12. Building a personal brand on social media

Lisa Teh is the Founder and Director of CODI Digital Agency. CODI specialise in personal brand and brand amplification through organic social media content creation and management.

 With a background in taxation and law, Lisa has taken the lessons she learned in the corporate world around brand consistency and the importance of having a strong work ethic, and has woven them into the fabric of CODI.

 The digital marketing landscape changes at breakneck speed; every day is new and different, and platforms are constantly changing, so it’s essential that Lisa and her (mostly female) team stay on top of the latest changes and trends across the various platforms.

During her time working in the corporate world, Lisa struggled to find female mentors in leadership positions, particularly in the male dominated world of tax and law. It’s still so much harder for women to crack into the ‘inner circle’ to be included in the type of networking situations where work gets done outside the workplace in terms of building rapport and connection.

An interesting observation Lisa makes is that it can be difficult for women to build a personal brand in the corporate world using platforms such as Linked In, as some of the men they want to connect with in a professional capacity can treat the platform as if it’s a dating site. It can often be difficult to distinguish between a genuine networking opportunity and less-than-honest intentions. 

Unwelcome advances aside; for women, LinkedIn is a huge opportunity. There are plenty of men publishing content on LinkedIn, but nowhere near as many women. If you wanted to position yourself as an authority in your industry, Lisa’s number one recommendation would be to publish on LinkedIn.

When it comes to creating a brand, there’s a big difference between creating a brand for your business and a personal brand for yourself as the individual.

In terms of what's working today, it's much easier to go viral on Tik Tok than any other platform. Lisa tells the story of a voice coach she met who had just gained 20,000 followers on Tik Tok, simply from posting tips on how to pronounce words correctly!

It can be challenging for women to really nail their personal brand online. Lisa believes that businesses and brands are a little restricted, in that they need to be consistent across the board, but for a personal brand? Consistency is still important, but it's a good opportunity to show a different aspect on your personal brand on different platforms.

In terms of how to do that, you could be giving quick tips related to your industry on Tik Tok, show "a day in the life" style stories on your Instagram stories, flex your expert muscles over on LinkedIn and take it to the next level over on YouTube. The possibilities are endless! 

Trial and error - and actually looking at your results data - is going to teach   you so much more than reading and waiting until you feel 'ready'. Pick one platform, pick three women you look up to in your industry and three outside of it that you admire, and give yourself an hour to browse their content across the various platforms as research. Think about the content they produce that you love, and put your own spin on it. It's a great place to start! 

And for those of you wanting to start a business, just like Lisa? Here are her top tips:

Be passionate about what you do: Starting a business is challenging. The highs will be SO high, and the lows can be really low, so if you don’t really love what you’re doing things are going to be infinitely harder.

Surround yourself with amazing people: your team, your mentors and your network. Having a network of people around you who also run their own businesses can be invaluable. Some people won’t want to share their secrets or learnings, but the people who are helpful and open to sharing are like gold. Hold on to those people.

Don’t be afraid to fail. If you make a mistake and learn from it, it becomes a lesson, not a failure. Those lessons are part of the journey, they’re the times when you really learn.

Lisa Teh is a real mover and shaker. She's the co-author of Australia Style and Australian Beauty, the Founder of CODI, the Founder of 101 Lifestyle and the Co-Founder of Lisnic Learning. You can hear our conversation about personal branding across different social platforms, here.