This post shares 7 tips on how to market yourself without feeling awkward or self-centered.
You are diligently building your personal brand by posting content consistently and being mindful of the type of content that you are posting on LinkedIn or Instagram. But it doesn’t seem like enough. You want to build an audience that will later grow into a community, but that would mean you having to market yourself.
But you don’t know how to market yourself without feeling awkward, icky, or a bit self-centered.
These uneasy feelings are standing in your way of building a more powerful personal brand or a successful business. But how do you get over these feelings and start feeling more confident marketing yourself online and in person?
No need to worry! I list 7 tips on how to market yourself confidently by creating a plan, sharing tactical steps, and resetting your mindset.
After reading this post you will drop the uncomfortable feelings of marketing yourself and will be so pumped to start sharing your gifts, talents, and services with the world. Let’s go do this!
1. Make a Plan: Create an Avatar
When you make a post on your personal (or private) Instagram account, I’m sure you have a group of people in mind that you hope will see it. Visualizing your ideal community and potential clients can also help you make those post marketing yourself or business.
I know it is hard to visualize people who you haven’t met yet. So, it’s time to come up with an avatar.
What is an avatar? It’s your ideal person who you want to market to.
I created an avatar to help me when writing my blogs, creating content, or developing courses. I know her name, age, profession, family life, frustrations, likes, hope, and dreams.
Using an avatar allows me to tailor my messaging when marketing and helps me narrow down to the social media platforms where my avatar would spend time on.
Let's create your avatar:
Take a blank sheet of paper and divide it into 4-sections. Each section is listed below. Make a detailed list for each section- it’s OK to get granular in the details. It will help your avatar feel more real.
- Basic Information (gender, race, age, location, education, relationship status)
- Profession (role, level of experience, corporate, non-corporate
- Lifestyle (family, friends, hobbies, activities)
- Goals (personally and professionally)
Your avatar will represent your ideal audience and marketing to an audience that is more inclined to embrace who you are and what you have to offer will be a lot easier than wasting your time in front of a cold non-engaging audience.
2. Get Acquainted with Your Audience
Have you heard of the saying ”Go where the action is!” ?
This definitely applies to immersing yourself on the platform where your avatar and your ideal audience are hanging out. You need to invest time in these online communities to learn about their interest, what they are talking about, and what they get excited for.
The more you get acquainted with your ideal audience, the more comfortable you will be when having to share or marketing yourself.
Exercise Time! Using the same sheet with the details of your avatar, list the online platforms, communities, private groups, and forums that are related to each section.
For example:
Basic information- what is your avatar’s social media platform of choice?
Lifestyle- which platform would your avatar go to learn or get involved?
Here is a general list of platforms, communities, and forums where your audience could be:
- Private Facebook Groups
- Clubhouse
- Tik Tok
- Quora
- YouTube
Select the top 2- 3 platforms from the list you created for your avatar.
You will be spending a good amount of time on these platforms, so make sure you feel comfortable being on or learning how to use them.
Pro Tip- Using hashtags to research and find influencers, people in thought-leadership roles, and other like-minded people, in the space you want to market to.
3. Have Conversations with Your Community
Engaging in conversations is the fastest way to get recognized and followed by the people in your community. The more time you spend engaging with other people in the community the less awkward you will feel when you have to share and post about who you are and what you offer.
What does engagement look like?
- Commenting on a post.
- Adding a comment to other people’s comments
- Asking a thoughtful question to a post
- Sending a DM about why you liked the post
Before you start engaging comments make sure your profile and bio clearly defines who you are, who you help, and other links where people can find you.
It’s important to make sure your profile reflects your personal or professional brand because your comments and engagement will spark curiosity. So having a bio and profile will be key so they may be inclined to follow you.
4. Show Support to Others
If you want to be supported, you have to support others first.
There's nothing better than feeling supported to take the uneasiness of putting yourself out there to grow your personal brand or business. But before you can even expect for people to start supporting you, you will need to take the time to show support to others.
Showing support can look like:
- Creating a post about their work- sharing why you like it.
- Engaging in posts
- Re-sharing posts
- Showing up to their online events
Being an active member of the community and building relationships with like-minded people will help you feel comfortable when it comes time to marketing yourself with posts and videos.
5. You have Valuable Content to Share
If you have done a good job of publishing long-form content consistently and have taken the time to build relationships with the people in your community that support your work, it should be easy to collaborate or partner with others.
A way to market yourself with ease is to share your content on another person’s platform.
I find promoting my work on someone else’s platform is easier than stepping out on my own creating a post or a video. There's something about being welcomed as a guest that makes it easier to market yourself or your services.
Plus, when you are a guest you are not only educating or entertaining their audience, but you become a source of content for them to use.
It’s a win-win!
What does collaborating look like?
- Write as a guest blogger
- Ask them to an Instagram live together
- Ask if you can go on their podcast
- Ask to co-host a room together on Clubhouse
6. Mindset Shift: You Aren't Being Self-Centered
For some people, it can be difficult to talk about themselves. Perhaps the uneasy feeling comes from our upbringing or culture. You were taught that it is not a good look to talk about yourself.
But let’s flip the script on this old belief.
You have natural talents, skills, and gifts to share with the world.
Sharing what you have to offer doesn’t come from a place of arrogance or being showy. It comes from a place of service, entertainment, or education.
When you come from a place of service, marketing yourself will not feel unnatural or uncomfortable.
7. Doing It For Your WHY
There is a reason why you want to grow your personal brand or a reason for launching your service or business. Your why will give you the permission and purpose to market yourself.
Could these be your reason for marketing yourself?
- Fulfilling a purpose
- Financial freedom
- Change in life priorities
- Designing a life with flexibility
- Brings you joy
Take the time to write down your why.
Exercise Time! Here is a formula to help you come up with your why statement. Fill in the blanks to help remind you of the importance of marketing yourself.
If I don't share (insert your talent, gifts, experience, services), then I would be denying myself the possibility of (your WHY).
This will be the reminder you will need and will return to when you feel like backing out from marketing yourself online or in person.
So there you have it! How to market yourself with confidence. You have a plan, action items and mindset shifts to help bring ease to marketing yourself online and in-person..
We want to hear from you! Start practicing here! Share in the comments who you are, what makes your special or the service you offer.
