind you like the most. However, you’ll most likely need:
- A good camera for video and pictures (could be your phone camera)
- Photo and video editing software and skills
- Copywriting and hashtag strategy knowledge
Twitter appeared in our lives in 2006, and by 2021 it has its potential advertising reach is 353 million, which is a pretty small number when compared with its competitors on this list.
This is a very good platform for artists and public figures in general, because it is very easy to make content. However, just as in any other social media, you should be careful about what you post, because it’s relatively easy to go viral and for people to misunderstand your words.
But it’s not all bad! Twitter gives users the chance to express short and concise ideas about their niche and position as experts by sharing relatable and understandable advice. It’s a great way to reach new potential customers and engage with them, cause they won’t have to invest a lot of time to get to know you or your thoughts.
Twitter is also a good platform to distribute pieces of longer content, in order to generate attraction and make users visit your YouTube channel or even better, your website.
The resources you’ll need to post good content on Twitter are:
- Writing and synthesis skills
- Creativity to come up with short but constant content
- Scheduling plan for Twitter
TikTok
TikTok was founded in 2016, but became viral during 2019 and reached its peak in 2020 with the start of the pandemic. Nowadays, it’s estimated to have 689 monthly active users, which is a lot, considering how new it is.
It is targeted towards teenagers and young adults, but its range has grown and it’s one of the most used and famous platforms nowadays. It consists of users uploading short videos, of one minute or less.
Even though it may seem very little time, this characteristic is also responsible for how famous the platform has become and how easy it is to become viral and gain followers.
On the other hand, its algorithm is really advanced, which means that, with constant content and a good hashtag strategy, you’ll eventually be able to reach your niche directly.
The basic resources you’ll need are:
- A smartphone with a good camera
- Creativity
- Ability to keep up with trends and adapt them to your pillar contents
Now that we know more about each social platform, we should explain which are the aspects you need to have in mind when making your strategic decisions. This will make your goals clearer and shape the way to successfully build your personal brand on social media.
Niche
Just as we saw before, each platform has a different target. You must know the demographic data of the group you’re aiming to sell. Some things you should take into account are:
- Age group
- Gender
- Socioeconomic status
- Occupation/interests
- How will they get to know you?
- Where do they spend the most time online?
Once you know all of these things, you’ll be able to identify which social media platform will be more useful to reach your goals.
For example, if your niche is middle or high class young adults who enjoy sports and fitness lifestyle, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube could be good social platforms to start with. This is because those are channels used by young people and offer the opportunity to share information in a quick and striking way.
Services and/or products
This aspect is highly related to your niche, but it also deserves to be explained separately. Even though platforms are really versatile and can be useful for many purposes, you need to consider, along with your niche, what are you trying to sell.
By knowing this, you’ll be able to build a clear strategy that will allow you to reach your desired customers.
It’s important to know how important the product or service you’re selling to your potential clients is for them, and how aware they are of its existence. For example, if it is something your client doesn’t quite know they need, then you’ll require space to educate them even before they directly contact you.
LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube and Instagram are platforms that, if used correctly, will give you the chance to easily explain the value of your product and/or services.
Personal style
If you’re interested in building a personal brand, chances are you already have a social media presence and consume online content regularly. This means you probably have a favorite social media platform, the one you’re most comfortable with and understand the most.
Even though building a personal brand will require you to get out of your comfort zone, if you’re short on time, budget or human resources, you’ll probably be better off if you start with the platform you’re most used to.
This way, you won’t have to learn how to use a new platform zero, but become used to posting on it.
This is also related to the kind of content you enjoy making and the way you have of giving information, but we’ll deepen this aspect in a bit.
There are a lot of possibilities, but try being open-minded to new strategies!
Type of content you create
This is directly related to your personal style, but a little bit different. This is about the types of content you naturally create and enjoy making. This involves your comfort zone when it comes to sharing knowledge and/or exposing ideas.
For example, if you enjoy talking a lot, YouTube will give you the freedom to make long or short-form videos about the topics of your choosing. If you often come up with quotes, jokes or short pieces of content, maybe Twitter is the space for you. If you like to write long pieces of content, then LinkedIn or Facebook may be adequate for your brand.
Think about your natural abilities, and maybe the ones you want to improve. You may be very good at copywriting and photography and feel very comfortable with Instagram, but you also want to experience with video and more dynamic types of content, so you could try using TikTok.
This aspect is also deeply aligned with your personal goals, beyond sales and growing revenue.
Available resources
Even though every single one of the previous aspects is vital for a good decision regarding the right social media channel for you, one of the most important aspects to consider is about your resources. Making content for social media requires time, effort, and, in most cases, it also involves money.
If you have clients and work to do, maintaining your social media channels active will become a challenge. This is why there are many marketing agencies with professionals ready to create the content for you and help you manage your social media platforms.
However, this means you will need a budget to build this team and also consider their types of services.
Having a smaller budget and/or team will mean you can’t share content in many platforms. The bigger these both things are, the wider the possibilities will be for you and your content sharing.
If you want to learn more about how to market your online strategies and share content for your personal brand, check out this post.
Other tips
Importance of doing CTA, no matter the platform
In order to make your customer’s journey easier and more pleasant, you should be aware of where each post sits on its process of deciding if they buy from you or not. Call To Action (CTA) is the name for the sentence that tries to motivate the user to seek or more information, in the same channel or in a different one. Some examples may be:
- Visit our website to read the article…
- Check out the rest of our posts…
- Go to our YouTube channel to watch the full video…
- Contact us via email to know more about…
And much more! The goal here is to be creative and assertive at the same time so that you can make your potential clients become more engaged with you and your content.
Also, keep in mind CTA will vary depending on the platform you’re posting your content. On Instagram, usually, you refer your users to your “link in bio”. However, LinkedIn doesn’t have such a thing!
At the beginning of this article, we explained that you shouldn’t pick only one platform to be on. However, you can’t neither be in all of them.
This is because this is a case of “less is more”. If you don’t have the time, the budget and/or the team to be on many platforms, then don’t be. Focus on what you can do and what you can keep active. Nothing looks more unprofessional than an abandoned social media profile!
If you wanted to summarize this article in just one sentence, it would probably be: choosing the ideal social media for your personal brand is the result of considering several personal and specific variables about your resources and your goals. However, as you already saw, it is much more complex than that.
But that’s not a reason to worry! Instead, making this whole analysis of your brand will allow you not only to choose the right platform, but to understand perfectly the changes you want to be a part of and how you are planning to achieve that.
Remember it’s all about balance and building a strategy that involves your different channels and has the capacity to generate sales. At Latinpresarios, we offer the service of building a whole strategy for your personal brand, which of course includes social media.
If you are interested in making an exploratory call and learn more about our services, visit this page.
Also, you can schedule a complimentary strategy call with us and we can help you understand how to make a decision about choosing a platform to promote your personal brand. We would love to hear from you!
