Cheat Sheet to a standout online Brand and Presence (+ Tools To Give You The Competitive Advantage)
Like it or not:
No longer is it enough to be outstanding at what you do. Whilst having a standout CV is important, it doesn’t guarantee you to get ahead. Competition is higher than ever before thanks to the digital age we live in. Forbes even suggests that your online presence will replace your resume within the decade and whilst we aren’t there yet – the time is now to build and manage your digital profile. As the saying goes; build a roof before it rains and also- don’t forget: having a strong online Brand doesn’t just happen overnight.
I know I know what you’re saying: Staying up to date with your skill set, industry changes and everything in and around the ever changing world of work is already enough to look after. Adding Marketing and promoting yourself by building your Brand and online presence can seem to be exhausting because there are SO many things & tasks you need to take care of:
From visuals, Social Media posts, video, to engagement... there's always something you need to do & create.
Well, if you feel overwhelmed, it’s time to change. And today’s episode was inspired by a lunch & learn session that I literally just wrapped up before this recording with the Deloitte Cloud Engineering Team. The topic was: how to build your Personal Brand when you’re busy.
So in today’s episode I’ll be helping you with one aspect of it because I want to save you some time and share with you my favourite tools to save you time and headache to figure it all out by yourself!
Now if you want to take it further and learn more about marketing yourself and building your online presence that makes an impact and do so ongoing, then I’d love to see you in the Future of Work Campus where we not only work on developing relevant skill sets like online communication which is this month’s topic – Digital Spotlight - but also how to create content the right way to build up your thought leadership status especially on LinkedIn. We do this every month as part of the membership to make it super easy and sustainable for you to show up.
Hop over to futureofworkcampus.online for more information and I hope to see you at our upcoming live workshops: first one is on the 13th April where we are joined by my incredible visual content, video and audio producer Nathan Warner who was also our guest in last week’s episode- check it out, the link in the show notes. The next content creation workshop where we get hands on with planning, mapping out and creating your content for May is on the 20th April.
———
Does it feel like every day there is a new app here, a new social media platform there, trends that were hot yesterday are outdated today? It sure does to me which is why I’m very mindful with the tools that I’m using but also how I use them.
Social media is a blessing and a curse and having dedicated off-times are certainly a must.
However, when used the right way, they can tremendously help you, make your life easier and give you the unfair advantage.
I’ll share with you my TOP 9 Tools that I categorise into:
· Research tools
· Planning tools
· Communication tools
· Graphics & Images
· Social media platforms & tools
· Scheduling tools
· URL shortener
Let’s start with researching tools:
Most of my clients struggle with what to post on social media. It all comes down to setting up systems and sources of inspiration that you can access all the time. This is also part of the strategy I share in our Content Creation Club where we create once a month content for your Brand in a live setting.
Some of my favourite resources are:
Google Alerts
Daily newsletters are: Morning Brew (for general news, economical updates and market news) and Marketing Brew (for marketing specific news)
Answer the public (curates FAQs from all different search engines together- great inspiration for what people are already interested in and you can create content around)
Quora – here you can find what people are asking about in your niche. It’s perfect when you’re searching for content ideas.
Now once we have ideas and inspiration for content, it’s time to plan and structure it.
My favourite planning tools for that are:
Asana: I use this in 2 ways:
One of the boards are for planning my entire year and then break it up into each month. Every board in the month has a different task, so for example one is Podcast: so I add the episode titles, the release dates, the link to the Google drive folder where I upload all assets and set dates for completion for my content coordinator Chelsea.
The other board is for ongoing and adhoc projects and is shared with my VA’s.
Trello for general content ideas, caption templates and capturing workflows.
I also set up Notion and was a massive fan but switched back to Asana as I find it’s a bit quicker to maintain.
Google Drive: This is where I store coaching notes from my 1;1 coaching clients as well as the recording from the sessions, my business plan, budgets, assets for the podcast, marketing asset for the team to access, logos, photos and videos from shoots. I also use it to share documents or downloads for people who aren’t enrolled in any of my programs – it’s just perfect for collaboration and yes- I also have the premium version as I always quickly run out of space. But again – an investment well worth it!
Communication tools:
On top of communicating with my team directly on Asana, I also use Slack for instant messaging for quick answers.
For our workshops, masterclasses, panel discussions and coaching sessions I always use Zoom – I do have the premium version as it allows you unlimited time of recording, scheduling reoccurring meetings and creating links for upcoming sessions. I also connect Zoom with Calendly which is my calendar tool where people can book sessions with me:
I also use it in 2 ways: I have all up 6 different types of meetings set up: collaboration sessions, coaching sessions for my 1:1 clients, 20min strategy calls for new clients, podcast recordings, Future of Work Campus member chats as well as what I call: power hours. This is the only meeting that is a paid offer and that’s also the great thing with calendly – you can set it up and can collect payment directly via Paypal.
Let’s get onto the fun stuff:
Graphics & Images
Canva – I literally live on it and so do my 2 businesses. It’s an excellent tool for creating social media posts, presentations, proposals, story templates, worksheets, freebies, infographics, and more. You can use it for free or upgrade to the premium account (which I have because I need access to premium photos, videos, and the branding tools. Honestly- the best investment you’ll ever make. I have a ton of templates set up so when it comes to content creation, onboarding clients, preparing a keynote or even designing logos and LinkedIn banners for my clients, it is done very quickly.
Unsplash & FreePik are my go to sites for stock photos – they are awesome sites where you can get free images and they are not sock standard (pardon the pun).
Social Media Platforms & Tools
Yearly Social Media content calendar – if you’re feeling overwhelmed with content creation, then get my Social Media calendar. It will save you lots of time & stress by giving you daily post ideas and so much more.
LinkedIn – is definitely THE social platform for me because it’s not just social but a professional platform where people want to talk about career and business opportunities rather than looking for easy entertainment. If you want a Cheat sheet- then download my free guide and checklist over at futureofworkcampus.online/freebies
Don’t get me wrong- I also love Instagram – it’s a great platform to grow your community and engage easier with all the features. And of course- I love the filters to create amazing looking stories or images so quickly
My new Go-To is Clubhouse because this is what real social media happens: if you haven’t heard me or others talking about it (which I doubt as it’s gone gangbusters in the last few months): it’s an audio and invite only platform where you can join rooms on different topics. There is a so called ‘hall way’ where you can see who hosts which session. You can join, listen in, moderate conversations, be a speaker or ask the panel questions. It’s all real time, no filters, no curation or hiding is possible which is why I love is so much. I also enrolled quite a few coaching clients as well as members to the Future of Work Campus after meeting them in one of the sessions. And did I mention- I was on stage with one of my business spirit animals Jasmine Star as well as connected with one of the Personal Branding legends Brittany Krystle. It’s incredible that it allows you to connect with and access big guns that would usually cost multi 6-figures to be around them!
Social Media stories – I don’t think there has been a day that I haven’t been on stories for years! They are great for letting people get to know you, share on the go and not so perfect content and behind the scenes – this is what people are really interested in! I usually create Instagram stories and share them (not all of them) to LinkedIn stories. If you haven’t used the LinkedIn stories yet- better get onto it as this also allows casual conversations when you engage in other people’s stories.
Social Media Management/ Scheduling Tools
· Later – it’s a scheduling tool that includes a free plan (30 posts per social profile). You can also upgrade and get more features.
· Buffer – hands down my life saver as I always bulk create and batch content at least 4 weeks in advance. The good thing with buffer is that you can also see analytics for your posts and what’s called ‘re-buffer’ posts. I’m all for working smarter rather than harder so why not repurpose the same content you used a few months ago? Chances are that hardly anyone has seen it anywhere given the general low organic reach. And even if- be honest: could you remember your own posts from 6 months ago? Exactly! I doubt it so your audience definitely don’t remember.
URL Shortener
· Bitly – It’s a free URL shortener. It converts long, weird links into short, branded ones.