19 Jun How Personal Branding on Social Media Achieves Business Objectives

When it comes to building an executive’s online presence, there are many advantages and disadvantages of social media. The risks of being on social media include not developing a strong personal branding strategy or not appearing communicative enough. These obstacles are easily overcome, either by carefully understanding the challenges beforehand, or working with a knowledgeable digital marketing team that handles content marketing on the executive’s behalf.

What is clear is that successful executives are the ones that understand the unique benefits social media has to offer, particularly as a digital marketing tool.

Previously, we looked at KPIs (key performance indicators) in our article, How to Set Social Media KPIs for your Executive’s Personal Brand. In today’s article, we will focus more on the actual goals and how personal branding on social media can help achieve business and personal objectives.

1. Increase Brand Awareness

A common brand strategy many businesses implement is using their executives as a public face for the company. After all, certain types of content resonate better when delivered by an executive rather than a faceless brand account on social media. In what ways does social media help executives increase brand awareness about their company?

Completely filling out the bio area on a social media profile is a key step in increasing brand awareness and as a bonus, it is very straightforward and easy to do. For example, on LinkedIn, users can view their “profile strength,” which indicates how complete a profile is. Here is an example of an effective bio on Twitter:

The bio is a prominent area on a user’s social media profile and can help drive web traffic as well. Here are some ways executives can use their social media presence to increase brand awareness:

• Include a URL to the brand’s website in the bio
• Tag the brand’s handle in the bio
• Mention the executive’s connection to the brand in the bio (e.g. founder, CEO, VP, etc.)
• Post content about their brand (e.g. Richard Branson’s tweet highlights his brand’s accomplishments)
• Retweet or share content the brand has posted on its social media account

2. Humanizing a Brand

In our Executive Spotlight series, many of today’s most successful executives online use social media to share their passion projects or personal interests with their followers. While this is not a “business goal” in the traditional sense, these actions have benefits that impact the overall brand. When an executive shows their personality and personal side, they are more relatable to the general audience and humanizes their brand. 

In the example above, Microsoft’s CEO, Satya Nadella, posts about Global Accessibility Awareness Day. This not only brings attention to an important cause, but connects it to his company as well. Another example was an event we covered in one of our recent Front Page Execs article, Executives Supporting #BlackLivesMatter. Here are some ways executives can create a more relatable brand image by sharing content on their own social media:

• Sharing information about a social issue they are passionate about (e.g. climate change, gender equality, racism, etc.)
• Discuss a personal project (e.g. John Legere’s #SlowCookerSunday)
• Share content that aligns with the executive’s personal interests (e.g. as a racing fan, Anand Mahindra retweets related posts and shares his excitement with his followers)

3. Generate Leads

The third common business goal executives can help achieve on social media is generating increased leads or sales. While the brand strategy for business accounts on social media typically feature more sales-related messaging, marketing content delivered by executives can be done in a way that sounds more authentic and natural.

Basecamp CEO, Jason Fried, made this tweet announcing the launch date for hey.com, a spin-off service developed by his company. He pinned the tweet, giving it an even more prominent place on his social media profile.

HEY LAUNCH DATE: We will be begin rolling out invites to the ~40,000 people on the invite list starting on June 15, 2020. If you want to get on that list, go to https://t.co/Izp2mLt5G4 and follow directions at the bottom. Here we go! https://t.co/7SepMfdeYE pic.twitter.com/pYx5dUOs0a

— Jason Fried (@jasonfried) May 15, 2020

Here are some ways executives can use social media to generate leads:

• Share updates about the brand, such as new product launches and updated features (e.g. Tim Cook’s tweet about the iPhone SE)
• Adhere to best practices in order to increase engagement with posts (e.g. including relevant links to the company’s website)
• Make use of a social media platform’s features (e.g. pin a tweet, create Stories on Instagram, use polls on LinkedIn, etc.)
• Follower growth and proactive engagement activities that target key consumer audiences

Personal branding on social media is an effective way to help their business achieve key objectives. Whether the goal is to use social media marketing to increase brand awareness, create a more relatable brand, or improve sales leads, executives are in a unique position as a powerful marketing tool for their company.

For executives who are not on social media yet or do have an account but have not implemented a strategic social media program, now is the time to align your online content with brand objectives. Click the button below to schedule a consultation with our team of social media experts.