Joe Herrera is an EWTS Certified Guide, Associate Broker at Real Broker, and Co-Founder of the Joe Taylor Group. This organization is a national real estate team that helps other real estate professionals.
Having created his own company, he is no stranger to building a brand and how important it is to get it right.
Over the years, he has efficiently leveraged social media so that it can provide for the people that matter most to him: his family and employees. He understands the power that social media can have to make or break a brand, but he also struggles with the format on the whole.
Joe’s personal branding story began with the documentary film The Social Dilemma.
After watching it, he started to question social media and the power that certain algorithms had. The film highlighted to him just how much people are manipulated by the content that they devour.
Immediately after watching it, he decided to delete his social media accounts. But, like most people, this only lasted for about a day before he re-installed the apps…
Because he decided that instead of being used by it, he was going to use it to build his own successful brand.
Is All Activity Productive?
Gino Wickman famously says: ‘Don’t mistake activity for productivity. Creativity is productivity; it just doesn’t feel like it at first.’
When building a personal brand on social media, you can make a lot of noise, which could be considered branding, but if you’re not careful, you could end up being incredibly active but not that productive.
Try instead to work backward and allow creativity to fuel productivity. Then, your activity will be more valuable.
Here are Joe’s 5 simple steps to building a successful brand on social media.
No. 1 Find Your Fish
Who is that you are trying to connect with? And what is your definition of success by connecting with them?
Joe works in real estate, and many different people are involved in this world.
How do you find your target audience in a huge market? You need to narrow down who you are trying to attract so that you can catch the right fish.
Joe’s fish are real estate agents.
Not real estate consumers or coaches. He wants to connect with real estate practitioners who need to improve their ability to practice their craft.
It’s super important to define your audience and define what success looks like when connecting with them.
Joe defines his success through connection and defines connection through messaging/messenger conversations.
How many connections do you make every day? Joe aims to engage with 8-10 per day because this way, he knows he’s hitting his target audience.
No. 2 Find Your Voice
Joe is building a brand around helping people who don’t know what to say. He asks questions like:
- What do you wish you could say, but don’t know how to say it?
- What things do you wish that you could say to your clients but don’t know how?
By asking these curiosity-based questions, he can gather a lot of feedback, and that feedback can be used to create more engaging content.
Helping with what to say and when to say it is the voice that Joe’s currently working on, but do you know your voice?
If you’re unsure, then try answering these questions:
- What attractive personality trait or concept do you have?
- Do you have any unique talents, abilities, or perspectives?
- Do you have any expertise that others could learn from?
Your content should be centered around your unique standpoint and challenges. Things that you’ve overcome or are currently dealing with or using something unique to create a voice to feed an audience are just some of the things that give others expertise that they can glean knowledge from.
No. 3 Find Your Who
Can you be truly objective when editing and analyzing something that you’ve created?
Joe doesn’t film or edit his own content. One of the things he’s learned when watching videos he’s made is that he becomes embarrassed. He hates it and is very judgemental about himself.
Because of this, Joe has a “Who” – a person he employs to help create content. Joe’s “Who” is his brother-in-law and he specializes in making and editing all of the social content.
Joe likes to average about 4-5 pieces per week, and he knows that if it was just down to him to create and edit all of that content, he would sabotage himself. His “Who” stops that from happening.
Have you ever felt that you were self-sabotaging? You’re not alone. It’s called perfection paralysis, and according to a study from the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, perfectionism is linked to feelings of failure, guilt, indecisiveness, procrastination, shame, and low self-esteem.
As a result of perfection paralysis, you might struggle to move forward with a task or project.
Maybe you’re worried about what is going to happen if you fail. Or perhaps you have negative feelings about the task, like feeling embarrassed being in front of the camera.
Or maybe you’re worried about failing to produce anything that connects with your audience.
Could your life be easier if you had a Who? Who could be your Who?
Just imagine having someone else to help create your content who won’t self-sabotage.
No. 4 Be Consistent
Have you got your own rhythm content posting? Have you found the cadence of content creation and brand building that suits you?
Joe loves CrossFit, but he is the first to admit he’s not the best at it. He’s not the fastest, he’s not the strongest, he’s not even the most flexible. But the one thing he knows is that he can do is show up and be consistent.
Your content should be the same, but remember that not every platform is the same. For example, it wouldn’t do to post 5 times a day on Instagram. Joe generally posts 3 – 4 times a week, and he’s active on stories. This rhythm works for him.
You will need to play around and find what works for you. Break down your results, and if it doesn’t feel right, change it.
Ask yourself, how often are you posting? How active are you on our social media? Does it encourage engagement, or are people tuning out?
You need to figure out what cadence suits your brand and then be consistent.
No. 5 Be Persistent
One thing that is certain when building a brand, you’re going to face rejection and discouragement.
There will be times when you produce content that you think is absolutely wonderful, but once you post it, you find that no one else gets it or even cares about it.
You will get negative feedback sometimes, and occasionally, people might be rude.
But there’s a school of thought that would say you’re not doing anything toward building your brand until people start hating on you a little bit.
Give yourself a little mercy, and then give that mercy to other people.
The temptation is to take it all personally, but the reality is if you’re going to pursue brand building, it will be impossible to be effective without facing a little bit of opposition.
Don’t let it discourage you; it’s all part of the process.
Building Your Brand
The journey should look like this:
- Discover your audience
- Find your voice
- Employ your “Who”
- Operate consistently
- Be more persistent
This checklist will enable you to build a brand that other people can connect with.
Your brand is a constant, living, and moving creation, so you want it to evolve and change as your experiences do.
Brand building on special media is an opportunity, and if approached in the right way, you have the chance to advance your brand and your collective message. Joe is proud to have built a brand that stays away from the fray of politics and resists the urge to argue online.
He feels like he’s tricked the system; could you do the same?
