The personal brand is extremely central in the digitised business life. Today we learn from Joella Skoogh, Personal Brand Coach & Speaker, on the subject. We share interesting tips and learnings about what works best in business life and on Linkedin.

Joella Skoogh may be familiar from previous articles here at Smartson - but today she is interviewed on the topic of personal branding. For those of you who have followed Joella's career, you will have seen, among other things, her work with Philips TV and the agency CMM.

- I have a long background in marketing and started running my company as a marketing consultant. I built my personal brand and it went very well - I started getting my dream assignments and was able to charge what I wanted to. At the same time I am completely location-independent and can travel around, mainly in my favorite country Italy.

Being personal and sharing your story often works best because it's very authentic & inspiring.

What are the key ingredients of personal branding in 2022?

- I would say to be both strategic and authentic. By strategic, I mean you should know why you are building your personal brand, what goals you have with it and which audience you are targeting and create content accordingly. By authentic I mean you should be yourself and really speak in your own voice, from your heart and your brain. You can be as strategic as you want but the magic ingredient is being yourself - which is the only real USP. You can also be authentic and just write from the heart, but if you are not strategic you will not get the results you want.

I help others build their personal brands to attract their dream customers & leads.

What tips would you like to give Smartson's readers regarding the personal brand?

- My best tip is to have a clear “why”. It lays the foundation for your strategy and it will also be your driving force to follow through. If you also know who your target group is, you can focus on creating content aimed at them. It's a common misconception that building a personal brand means posting what you do all the time. It is often not interesting for the target group. Focus on helping your target audience - not lifting yourself to the skies.

Do you see a big difference in how we nurture the personal brand based on, for example, industries or regions/countries?

- Entrepreneurs who sell services or digital products usually understand that their personal brand is important to get customers, and charge the prices they want to charge, whether they are self-employed or have a few employees. I also see an increased interest from B2B companies, where they realise that they can stand out from the competition by building personal relationships with the target group via social media. It takes an incredible amount of time to mingle and meet people over lunch, or to hunt for customers.

- Focus more on attracting customers and leads through social media instead of chasing them and constantly meeting people individually.

What post types are performing better than others on LinkedIn today?

- Being personal and sharing your story often works best because it is very authentic and at the same time can be very inspiring and relatable. We are looking for authenticity on social media and I really encourage others to both dare to step into their expert role, but also to show a personal side.

Which days & times are easiest to achieve organic spread?

- On LinkedIn, I would mainly recommend weekdays when people are working. Times vary - if you create good content, it doesn't really matter what time of day you post. The most important thing is that you post. Overall, I've noticed that mornings work quite well - but as I said, good content is more important than time of day.

How you succeed in building your personal brand