Having a powerful personal brand can help maximize every opportunity on one’s way, from getting a dream job to winning more clients for business. To strengthen their visual image and achieve professional goals, people build their websites, promote themselves on social media, create educational products, and start blogs. But is it enough to create and maintain a successful personal brand in 2023?
Indeed, having a good following on social media and a blog contributes to your personal branding growth. But it isn’t easy to develop your personal brand to its fullest if you only use your efforts on those two channels.
To be successful, you can’t wait for your audience to find you. Instead, it would help if you practiced outreach.
Why outreach is important for building a brand
To build a strong personal brand, you need to go where your audience is and get their attention. Today, there are many established influencers whose audiences are similar to yours. And you aren’t direct competitors. So don’t you think partnering with them could be an excellent way to get more exposure and acquire new customers?
In this article, I’ll tell you what you can do to get the chance to sell yourself to new audiences through outreach.
Use guest blogging outreach
Guest blogging is an excellent opportunity to expand your audience and attract more people to your brand. So look for industry blogs and check out if they offer a guest blogging option. As a rule, such blogs have loyal followers interested in a specific niche.
Below are the five essential steps that you can follow to grow your personal brand through guest blogging:
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Step 1: Find relevant websites
Look for industry-fit, product-related resources interested in publishing articles of guest authors who can share their expertise in a specific field. To find such a website, try Google search. Type in relevant niche keywords combined with the phrases “submit guest post” or “write for us.”
You can also find relevant topics and keywords using tools such as Ubersuggest, Ahrefs, Keyword Planner, and others.
Keep in mind that some websites don’t open guest blogging submission opportunities to the public. So in some cases, you will need to reach out to them personally.
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Step 2: Check for authority and metrics
If you don’t want to waste your time and effort, make sure the website you’re going to submit your content to has some authority. Use domain authority checker tools to select the right websites. What’s considered to be a good DA rate? There is no specific number but a DA rate of 50 or higher is much more likely to give you better results than a DA of 10. Also, pay attention to monthly visitors, traffic sources, and the number of backlinks.
source: 1854
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Step 3: Check the guidelines
Each blog can have different rules and requirements for guest posts. While some may want a draft submission, others expect from you just an idea to decide whether they’re interested. Also, be sure to read their blog posts before you start working on your content. This way, you can get an idea of what they usually cover.
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Step 4: Prepare a topic
Choose a relevant topic for your guest blogging outreach. If you need some topic ideas, use Google suggest, Google trends, Reddit, or Quora. Just check what people are searching for and asking about.
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Step 5: Create brand outreach email
You can create fantastic content, but if you can’t pitch it to editors, it won’t be published. Don’t write generic messages. Instead, approach decision-makers with a personalized brand outreach email. First of all, research the website you want to submit to and try to provide value already in your first email to them. Create an attractive subject line and add your branded email signature to make your email more human.
Set up event outreach campaign
We got used to online communication in today’s digitalized world. However, it can hardly replace face-to-face meetings. Building a brand is still possible by reaching out to people at offline events. One of the fastest ways to find these events is again through Google search. Type in the name of your city and add the keyword “business event.”
Below are two steps you need to take to make your event outreach as effective as possible.
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Step 1: Reach out before the event
Build a list of people you want to talk to at the event. Send them an email offering to meet with you for a coffee/lunch/dinner. And don’t forget to check their social media profiles. If you want to network successfully, you should have something to small-talk about.
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Step 2: Reach out to be the speaker
You can strengthen your personal brand by talking at events and sharing your expertise with the audience. You can find such opportunities by typing in “keynote speaker application” on Google.
source: Gartner
Use social media outreach
You can also gain some recognition by being active on social media. The choice of social networks depends on your niche, but generally, it’s enough to have Twitter and Facebook. In case your goal is to grow a professional network or become an entrepreneur, consider using LinkedIn as well. In addition to blogging for personal branding and sharing valuable content in your profiles, consider adding these two important practices to your outreach strategy.
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Step 1: Reach out to influencers
Look for social media influencers that regularly share their content and thoughts in your niche. Comment, ask questions and try to cooperate with them if possible.
Do not concentrate on the number of followers. Studies show that micro-influencers have better engagement rates than social media superstars.
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Step 2: Reach out to groups and communities
Join relevant groups where you can engage with people with the same interests. The essential idea behind this tactic is to increase your personal brand visibility in the social media world by helping genuinely. For example, you can answer group members’ questions where you feel comfortable providing advice. If you don’t feel like helping with finding answers, you can always share your thoughts on a specific topic or ask for advice from the community. After some time being active in the group, people will already be familiar with you and may accept any of your proposals.
source: engadget
Get featured on podcasts through outreach
Getting interviewed on podcasts can be a fantastic way to increase your personal brand exposure to new people and help you get in front of new potential customers. To find relevant podcasts (you can do this through Google search) and send them a personalized email about your desire to appear on their podcast. Don’t forget to show the recipient that you learned about who they are and that your content is valuable to their audience.
Boost your video marketing through outreach
Video content is an excellent way to let people get to know the real you. It’ll help you build trust faster and develop your content buckets further.
If you want to attract a larger audience to your videos, reach out to existing bloggers or video-makers to ask them for a mention/review/participation in their video. Or you can offer your own video content to relevant blogs and platforms. The only intricacy here is that you need videos that look professional and flow smoothly. If you aren’t sure your content meets these requirements, you should order video editing services. The chances are they’ll be interested in sharing it in their blog, emails, or social media profiles.
Set up your brand monitoring
Some customers share their experience with your brand on the Internet and tag you. Whether it’s positive or negative feedback, you can take action immediately. However, not every user who talks about your company online will tag you. And if the user isn’t satisfied, it could significantly impact your reputation. To prevent situations like this, you need to take a few essential steps.
Before we move on, let’s first talk about what to monitor.
Now, to the steps.
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Step 1: Track all possible channels
Monitor as many places as possible. The key channels and areas include print media, online publications & blogs, forums, social networks, and review websites.
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Step 2: Use brand monitoring tools
You can track and analyze relevant online conversations with the help of brand monitoring tools. These include Google Alerts, Brandwatch Analytics, Mention, Hootsuite, Talkwater, Boardreader, and many others.
source: Affde
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Step 3: Creating two-way communication
Monitoring your brand mentions isn’t enough. You should take action. So develop an approach that’ll help your brand improve reputation and grow. Respond to both positive and negative comments, provide resolutions to customer issues.
Increase media coverage for outreach campaigns
Pitching the right story to the right people is more likely to result in it getting media coverage. But there is one more thing that can help you. In addition to writing articles and social media posts, be sure to produce interesting and attractive images, infographics, memes, GIFs, and other types of digital content. If you post a great infographic, others can share it on their websites or social media. This way, you’ll get a lot of links pointing back to your site. But don’t forget to add your branding to the images.
Network offline to improve your online outreach
You can get a ton of opportunities for outreach by going offline. Attend industry events and speak to the public, demonstrating your expertise and enhancing your personal brand. There, you can find guest blogging opportunities, get links from conference sites to your site, increase your social media following, and more.
For example, at the conference, you can meet a content writer from a well-established blog. This can result in a mutually beneficial partnership in the future. Also, you can use offline networking to share info about your product, social media, or personal brand blog.
Let’s ramp up your outreach game
So, what are the key steps to building a successful personal brand through outreach marketing?
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Use guest blogging
Find relevant websites, check them for authority, prepare a topic, and reach out to them via a personalized email.
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Set up event outreach campaign
Always be prepared for events. Create a list of people you want to meet and email them. Speak at events, look for mutually beneficial partnerships.
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Use social media outreach
Reach out to influencers and be active in your niche groups and communities.
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Get featured on podcasts through outreach
Don’t neglect this channel to promote yourself. It’s quite popular today.
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Boost your video marketing through outreach
Ask existing bloggers or video-makers for a mention/review/participation in their video. Look for more opportunities to promote your video on various platforms.
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Set up your brand monitoring
Monitor what people are thinking about your brand. Create two-way communication.
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Increase media coverage for outreach campaigns
Create interesting and attention-grabbing GIFs, infographics, and images people want to share.
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Network offline to improve your online outreach
Look for partnership opportunities offline.
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