Building a personal brand

Reports shows that the presence of the CEO of organization in social media increases its credibility and image. Every fifth candidate from the Y generation is interested in applying to a given organization if they see an active President.

Personal branding, or how to effectively build an authentic personal brand

According to research, every third client reports that the presence of the CEO of a given organization in social media increases its credibility and image. Every fifth candidate from the Y generation is interested in applying to a given organization if they see an active President. Candidates check the CEO profile on LinkedIn to find out about development opportunities in the company. 81% of social media users believe that the CEO present in social media is better prepared to run a business. These are just some of the results that prove that the involvement of the most important people in the company through social media largely affects the functioning and development of the company. Communicating, and thus building the image of the bosses, becomes indispensable. Apart from the growing importance of employee advocacy, it is an important activity that cannot be ignored. It was for this purpose that a separate specialization of personal branding was created – boss branding.

Boss branding

Boss branding is a special type of personal brand building. It mainly concerns C-Level staff, which is characterized by specific aspects. The activities of senior management cover such areas as:

• Employer branding
• Recruiting talent
• Development and inspiration
• Social selling
• Communication with employees
• Industry networking

Personal branding and the company’s profits

It should be noted that on the side of C-Level, apart from building its own brand, which is to translate into image gains, there is also care for the company’s development. Today, users do not care about seeing the professional logo of the company, but more about its “faces”. Therefore, boss branding and its mechanisms should be specified. It is worth focusing on communication via the currently most popular social networking site, intended for C-Level staff – LinkedIn.

How to build a personal brand on social media?

Via LinkedIn, C-Level staff gets a chance to conduct networking and build a personal brand. On the one hand – especially during a pandemic – it is a great privilege and facilitation, on the other hand, it is a responsibility for creating the right content. Analyzes confirm that CEOs are gradually becoming more familiar with this type of communication. One of the reasons for the activities aimed at building a personal brand is the aforementioned pandemic, which made people realize that the network should be a perfect complement to their activities for C-Level staff.

Building a business image

In interviews, the C-Level staff emphasizes the fact that professional communication and building a business image becomes a good way to prove that the head of the company does not deal with matters only in his office. He is a person with experience, his habits, history, but above all interests and his own opinion on general topics (here it is worth mentioning the idea of ​​T-Shaped Person – a person specialized in a specific area, with a lot of general knowledge).

5 principles of personal branding on LinkedIn

That is why it is worth providing the initial prescription for professional communication via LinkedIn. In this context, it is proposed to use several established rules:

1. “Pinch of salt”. Include an activating element in the post that will attract the user and make him respond. Call to action is an attempt to start interaction – you need an element that will be remembered. It should often be controversial.
2. Natural relationships. Shorten the distance in the relationship, but keep the elementary culture and principles of business savoir vivre. Will you do business with a person who treats you like a friend at the beginning?
3. Discussion. Discuss like a human, not a machine. Do not artificially raise the post’s reach. Talk to the user.
4. 2-1- (1). Stick to the rule: two content posts, one trivia post, and the occasional entertainment post.
5. Time of publication. There is no perfect time to publish a LinkedIn post. You can intuitively determine the highest user activity, so test and analyze!

When the above rules and guidelines are followed, the boss will build a credible and natural business profile on LinkedIn. Social selling is an element that dominates today’s communication. You cannot use all the information that can be found in the guides in your actions. Social media is natural, relational and reliable. These three values ​​are needed to conduct effective business communication on LinkedIn.

How to take care of your personal brand?

As you can see, the rules of boss branding proposed by the author are related to the fact that building a personal C-Level staff brand must be devoid of all automation elements and schemes, the task of which is only to build reach, through a large number of likes and comments. The boss also cannot afford to create a “team” that is solely responsible for building the popularity of the message. This is nothing more than the aforementioned automation, which will be noticed in the long term and will significantly affect the image. Naturalness and credibility – these are the values ​​that will allow you to build a professional personal brand of the C-Level staff. This is boss branding!

Author of the post

Bartłomiej Machink

doctor of social sciences, image advisor

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