Unless you own a business or are looking for work, the idea of marketing yourself may not be something that interests you. However, it is a skill that everyone must learn. Understanding the fundamentals will prepare you to position yourself as an expert.
Many of us find it difficult to put ourselves out there. When we are praised for our expertise in a field, we naturally default to being self-deprecating or deflecting attention to someone else.
To stand out, you must know how to market yourself effectively in addition to having the necessary skills and experience.
You’ll need to demonstrate an exceptional combination of relevant expertise and strong communication skills if you want to land your dream job. You’ll need to channel your inner salesperson to get a prospective employer’s attention.
It is important that you understand and discover how to sell yourself. It can be nerve-racking to market your skills to a hiring manager, but we’ve broken it down into 10 simple steps.
Define And Refine Your Skills:
Highlighting your most polished skills is the most important aspect of marketing yourself to a recruiter or hiring manager. Make a list of your strongest skills as well as areas where you need to improve. While also answering any interview questions, understanding your areas for improvement can help you become a stronger candidate.
After you’ve identified your most important skills, consider how they’ve influenced your overall work. Convert your abilities into numbers that a hiring manager can understand. If you work in social media, an example would be “my engagement skills increased our social media follower count by 40%.” Putting your skills into numbers allows the recruiter or hiring manager to see how refined you are.
Identify Your Niche.
What are your hobbies? What are your skills? What are your interests? Consider how you already bring these elements together and consider how you can engage them in innovation and problem-solving. Concentrate on the unusual things you have to offer.
This also entails being aware of your weak points. Consider the areas in which you could improve. Make a list of your weak points and be brutally honest with yourself — after all, it’s just you at this point, and sugar-coating anything won’t help you.
Tell Your Story.
Another piece of advice to follow when considering how to market your skills is to remember that telling a story is the best way to connect with someone. For hundreds of years, storytelling has been used as a tool of communication, and it has proven to be effective.
If you can weave your valuable skills into a triumphant story, you will be much more likely to gain an audience. Telling a story about how you failed or succeeded will go much further than listing your skills. Don’t be afraid to use get creative!
Seek Recognition For Your Expertise.
When it comes to marketing yourself, trust is essential, and people trust experts, so find a way to position yourself as an expert in your niche. Of course, you already know that, but people don’t, so you’ll need to do some legwork to get your name out there. You’ve already worked hard to learn how to work for yourself, so make the most of it by conducting research and becoming as knowledgeable as possible. Establish connections with thought leaders and media representatives in your field and community.
It takes time and effort to become an expert, but you can do it if you set aside time to do the following:
- Set aside an hour per day to read articles or conduct market research on your industry.
- Have a few conversations per week with clients in your field to get their opinions.
- Contact organisations that organise conferences or other events that feature speakers to learn how you can get on the list.
Get Down To Details.
Everything you do should be influenced by your brand. It’s what people see when they see your social media posts. It refers to how people react to you in person. From top to bottom, it’s all about you and how others perceive you. This means you must ensure that every detail is precisely what you want people to see. This includes your clothing, movement, interpersonal behaviour in person and online, and all communications. Everything should be in line with the image you want to project.
Much of this is about reputation management. One erroneous social media post can have disastrous consequences for your image. You must be aware of every detail of your image. Focus on making more positive points rather than focusing on your mistakes. The more recent positive interactions you have, the further away those negative ones become.
Cleaning up your image entails fostering positive interactions rather than erasing negative ones. Concentrate on the specifics of what you want to present and stick to them at all times. This can be the most difficult aspect of your marketing.
Educate.
Put your knowledge out there because it is valuable to many people. Take advantage of content marketing as a powerful tool for brand building by writing insightful and keyword-rich articles to share on your social media channels.
Write extensively about what you know to establish yourself as an expert. When you have the opportunity, contribute articles and blog posts. Make certain that it is informative, well-written, timely, and useful to readers.
Build A Community.
Create a network of like-minded people in your field and work on connecting deeply and getting to know one another. Genuine expertise is always drawn to other experts, and in their company, you can open up a whole world of new possibilities.
You can’t avoid social media, no matter how frightening it can be. Don’t let the fear of a bad post keep you from using Facebook and Twitter. Building a community requires the use of social media.
Go through your profiles, going back several years, and delete any posts that don’t reflect how you want to be perceived. Make it as spotless as possible. This is significant and relates to reputation management. Nothing is ever truly lost on the internet, but for the most part, your brand must withstand a quick search and cursory glance.
When you’re ready, contact your target audience and invite them to connect with your account. Encourage them to follow your posts and pages, and then update them at least once a day, preferably twice. Keep your posts and updates interesting and relevant to your brand. You want to keep your audience’s attention. Being seen is an important part of building a brand, and social media is where that happens.
Be Inclusive.
Sometimes it’s best to let someone else do the talking while building your brand in the process. By being inclusive and allowing others to participate in the conversation, you demonstrate that you are willing to listen to other people’s opinions, which increases their willingness to work with you or do business with you.
Invite guest bloggers to contribute to your blog or take over your social media accounts for the day. They’ll provide a unique perspective that your readers or followers will appreciate, and they’ll raise the profile of your brand.
Update Your Resume.
Your resume will become an important part of your marketing strategy at some point. Your resume is a snapshot of your life. Whether it’s a CV, a portfolio, or a two-page resume, it should say everything you need to know about yourself at a glance. That means you must always stay on top of it and keep it up to date. Furthermore, maintain consistency. We live in a world where people can have a dozen or more resumes and portfolios floating around the internet.
A reason for this is that consistency is an important aspect of your brand. You can’t have one resume that paints one portrait of you and another profile on a different site that paints a completely different portrait of you. It’s fine to have different focuses on your profiles, but the details must be consistent and up to date.
It’s Time To Come Up With Your Strategy.
It’s difficult to figure out how to promote yourself online or how to properly prioritise time-consuming, in-person networking and public speaking, but getting it right will result in a significant increase in your customer base.
In Conclusion
Branding yourself is more than just wondering how to advertise yourself; it’s about positioning yourself as an expert, and there’s no quick way to become one.
Take advantage of the next opportunity to sit down for an hour or two and map out what kinds of changes you need to make to implement the strategies outlined above. Do you need to set aside time in the morning to promote yourself on social media? Do you need to schedule speaking engagements on Thursdays?
You’ll be well on your way to success once you’ve devised a strategy.
