Hack your commute: Manage your ‘personal brand’
Managing your personal brand can sometimes seem like an chore but there are ways to make the process simpler.
It’s a phrase that many people hate but even if you just think of it as your public professional profile, your combined presence across social networks amounts to a ‘personal brand’ – and brands require management. If your brand objectives include increasing awareness and engagement, then maximising your audience is a necessity.
This is where platforms such as Buffer and Hootsuite come into their own. They allow you to manage multiple social media accounts – on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and Pinterest – via one dashboard. Plus, perhaps more importantly, they give you stats for each post at the same time.
You can therefore work out when your audience for each account is most likely to be online and engaged and, as a result, can write, schedule and send your posts at the time that will be most effective for reaching the right people.
Both Buffer and Hootsuite are intended mainly for marketing teams and have several paid-for subscription options. But there area free offerings that allow you to run up to three accounts and schedule a limited number of posts at any one time. For most professionals, that’s likely to be plenty of functionality to give you the best chance of an insightful tweet or LinkedIn article to get the desired traction among your followers.
The free versions allows link shortening and tracking with basic analytics, with more detailed stats requiring at least the cheapest paid-for options on each platform. Both Buffer and Hootsuite are available on web browser and Android or Apple mobile devices.
