7 Steps To Build A Powerful
Personal Brand
By Charles Miller
Here are just a few things I’ve gotten from my personal brand:
● A network full of millionaires and a few CEOs of billion-dollar companies (a
couple of them have even been my clients).
● A constant stream of inbound leads asking to be my clients, which means I
never have to do cold outreach. Though I’m not interested in having a job, I
could get a great one in less than 72 hours if I ever wanted to.
● Over 200,000 total followers on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram, many of
which will buy anything I ever sell.
● Over 15,000 newsletter subscribers that I can pitch any new offer I find to
(courses, coaching, done-for-you services, SaaS tools, and more).
● An income that exceeds $300k/yr.
For years, I’ve enjoyed those benefits without explicitly creating a product on
personal branding. I’ve sold ones about specifics like writing strategies and
platform-specific marketing, but never a massive product that explains everything.
Now I have a course on the entire process. It’s the last course I’ll ever sell, and it
gives you the entire game from start to finish, including viral post templates,
creator sales funnels for all kinds of offers, in-depth content creation advice, and
more.
Click here to learn more about it. If you like what you see, now is the best time to
buy. I’ll only be offering $100-off discounts to the first 1,000 buyers. After that,
they’re gone forever (and I mean it). Hit that link and get yours now.
Step #1: Choose Your Niche
The best-case scenario is that your niche is an obvious choice. For example, when I
started on Twitter, I was a full-time freelance copywriter and a self-improvement
enthusiast. As a result, choosing a niche was easy…
● Copywriting gave me insight into writing and marketing.
● Freelancing gave me insight into getting and retaining clients.
● Being into self-improvement for years gave me insight into mindset.
So, it became clear that I could be a writing-focused account in the marketing
space. In the last two years, that strategy hasn’t evolved much. Freelancing,
writing, marketing, and mindset are still my bread-and-butter topics.
Now, here are some general examples…
● If you have a background in sales, you can start a sales account.
● If you have a background in fitness, you can start a fitness account.
● If you live life with a strong mindset, you can get into self-improvement.
That list could go on and on. The point is, there’s probably something you’re good
at that an online audience would like to hear more about. If it isn’t completely
obvious, dig deeper and find it. Again, it’s crucial to realize that you don’t have to
be a high-level expert to teach. As long as you’re a year ahead of someone else on
some sort of journey (health, wealth, etc), you can deliver value to them with
content, products, and services.
Finally, it’s important to note that most accounts have a primary niche, but they
also go outside of it to talk about other things. For example, almost everyone in
the marketing and fitness niches also talks about mindset. This is because mindset
is relevant to every self-improvement domain. Don’t feel like you have to stick to
one area. You can pair two or more complementary niches.
Step #2: Decide What Value You’ll Offer
Next, you’ll want to decide exactly what you plan to offer. Choosing a niche is
good, but it’s even better if you’re explicit about who you want to help and how
you’re going to help them. Some examples for me…
● I help freelancers get more and better clients.
● I help marketers write better content and copy.
● I help just about everyone tune up their mindset.
And a few general examples…
● A fitness account that helps skinny guys bulk up.
● A sales account that helps people close more deals on the phone.
● A wisdom account that helps people improve emotional intelligence.
Though you’ll be offering all kinds of value to all kinds of people, it’s still useful to
settle on your go-to offer and audience. Then, you’ll eventually want to solidify
what you’re offering from a business perspective. For example…
● Selling eBooks.
● Selling high-priced courses.
● Selling coaching and/or consultations.
● Selling membership to a useful community.
● Selling a physical product or a piece of software.
● Some combination of two or three or all of these.
For me, I want to help freelancers, content creators, and online business
beginners make more money. 99% of my customers get that value from me
through low-priced courses, while 1% of them pay for higher-priced consulting.
Later on, I will also offer a paid content subscription and maybe a physical or
software product. We’ll discuss this more in step #7.
Step #3: Choose A Primary Platform
This is a short one. Though the biggest influencers and brands have unique
content for every platform, those of us with smaller scale create on one and then
repurpose to others. The way I do this is:
● I tweet.
● I copy-paste those onto LinkedIn and usually make them a bit longer
because LinkedIn has a might higher character limit. I also turn my Twitter
threads into LinkedIn PDF carousels in Canva.
● I screenshot my tweets and post them on Instagram.
Choose the platform you already like best or the one you think will build your
brand best, then focus the majority of your energy on it. For most of you, Twitter
and LinkedIn will be best because they are perfect for written content.
Step #4: Create Accounts & Prime Profiles
Next, you want to prime your profile with:
● A well-written bio.
● A relevant profile photo.
● A relevant header photo (if the platform has one).
● Eventually, a landing page to funnel traffic to.
The profile photo is the simplest of them. If you’re a personal brand, it should be a
high-quality picture of you. If not, it can be a logo. Your header photo isn’t terribly
important, but if you want to optimize it, talk to a graphic designer. There are
plenty on Fiverr and Upwork. Next, you’ll eventually want to funnel traffic to some
kind of offer, like a newsletter signup or product. You can skip this in the
beginning, but later on, it will become essential.
Those are all either pretty simple or not entirely necessary. What you should focus
on most in the beginning is your bio. This is a short pitch for why you’re worth
paying attention to. You don't get many words, so it better be good.
There are two great kinds of bios for informational and personal brands. The first
is explaining what you do for your followers. Here’s an example of that from a
200,000-follower Twitter account, @LifeMathMoney:
“Get Rich. Get Fit. Get Smarter. Learn what the schools won't teach you.”
This communicates what the page is all about, which kinds of people will like it,
and what the account can do for you. The first three sentences offer three things
that just about everyone in the world wants. That is, getting richer, fitter, and
smarter. The next sentence says that they teach what schools won’t. This is a
classic “us vs them” persuasive tactic and gives the brand a level of mystique and
a clear message: The establishment lies or withholds information, but we don’t.
LifeMathMoney then links to multiple eBooks. Again, if you have an offer already,
go ahead and put it in your bio or website slot. If not, don’t worry about it. You
can get your foot in the door first, then start a newsletter, create a product, or
become an affiliate for a product later on.
The second classic bio option is explaining who you are and doing so in a way that
makes following you appealing. This can most obviously be seen in the marketing
niche, where people signal their income to build authority. The same can be seen
in other niches too. In tech, people add which companies they’ve worked for. In
academia, they add credentials and past schools. Here’s mine:
Writer scaling my income to $1M per year (current progress: 23%). Sharing
everything I learn along the way.
This signals what I do (write), that I have an aspirational goal, that I’m pretty
successful at it (23% of $1M is a 6-figure income), and that I’m going to share
valuable thoughts about it with my audience.
Here’s my favorite profile example:
I like it because it signals authority (he invests in private companies), adds social
proof (he’s an author with 3,000+ reviews), and addresses a common objection in
the internet marketing space (his intentions are perhaps more “pure” because he
doesn’t have a course to sell you on).
My final note is that you can use a hybrid of these two strategies. For example, I
might indicate that I’m a successful writer and then include a note about what I
teach and who I teach it to.
Think about your niche, your offer, and the value you provide. Then, ask:
● What does my audience want?
● What kind of account would capture their attention?
● Which value propositions and results can I use to appeal to them?
● Which core persuasive elements of my competitors’ bios can I adapt and
use for mine?
If you do that, I bet you’ll come up with a great bio that makes a fantastic first
impression and gets you a lot of followers. Plus, even if you don’t nail it on the
first try, you can always edit later on. The final step is filling your pinned tweet on
Twitter and/or your featured section on LinkedIn. On Twitter, I like to do so with a
foundational piece of content (like a case study) that leads to sales. On LinkedIn, I
like to just link to my most important offers (for me, that’s newsletter and product,
but for you, it might be a consultation page, an application to be your client, or
something else).
Step #5: Create A Rough Content Strategy
Before you can create a content strategy, you need to know which types of
content work best.
Here’s my extended explanation of that:
17 Styles That Ignite
Below, I’ve listed 17 persuasive devices that garner the most engagement and
interest in your account. Please note that when I wrote these, I was thinking about
tweets, but you can apply their persuasive principles to content on any platform.
1. You, Not I
I don’t use “I” in the majority of my content. Why? Because my audience wants to
learn about writing and marketing, not just me and my thoughts.
Think about it. If I post something like the following, what will the reaction be?
“I think Bitcoin is the future of money.”
Okay, cool. Every person who sees that is moving on. Now, let’s try something a
little different.
“Bitcoin is the future of money.
If you disagree, you’re clueless.”
Now we’re getting somewhere. Not using “I” positions this as a general truth, not
an opinion. Thus, people are more likely to share it or argue against it.
Even if someone agrees with you, they probably won’t want your opinion on their
timeline. On the other side, those who disagree probably won’t care to argue
against one person’s dumb thoughts. When you present your opinion as a general
truth, you make it a lot more appealing.
2. Except Sometimes I
That said, using “I” does make sense, especially if you’re building a personal
brand. For example, if I want to talk about a big win I had, there’s no way to make
that a “you” statement, nor would doing so be beneficial.
The best practice here is that if you use “I”, it better be something like:
“Just got a job offer.
It pays 2x as much as my last one, and the company culture is perfect for me.
I couldn’t be more grateful!”
These types of posts are effective for three reasons:
● When you post something self-referential like this, people will like and share
because they’re happy for you.
● Those who don’t know you will also want to check your profile out.
● Posting about yourself, and especially about your success, makes it much
easier to sell your products and services.
Finding a way to be self-referential and high-engagement isn’t just great for
picking up followers, it’s great for building up your authority and sales too. If
you’re building a personal brand, definitely use these types of posts, and even if
you’re not, you can still share results (example: an eCommerce company
celebrating their 10,000th order).
3. No Nuance
Let’s use that same example from above.
“Bitcoin is the future of money.
If you disagree, you’re clueless.”
Obviously, this isn’t totally true. Plenty of reasonable people don’t believe in
Bitcoin, and it has a lot of limitations. There’s nothing wrong with not liking
Bitcoin, so why are we calling them clueless?
Because nuance doesn’t stick.
“Bitcoin may be the future of money.
If you disagree, that’s reasonable, but I think you’ll end up being wrong.”
Nobody wants to touch that.
“Bitcoin is the future of money.
If you disagree, you’re clueless.”
Everybody wants to touch that: Bitcoin lovers, Bitcoin haters, and everyone in
between. You don’t have to be as combative as my example, but in general, you
want to leave nuance out of short-form content.
4. Comparisons
Presenting your argument can be persuasive.
“The carnivore diet is the best diet in the world.”
But still, it’s a little dry. Let’s do better.
“The carnivore diet is the best diet in the world.
The vegan diet is a one-way ticket to weakness and deficiencies.”
Now you’re presenting two arguments, not just one. So not only will carnivores
engage with your post (and be more likely to do so because of the drama), but
vegans are more likely to as well. The best engagement comes from both sides.
Comparisons give you a better shot at getting it.
5. Predictions
The sports media business has been using this principle for years. Predictions are
tantalizing because you put your credibility on the line with them. It’s like a bet,
except instead of money, you’re wagering your understanding of the world.
An example might be:
“The 9-5 office system is criminally outdated.
By 2050, over half the population will be self-employed, and we’ll all be better off
for it.”
Again, people who agree will engage, people who disagree will argue, and your
impressions will shoot up.
6. Lists
While overused, lists are notorious for getting great engagement. An example that
comes to mind is “The 10 most important principles in marketing” as the title and
a list of them as the meat of the content. Lists also often have a question at the
end of them, such as “what would you add?”, to increase engagement.
These work because they give you multiple shots at igniting emotion. Often, a
post will have just one or two ideas. When using lists, it can have 10, and people
might engage if they agree or disagree with just one of them.
They also have a friendly format, for two reasons. First, they take up more space
on the timeline. People are rolling through posts faster than you think. If they love
you, they’ll often stop to see what you have to say no matter what, but most
people don’t (at least not yet). A long list gives you more real estate and a better
shot at catching attention. Second, lists are easy to consume. Most people don’t
want to read deeply. Putting concepts in a list instead of a paragraph makes them
easier to understand, which usually makes them easier to engage with.
7. Correcting Consensus
People love someone who thinks differently. Even if they disagree, going against
consensus is an extremely appealing persuasive device.
“Your doctor tells you to eat whole grains and vegetables.
I exclusively eat steak and eggs.
Your doctor is fat and tired.
I look like a Greek god.
Who are you going to listen to?”
You can do this with any subject. Take a widely believed idea and explain why it’s
wrong. People will listen.
8. Personal Responsibility Porn
This is one I’ve used a lot. It really, really, really resonates with a certain type of
person. Why? Same reason why Jordan Peterson became one of the most famous
intellectuals in the modern age. Everyone knows that they can do more, and many
of them like to hear about it.
So, you can post things out like:
“Going to the gym is non-negotiable.
Don’t lie to yourself by saying you have no time.
If it was a priority, you’d make time.”
When you remind them, they go one of two ways. They either agree and share or
argue against you. Either way, that’s engagement. My top tweet ever (over 4
million impressions) fits into this category. A bit of tough talk can go a long way.
9. Inspirational
Not much to say on this one. It’s similar to personal responsibility porn, but it’s
usually less abrasive. Inspirational tweets provide a reminder of what people want
or who they want to become. An example:
“Be quiet about your success.
Let your results do the talking for you.”
That example combines inspiration about being successful with the appealing
philosophical idea of being private about it. Motivational pages thrive off content
like this. If you want a softer audience, you can word these positively. If you want
a more hardass one, you can be a little more “tough love”.
10. Encouraging
Feel-good posts often do well. Give people credit for all the work they’re doing,
note that they’re doing their best, etc. These might not get you a lot of profile
clicks, but if you have the right audience, they’ll respond well to them.
A quick example:
“Shoutout to everyone working on a big goal.
I’m proud of you, and you should be proud of you too.”
11. Challenging
Alternatively, you can challenge your audience. Tell them that they could be doing
better, that they’re not managing their time well enough, that they’re
procrastinating, etc.
An example:
“If you don’t have $5,000 in the bank, you better not be watching football today.
Hustle now, relax later.”
One thing to be careful of is that being too harsh can push your audience away
and attract people you don’t want following you. Talking down to people is a
common marketing tactic for personal brands, but I don’t recommend it for those
of you trying to build a sustainable brand.
12. Us Vs Them
This is a classic copywriting technique, and it works for content too. It’s a lot like
correcting consensus and comparisons, so I’ll use a similar example.
“The health establishment says eat whole grains and vegetables.
Carnivores exclusively eat eggs and meat.
Most people are fat and tired.
Carnivores look good and feel even better.
Who are you going to listen to?”
This will resonate deeply with people who follow the carnivore diet. It appeals to
their sense of identity, strokes their ego, and turns nutrition preferences into a
battle. “Us versus them” essentially politicizes any topic (vegans vs meat eats,
democrats vs republicans, etc), which increases engagement.
13. Delivering Real Value
When I write “delivering real value”, I mean educating people on your expertise.
This won’t apply to those who just want to entertain, but for anyone who teaches
(fitness, marketing, whatever else), it’s an important type of content.
Unfortunately, this one is often underused because you need to deliver value and
be persuasive at the same time. Most people only do the first, get poor
engagement, and start almost exclusively posting clichés.
Just know that you can pull off delivering value and getting crazy good
engagement at the same time. You just need to combine it with other persuasive
devices too. Value is often inert on its own, but when mixed with other appeals, it
turns into something special.
Like being self-referential, this method also builds up your brand and your ability
to sell. Posting platitudes all day gets people addicted to your content, but it
doesn’t make you worth buying from. When you deliver value, you build trust, and
you can leverage that trust into profit.
14. Transformation
This is a subset of talking about yourself in a positive light (aka flexing). The
difference is that rather than just showing off your results, you also talk about
what you used to be. Depressed to happy, poor to rich, etc.
An example…
“Last year, I was 250 pounds and miserable.
This year, I’m down to 200 and couldn’t be happier.
Grateful for every person who has helped me along the way.”
You can also post about someone else’s transformation, especially if you’re
coaching them or working with them in some capacity.
15. Surprise
When people are browsing their timelines, they see a lot of the same stuff. They
often end up getting in a groove where they don’t engage with anything because
it all looks the same. This is when you use a pattern interrupt.
“This morning routine will CHANGE your life…
Shit, shower, get to work.
Now get to work.”
This works because readers are expecting a cliché post about journaling,
meditation, or some other wellness activity. Instead, you surprise them while
simultaneously delivering a valuable mindset shift.
16. Inside Jokes With Your Audience
Many creators have a series of inside jokes they have with their audiences. Ed
Latimore (@EdLatimore) is my favorite example. He tweets about crackheads and
black coffee.
These little jokes often light up like wildfire. Why? First of all, they’re pretty funny.
Second, people feel like they have an inside joke with him. Everyone loves an
inside joke, so they engage and even write their own versions.
17. Inside Jokes With Your Entire Niche/Network
Every network has a series of clichés and funny little tactics they use to get
engagement. After a while, people start to recognize these. That’s when you can
surprise them with a joke that only makes sense to that network.
For example, I see a lot of serious posts saying things like:
“If you don’t have $20K in the bank, cancel Netflix and sell your TV.
You can relax when you’ve earned it.”
So, you might play off that cliché with something like:
“If you don’t have $10M in the bank, don’t celebrate Christmas.
You can see your family when you’ve earned it.”
People often get tons of engagement when posting fun stuff like this. They also
get lots of profile clicks because they show that they understand the culture of the
network and are creative enough to poke fun at it.
Getting Engagement Vs Getting Followers
We discussed engagement a lot already, but let’s quickly summarize. If you want
people to engage, they have to feel something. Agreement, disagreement,
stroking their ego, etc. The real reason I’ve added this section, though, is that
high-engagement posts don’t always lead to followers.
Let me explain…
I’ve had tweets that reached over 1K retweets before and netted me less than 25
followers. On the other hand, I’ve had ones with 100 retweets that netted me 300
followers. The point is, there’s a big difference between a post that resonates and
a post that makes you want to find out who wrote it.
Here’s a concrete example. A couple years ago, I wrote a classic list-style platitude
about how to live a better life. It hit all the beats you’d expect: get better sleep,
eat well, etc. After an hour, I noticed it had about 30 retweets and 100 likes, so I
checked the analytics. Only three profile clicks. That’s a tiny number.
The reason why is that even though many people agreed with the tweet, nobody
cared who wrote it. There was nothing interesting about the author, so they liked,
retweeted, or ignored, but nobody wanted to check me out.
The key to getting followers is engagement and interest in you, the author. The
three best ways to do this are controversy, self-reference, and delivering value.
The controversy example can be the same one we’ve used a few times:
“Bitcoin is the future of money.
If you disagree, you’re clueless.”
People want to know who is behind that strong opinion, so they click on your
profile and see. Here’s one that references yourself or your results:
“I’ve lost over 30 pounds in the last 90 days, and let me tell you…
Being thin IS a choice, no matter what your genetics are.”
Not only does that bring in some controversy, but it also makes you, the author
worth taking a look at. People want to know who’s losing all that weight, so they
click. Some will check you out and move on, but many will follow.
Note: “Flexing” your results too much will put a lot of people off. Being too
controversial will too. These are tools, no prescriptions. Only use these methods if
they apply to the audience you’re trying to build, and do so carefully.
Long-Form Content
In the previous section, I mentioned three ways to get followers (controversy,
self-reference, and delivering value), but I only explained the first two. That’s
because I was saving “value posts” for this section. Short posts are great for
getting daily engagement, growing your account steadily, and delivering regular
hits of dopamine to your audience. With that said, they rarely differentiate you
from all the other creators, and aside from “flexing” with your results, they don’t
build you up as an authoritative source.
That’s where longer content comes in. There are three core types of it:
1. Personal Stories - One of my best threads ever is titled “How a wannabe
entrepreneur with $800 in the bank became a $100k+ per year writer”. This
is my origin story. It educates my audience, creates interest in me, and
establishes me as an authority in the writing/marketing space. For a fitness
account, a personal story might be that person’s health journey or the story
of them training somebody else to lose a ton of weight. For a mindset
account, it could be their thoughts and observations after doing a 30-day
meditation challenge.
2. Education - Educational content teaches your audience something valuable.
In my case, that could be a thread that explains my top 10 writing tips or a
guide on how to get clients. For someone in the fitness niche, that might be
explaining a nutrition or fitness concept in-depth. As I wrote above in the
“Delivering Real Value” section, you’ll need to combine persuasion with
education to make these worthwhile.
3. Entertainment - I use the term “entertainment” to describe content that
isn’t in-depth education, and instead reads more like a surface-level blog
post. For example, an educational thread I write might be “10 Stupidly
Simple Copywriting Tips”, while an entertainment thread might be “The Top
10 Habits Of Millionaires”. The first thread delivers actionable advice, while
the second mostly just resonates.
The amount of long-from content you create per week will depend on your
preferences and the brand you’re trying to build. Though I don’t recommend it, if
you’re just trying to build a large audience for a generic page, you don’t need
long-form content at all. In that case, your goal is just to rack up followers, not to
amass email subscribers, customers, clients, and brand advocates.
On the other hand, if you’re trying to build a legitimate educational brand, I
recommend doing at least one long-form post per week. A couple years ago, I did
zero, and while my follower count exploded, my email subscribers and revenue
didn’t. This was because I was picking up a bunch of dopamine addict followers,
not ones that want to be educated and are willing to pay for that education.
I think one, two, or three pieces of long-form content per week is the right level
for most brands. Let’s do some examples of each. These will all be the first tweets
of Twitter threads, but you can apply their principles to any platform.
First, we have a personal story…
Next, some education…
And finally, entertainment…
Just like with short-form content, it’s good to vary your long-form topics a bit. Your
audience will likely get burned out if you just do personal stories, so also add
some education, and if it fits your brand identity, do some entertainment also.
Step #6: Follow Platform Best Practices
Here’s my quick breakdown of the social platforms I use (note: I do not do
YouTube, podcasting, or SEO, so I won’t be mentioning those):
● Twitter + LinkedIn + Instagram
○ I’m grouping these platforms together because to gain followers, you
need followers. That means they’re highly dependent on engaging
with other accounts early on and making connections. From here on,
I’ll give recommendations that apply to all of them, and if a
recommendation only applies to one, I’ll mention that.
○ The first phase is engagement. You want to get your name and face
(or brand name and logo) out there. You do this by replying to other
creators in your niche. Pick about 15-50 of them, follow them, then
put aside 15+ minutes (30-60 is solid for new accounts) per day to
browse your feed and reply to their posts. You can either further the
conservation with a valuable reply or say something friendly/funny.
This will get you follows from other creators and their followers.
○ The second phase is making connections. My favorite way to do this
is replying to accounts for a few weeks, then sending personalized
DMs that either offer something valuable (like a copywriting
suggestion) for free or give a specific compliment.
○ The third phase is considering engagement groups/pods. This is when
you and a small group of other influencers agree to engage with each
other’s content. This leads to faster growth, but you have to be
careful with it because it’s against every platform’s terms of service.
○ The fourth phase is solidifying a system for content creation and
engagement, executing every day, and making improvements to it
when needed.
● TikTok + Pinterest + YouTube
○ I’m grouping these platforms together because building your
following is less dependent on already having followers and
connections. That applies to TikTok and YouTube Shorts because their
algorithm is insane right now, and if you have good content, you’ll
reach millions of people, even as an account with zero followers. It
applies to Pinterest and YouTube videos because success on this
platform mostly comes from SEO and content quality.
○ Note: I no longer do this because the traffic quality wasn’t good
enough. If I make an attempt again, it’ll be with higher-quality
content like personal videos or animated ones. Still, people get a lot
of views with this content strategy, so I’ll give it to you. The simplest
way for writers to do TikTok is screenshotting tweets, cropping them,
using a video editor to put them on top of a gif/video (I use an app
called “Video Leap” for this), making the videos around 7 seconds,
and posting them with cool audios. That’s solid for repurposing. If you
want to make this a primary platform, study accounts in your niche
and model your style off of theirs. The more complicated way is
turning your ideas into video scripts and using those to create
short-form content of you facing the camera. You can also pay a
designer to turn your voice overs into animated videos (look up Dan
Koe on Instagram for examples of this).
○ Note: I also stopped doing this because the results were poor, but I
got some traction on Pinterest, so I’ll share anyway. The simplest way
to do Pinterest is screenshotting tweets, cropping them, and posting
them with interesting titles. Again, that’s just for fast repurposing. If
you want to make this your primary platform, study accounts in your
niche and model your style off of theirs. This will also probably
involve creating a blog, because getting the most out of Pinterest
means getting website clicks from your pins.
○ I know roughly nothing about YouTube, so I won’t try to teach it to
you. All I’ll say is that you can take your written ideas and turn them
into video content. A Twitter thread or LinkedIn carousel could be the
idea behind a 10-minute video. A tweet or short LinkedIn post could
be the idea behind a YouTube Short. If you’re interested in expanding
to YouTube, do your own research.
Step #7: Funnel To Your Offer
Your first step will be deciding exactly what you want to sell. Some options:
● Low Ticket - eBooks, short video courses.
● Mid Ticket - Long courses, consultations, subscriptions.
● High Ticket - “Done for you” services, long-term coaching/consulting.
You can also do a combination of these rather than choosing just one or two. In
general, you shouldn’t try to sell low-ticker or mid-ticket offers as a beginner. With
a small audience, the ROI on the time you spend building and marketing these will
be terrible. Instead, do one of two things:
1. Sell a high-ticket service from the beginning. Create some trust-building
content, then start cold DMing and/or sending connection requests. If you
can prove your expertise (or if you’re willing to work for free to get some
case studies), you can start earning from social media with no following.
2. Don’t sell anything at the beginning. Just expand your network, build your
following, and get better at creating content. You can figure out your offers
later when you have more leverage.
The next step is getting people off the platform and into your sales funnel. How
you build yours will depend on your offer. There are dozens of approaches you can
take, but let me lay out a few common ones:
● The Service Seller - If you only sell a service, you can get super simple with
this. Optimize your bio to build interest and trust in your service, put a
call-scheduling landing page in your website slot, and add trust builders to
your featured slots (pinned tweet, LinkedIn featured section, Instagram
pinned posts, etc). Then, you can instantly start getting traffic through cold
DMs. Send something like 10 fresh ones and 15 follow ups per day. Or
more. Turn those into conversations, and turn conversations into calls
booked. Once you get some traction on your content, you’ll also get
inbound leads clicking on your scheduling page and DMing you.
● The Employment Seeker - This is basically identical to the service seller
funnel because you’re still selling a service. It’s just full-time rather than
freelance or agency. So, make your website more of a personal website
rather than a sales letter for your service. Sell a little softer, but follow the
same basic strategy. Signal competence, start conversations, and turn
interest into calls that might end in a job offer.
● The Newsletter Builder - Lots of creators lean heavily on their newsletter.
That’s either because they’re building only that (no other offers) or because
they sell their offer to subscribers rather than presenting website clickers
with multiple offers. In this case, you can write a bio that signals you’re a
valuable person to consume content from, likely settle on an opt-in
incentive like a free guide, create a simple landing page for opting in, add
that the website slot, creating a foundational piece of content for your
featured content sections, and plug your newsletter landing page at the end
of that content. From there, you can sell your offers (service, product,
affiliate links, advertising, etc) on autopilot with an automated email flow
and actively with regular newsletter pitches.
● The Multi-Offer Marketer - Lots of creators have multiple offers, so they
offer all of them on their profiles. I do so with a simple website that gives
quick pitches for each offer. Others do so with a more conventional website
with multiple sections (blog, course, “work with me”, etc). This website goes
in their website slot. On Twitter, their pinned tweet usually signals
competence with a plug for that website or their most important offer at
the end. On LinkedIn, they often add individual links for each offer in their
featured section.
Here are three examples. One from a service seller, another from a multi-offer
seller (me) with a minimalist website, and one more from a multi-offer seller who
has a conventional website.
That landing page is much larger than just the intro, but I can’t fit it all in here.
There’s more to that page too (I have multiple offers with the same format), but
you get the idea.
Lastly, here are a few excerpts from Just Welsh’s LinkedIn profile and his
conventional website:
Conventional websites are great if you have a blog rather than just a few offers
you want to send traffic to.
What’s most important early on is to not get overwhelmed. If your accounts are
small, how you monetize them barely matters. Build your following, build your
network, become a trusted voice in a community, and then decide which
combination of offers best meets your needs. Maybe that’s low-ticket only,
high-ticket only, or some combination. If you sell a service, you can start
monetizing right away with cold DMs backed by an optimized profile and
trust-creating content on your page. If you want to sell lower-priced products,
focus only on building a following first, then bring that offer and a newsletter in
around 10k-50k followers. One step at a time.
Roadmap
Here’s a quick summary/checklist of what’s in this guide:
Before You Start
Decide on your main topics/niches.
Decide if you want a personal or impersonal brand.
Setting Up Your Profiles
Choose a profile photo.
Choose a header photo (if needed).
Write your bio.
Engaging, Networking, & Posting
Pick a primary platform.
Find roughly 50 similar accounts in your niche.
Follow them.
Like and reply to their posts for 15-45 minutes per day.
Settle on a posting frequency (example: two tweets per day, one LinkedIn
post per day, one thread per week, and one carousel per week).
Figure out your creative preferences (creating a week’s worth of content in
one day, creating content only when you get inspired, etc).
Either post things organically from your phone/computer or use a scheduler
(links to a few of those below).
If you can, come up with something valuable (like a tip related to your
expertise) that you can offer to the bigger accounts.
If you can’t come up with something valuable, write personalized
compliments for those accounts.
Send 10 personalized DMs per day with that valuable offer or compliment
until you get through every account that you want to connect with.
Consider joining an engagement group/pod for faster growth.
Monetizing
Choose between low-ticket products, mid-ticket products, high-ticket
products, services, affiliating for products, or some combination of them.
Start marketing with the principles we discussed above.
Adjust as you go along based on your creative preferences, what’s working,
and what isn’t working.
Scaling
Start repurposing your content on other platforms.
Figure out what your optimal level of engagement trading is, then take the
appropriate actions (like joining or creating an engagement group).
Start replying less (if you’d like) once your platform is bigger.
Keep creating content, delivering value, and monetizing until you reach your
goals, whatever they might be.
Conclusion
While there are specifics within each of these stages, what I’ve given you today is
a better explanation than you’ll find in just about any blog or YouTube video on
the internet (I know because I’ve read/seen hundreds of them).
The last thing I’ll give you are some software picks to get you started (most of
these are affiliate links, so if you click through and buy, I’ll get a small
commission). These are my favorites:
1. Twitter personal brand building and monetization
2. LinkedIn personal brand building and monetization
3. Similar SMM tool that isn’t my favorite but does multiple platforms
4. Full-stack website, marketing, and info product platform
5. Email marketing only
6. eCommerce platform
7. Drag-and-drop website builder
Those are all awesome tools, but if you really want to learn how to use them, then
check out my personal branding course. It’s the last course I’ll ever sell (so I’m not
leaving anything out of it), you’ll get lifetime updates, it’ll save you a ton of time
on trial and error, and you’ll get tons of free bonuses (including 48 viral post
templates that you can play and play). Plus, you’ll get $100 off if you’re one of the
first 1,000 buyers. Click here to learn more and claim that discount before it goes
away forever.
With this guide and (ideally) my full personal branding course, and a solid
software stack, you’ll be on the fast track to success.
Good luck.
But wait, I didn’t forget. I owe you 10 viral post templates. Here they are…
1. Tools List
Recommending tools works well because people get instantly-applicable value out
of it. It’s not a vague tip with no obvious value. It’s something they can use today
to improve whatever they want to improve upon.
Template:
{List title that explains what you’re recommending}:
{List of tools with optional mini-explanation for what they do}
{Optional last line that ties things together or asks your readers a question}.
Example:
2. Resources List
Resources lists are very similar to tools lists, and they’re appealing for the same
reasons. They provide actionable information, take up space on the timeline, and
the final question lets people add to it if they want to, which increases
engagement.
Template:
{List title that explains what you’re recommending}:
{List of resources with optional mini-explanation for what they do}
{Optional last line that ties things together or asks your readers a question}.
Example:
3. Simple Comparisons
Comparing things is an easy way to make a point, and it often leads to “us vs
them” persuasion. You can distinguish between good and great, smart and stupid,
wise vs unwise, etc.
Template:
Bad/outdated/ineffective/etc {relevant to your niche} do {negative thing}.
Good/modern/effective/etc {relevant to your niche} do {positive thing}.
{Possible third line if you’re comparing more than two things}.
Example:
4. More Detailed Comparisons
Comparing isn’t just “bad vs good” and other simple ones like that, though. You
can get more detailed with these, and you can use hypothetical quotes to make
your point.
Template:
{One kind of person, client, marketers, etc}:
{Something they say or do}.
{An opposite kind of person, client, marketer, etc}:
{Something they say or do}.
Example:
5. Skill-Related Processes
This is similar to the resource/tool lists, but now you’re explaining a process rather
than giving individual recommendations. Pick an outcome that your audience
wants, then give them a step-by-step process for how to get that outcome. Again,
this provides actionable value, and it takes up a lot of space.
Template:
{Title that communicates what the process is and maybe what its outcome is}:
{The process}
{Optional last line that ties things together or asks for a reply from your readers}.
Example:
6. Life-Related Processes
The above example was related to my skill, which is writing. You can also write
process posts about daily life. Common topics for doing so are productivity, sleep,
nutrition, and scheduling. These provide actionable value and take up a nice
amount of space on the timeline.
Template:
{First line explaining what the list will be (that’s missing in my example, but 9/10
times, it’s best to have this)}:
{The process}
{Optional last line that ties things together or asks your readers a question}.
Example:
7. If + Then
“If you’re an X” and variations of that attract attention because it gives readers
something to relate to. In the example below, if you’re a solopreneur, or you’re
interested in being one, you’ll instinctively perk up and pay attention. The same
goes for basically any noun or verb.
Template:
If you’re a {category of person}, {action word}:
{Information or recommendation}
{Optional last line that ties things together}.
Example:
8. Positive General List
Lists take up a lot of space on the timeline and give people a lot of items to agree
or disagree with. They also let you ask for more from the audience, which leads to
more engagement. I don’t love posts like the one below because they’re a bit
cliche, but there’s a place for them in many brands with the right frequency.
Template:
{Title that explains what will be in the list}:
{List of positive things}
{Optional last line that ties things together or asks your readers a question}.
Example:
9. Negative General List
Not much explanation here. It’s the same as the one above, but it’s the opposite.
Template:
{Title that explains what will be in the list}:
{List of positive things}
{Optional last line that ties things together or asks for a reply from your readers}.
Example:
10. Personal Results + Lead
This has been my top-performing template. It works because the results attract
attention and build trust, then the lead draws people into the body of the content.
There’s no template for that because bodies are too large, but you can follow a
template for the hook.
Template:
{Personal result that attracts attention (can be one line or two)}.
{Interesting/appealing lead into the body of the content}:
Example:
11. Client/Customer Results + Lead
This is the same as the last one except you’re signaling results that your
client/customer got rather than results that you got. Depending on what you sell,
this can be even more powerful than sharing personal results.
Template:
{Client/customer result that attracts attention (can be one line or two)}.
{Interesting/appealing lead into the body of the content}:
Example:
How To Use These
Don’t get too enamored with templates. It’s called a personal brand because you
need to show personality, not just pump out generic posts based on templates.
These are like bumpers at a bowling alley. Start with them so you go in the right
direction, then, over time, get so good that you follow/use them instinctively
instead of starting with copy-pasting. You’ll get there eventually.
Finally, here’s a last plug for my course. It doesn’t cost anything to click here and
learn more, so click there and learn more. If you’re interested, enroll before those
$100-off discounts run out.
Thanks for reading.