How to Create a Winning Image for Yourself on Social Media

How to Create a Winning Persona for Yourself on Social Media?

Your social media image, i.e. your online persona, is more than just what you write on your profile.

Your image is the sum of the themes you choose for your blog and videos, the causes you support and your likes and dislikes.

Start by thinking what kind of information you are comfortable sharing with the world at large – your viewers, fans and subscribers.

Not everyone is comfortable creating videos which are reality shows of your everyday life. It is ok if you want to keep work and life separate.

Your audience cares for entertainment, honesty, and value. Focus on these three things and your success is guaranteed.

Where will you focus?

Ask yourself, where you are most likely to find your prospective customers. What do they enjoy doing most – reading blogs, watching videos, browsing facebook or tweeting?

Your customers may hang out at multiple places. However, it is important for you to focus your energy. It is best to choose a few social media channels instead of spreading yourself too thin.

Here are two different alternative social media strategies:

#1: You could identify one medium as your primary medium, while the other mediums are communication mediums. As an example, you can focus on YouTube video creation – and use Facebook or Twitter to simply alert your audience about new videos.
#2: If you are doing this full time and have at least 1 hour everyday to dedicate to social media – then you can choose one each from three different kinds of medium – written posts (either Facebook or Twitter), image (Flickr or Instagram) and videos (YouTube or Vimeo).

On each social media, your audience will expect interaction – thank you notes for their likes, and replies to their comments. If you do not engage then they are likely to feel unhappy.

If you don’t have time, it is best to start small and focus solely on one or two social media, rather than disappoint a fan by not replying to her or his comment. It is ok to not have all the social media channels going. There are many examples of people who shut down one of their social media account simply because they could not keep up.

Checklist for completing your profile on social media

Use the same photo and graphics for your profile in each social media channel.
Talk about some of your works and the recognition you have received.
Include keywords tailored to hit the spot for your audience
Be conversational – avoid passive voice or buzzwords
Revisit & revise your profile periodically
Include links to your Etsy shop, Amazon Author page or other blogs
What do you want from your audience – e.g. book deals from publishers, paid advertisement enquiries for your blog, commissions from art directors

Your profile is about you – but the focus should be on your audience. Remember, your visitors, when looking at your video are asking themselves, “What’s In It for Me?”

Your Persona: What’s the Image you Want to Communicate

When thinking of your image on social media, consider what you would enjoy doing most. Are you comfortable sharing personal details of your life? Or do you want to focus on your work? Do you want to create tutorials or do you want to create stories?

Think about the examples we have included in this post: The #1 Thing that Will Help You Earn $4313/month from your Blog or YouTube. Use a social media image strategy which is most suited to your personality.

What are the topics you should focus on?

To identify the topics and content of social media posts – think of the words your audience uses on Google or elsewhere to search for what they like.

As an example, if you write historical fiction, then typing “historical fiction” in google immediately brings up the following searches relates to historical fiction: “historical fiction examples”, “historical fiction characteristics”, “best historical fiction books of all time”, “historical fiction for kids”. So right there, you have 4 topics for your videos or blog posts!

For a more detailed analysis read a bit about choosing the right keyword strategies for your posts. However, for now, you can keep things simple and get started with content which Google or Bing identifies as the trending topics in your genre.

What should be your posting strategy?

In your posting strategy, You MUST be consistent. Start with a less ambitious goal, say one video per month and one blog post per week. However you MUST continue and not get disheartened. It will take weeks and months to start seeing results. The biggest mistake bloggers or vloggers make is that they get disheartened quickly.

There are many other elements of a good posting strategy – e.g. when to post (time of day), number of posts per day or week etc. Instead of thinking too much about these things initially, as an individual you should focus on creating meaningful content which your audience will find useful; and cultivating an image they can relate to.

Conclusion

Your image is the #1 thing which will help you make money from your blog or books or art or any other product.

This post will help you to choose a social media strategy and content ideas for cultivating a consistent image for your followers. We discussed checklists for profile completion, creating your online persona and choosing appropriate topics for social media posts.

I hope this gives you food for thought and will help accomplish your goals.