Social Media Is a Great Tool for Personal Branding

To quote Matthew Kobach (@mkobach), "Twitter is a key that unlocks thousands of doors, some of which you never even knew existed." As a member of the Twitterverse for nearly 13 years, I always enjoy meeting new people and learning from them. I recently connected with Jerry Jose and invited him to appear here on my Blog in a Q&A format. Highlights of our conversation follow a brief introduction.

Jerry Jose is a passionate digital marketer specializing in LinkedIn and Twitter, and is based in India. He's a LinkedIn Specialist by profession and a traveler by heart. He enjoys working with teams and consulting leaders on how to utilize the power of digital marketing to reach out to their audience in the digital world. Jerry strives to help people build their personal brands on social media. As he sees it, "the power of personal branding is tremendous as it allows us to take control of the narrative and offers multiple opportunities to grow and build credibility in our niche." Connect and follow on Twitter at https://twitter.com/jrryjs and LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/jerry-jose/.

QUESTION: You created your own hashtag: #socialjj. (Incidentally, I have one for this blog: #DebbieLaskeysBlog.) Why do you recommend that individuals create and use their own hashtags?
JERRY JOSE: I believe if you are working on your personal brand, it's imperative to create a customized hashtag. I always recommend creating a unique personalized hashtag to help users identify your brand and improve brand recall.

LinkedIn allows users to follow the hashtag. The audience can view all your content on one page on LinkedIn instead of scrolling through multiple pages to read all content formats. Add these hashtags to your Twitter bio, and it'll help users identify your Tweets and content quickly.

QUESTION: What social media platform do you think is best for personal branding, and why?
JERRY JOSE: The best social media platform for Personal Branding totally depends on the goals and objectives of each individual's brand. I'll take my example here: I wanted to connect with marketing professionals and help people build their personal brands. As I was comfortable with text format, I chose LinkedIn and Twitter to start my personal branding journey.

In the beginning, identify the content format that you're most comfortable with, then choose the social channel. Focus on one track in the initial days and master the features before exploring new social channels.

TWEET THIS: The best social media platform for Personal Branding totally depends on the goals and objectives of each individual's brand. -@jrryjs #socialjj #DebbieLaskeysBlog #personalbranding

QUESTION: Other than social media, how else do you think individuals should implement personal branding initiatives?
JERRY JOSE: Building a Personal Brand is a consistent effort for everyone. We discover new aspects about ourselves each day and present them to our community through various mediums. Social media is the prominent one, but it doesn't mean that you need only social media to build your Personal Brand. You can create blogs and make followership or an email list for a newsletter series.

One of the best initiatives for me is community meetups. The credibility improves tenfold when you physically meet someone and interact with them. Offline meetups and events are the best ways to establish your Personal Brand, and for the audience, it's the best place to validate your brand.

TWEET THIS: Building a Personal Brand is a consistent effort for everyone. -@jrryjs #socialjj #DebbieLaskeysBlog #personalbranding

QUESTION: In a Forbes article entitled, "10 Golden Rules of Personal Branding," which rule stands out to you as the most important, and why?

(Read the article here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/goldiechan/2018/11/08/10-golden-rules-personal-branding/)

JERRY JOSE: Goldie Chan is one of my favorite Personal Branding practitioners. One of my favorite points from this article is about "leaving a legacy." One can leave a legacy behind only when they are clear about their "why." The "why" acts as a motivation and helps us show up every day and improve our work for the community.

QUESTION: Which five people, who you've met through your social media activities, have developed admirable or inspirational personal brands? Please provide brief bios as well as the social platforms where you first met the people.

JERRY JOSE: I've provided some on both LinkedIn and Twitter below. All of them are an inspiration to me and help me every day build a solid personal brand on social channels. The content they share helped me overcome the fear of posting content on social channels. Check them out!

My favorite personal brands on LinkedIn:

Luke Matthews: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lukematthws/
Luke, is an amazing marketer where he never talks about the usual marketing stuff. He creates unique content in form of videos, reels, carousels to engage the target audience of the brand. The unique type of content delivery is something that always inspires me and makes me follow his content and learn from him.

Claire Parsons: https://www.linkedin.com/in/claireparsons01/
Claire is one of the best copywriters I've seen. I love the way her content engages the community and provides quality content with a twist. Lately, she has authored a couple of books that help content creators on social media platforms like LinkedIn. Following her content has helped me experiment with my content and become a confident gif poster on LinkedIn.

Shreya Pattar: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shreya-pattar/
Shreya is one of the best inspirations for agency owners. She talks about her freelancing journey and always inspires the community to do well. Her IG Live, LinkedIn posts and now Twitter spaces have helped freelancers plan and communicate better with their clients.

My favorite personal brands on Twitter:

Mustafa Khundmiri: https://twitter.com/mkhundmiri
Mustafa is one of my inspirations on Twitter. He is one of the most humble people I've met on the internet. Even though he has a huge following, he interacts and communicates with small accounts and guides them with their journey on Twitter. It's rare to find such selfless people on the internet

Udit Goenka: https://twitter.com/iuditg
Udit has one of the fastest-growing accounts on Twitter. It really inspirational to see the way he provides value to his community and always focuses on giving. The Twitter spaces he hosts is always focused on giving back to the community and helping them in their journey. Udit shares content revolving around startups, marketing, personal branding and business.

My thanks to Jerry for sharing his amazing personal branding and social media insights and for appearing here on my Blog.

Image Credit: OI Global Partners.