Here’s an uncomfortable truth: [Tweet “Your degree is just a piece of paper your education is seen in your behavior“]

Even if you know every social media platform’s latest algorithms, excellent content creation like high paced videos, eccentric visuals, and captivating blogs; there is a very good chance that you might lose out on building a brand for yourself.

Building a brand requires creating awareness, getting the interest of your target audience and then building a trust-factor to your brand. Just getting attention won’t help your case, you also need some action from their part as an ROI to your social media efforts.

Here are some ways to build a brand for yourself in the midst of all this digital clutter of your competitors:

• Make a name in your niche

When you make a brand around something that already excites you, your brand also shines and reflect your positive energy. To become a thought leader in a field, you need to have expertise. Hence, choose a field to build your brand, which you are deeply passionate about.

• Create a strategy and execute

Although it sounds easy and fun to post something on the go, it is better to have a content calendar in place. Having a prior plan in place for what to post when – can make life easier for you. This will also help you map out the journey for your post like what call to action to be given to every post.

• Get to know your audience

It’s not rocket science to know that you can create better content if you know who your ideal customers are. The more in-depth you know where your clients are, what do they do, where they hang out etc., the better you can make your content more effective to them.

• Give your brand a human touch

Behind the scenes photos, pictures of your team at work or even pets in your office; these content ideas give your brand a relatable factor. People love to know about other people’s experiences and that should be leveraged by the brand to raise their own presence through your employees.

• Be a master of your niche

Instead of being a ‘Jack of all trades & master of none’, it’s better to be the leader of your own field. Being the go-to brand for a particular purpose is the ultimate win for any brand. It takes a lot of effort and consistent trust-building performances to get there.

• Have a trump card

People are leveraging LinkedIn lately to sell their services or generate leads. But LinkedIn has been around for more than a decade and the early adopters of the platform have already made a ton of profit by using this network as their trump card. Every brand should have the one secret sauce that makes them stand out from their competitors.

• Leverage the Influencers

Build a relationship with other leaders and influencers of your community. Share their content with their permission, if you think it will bring value to your audience. It also helps you out to make a connection with these people. Even give a shout out to someone who’s pushing valuable information in your niche.

• Use paid ads to your advantage

With the current algorithms favoring sponsored posts more than the organic ones, you must know which content to promote. If you build content that can be very valuable to your community, boosting it with a certain budget can be a good option. You can reach out to the newer audience and let them know about your brand in the process.

• Retarget your audience

Once you have set up a community of followers you need to keep making them come back to your platform for more. When you constantly provide value to people, it makes it easier for you to make a sale or sell your service, when you come out with one. The trust factor plays an important role here.

• Track and optimize your data

Leverage your data to make smart decisions. While others are focussing on looking good, you should look into how you can perform better along with keeping your aesthetics in check. Right from the latest trends to the best practices in social media, you and your team need to be constantly listening & have an update about it.

• Invest in a hero content

Write a long blog, a podcast or an informative webinar and start breaking it down for micro-content – time and again. The call to action on posting out these micro contents can be pushing the traffic to the hero content. Even though it seems time-consuming to make such a descriptive form of information, it can yield benefits for a very long time.

Set up high ended goals, putting a strategy in place, executing the tactics and hitting these goals is just one part of digital marketing. The actual success of a brand can be defined by the number of people – your brand inspires to take an action or inspires them to do something for themselves and in the process, you.