I’ve worked in both corporate branding and personal branding for over a decade, and one of the reasons I enjoy personal branding so much more is this…

A personal brand is so much easier to pivot. 

Free from the bureaucracy, budgets, and culture shifts that come with corporate brand evolution, it’s much simpler to evolve your personal brand and adjust and adopt the strategies that accompany it. And, if you’re a savvy professional, you should absolutely be doing so. Why? Because the platforms and tools we use to grow our brands constantly evolve, and we risk becoming obsolete if we don’t adapt our approach alongside their evolution.

Here are the top 5 personal brand pivots I’m making this year to ensure I stay top of mind and platform for my audience:

1. Adjusting my LinkedIn newsletter schedule

For over a year, I have been publishing my LinkedIn newsletter, “Build a Brand,” on a weekly basis. This commitment to publishing has led to more subscriptions on my private email list, more media inquiries, and more business sales.

However, Richard van der Blom’s 5th LinkedIn Algorithm Insights analysis reported that statistically, bimonthly LinkedIn newsletter publication is more effective than weekly article publication.

From a user standpoint, I understand why. When I get too many updates from a LinkedIn newsletter, I tend to read less, filing them into my “to read” pile. Conversely, newsletters I’m following that come out bimonthly or monthly tend to capture my eyes more - likely because I don’t have a digital stack of “unread” editions already clogging my inbox. That is highly subjective and anecdotal on my end; nonetheless, the bi-monthly move is now one I’m making.

Of importance to note: This is not something I’m employing for my weekly email newsletter. I’m actually looking to notch up how frequently I reach out to my audience there to build more community.

2. Respecting the “Golden Hour” of LinkedIn

In the same algorithm report, the importance of nurturing comments and conversations in the first hour after publishing a post is critical to newsfeed performance. Now, while I always knew this conceptually, sometimes my day begins “daying” at the same hour my post went up, leaving little to no bandwidth to feed responses in the comment section.

Source: Algorithm Insights 2024 - 5th Edition V.1.1 by Richard van der Blom. You can purchase the full report here.

So, I’ve now slightly altered my posting time, pushing it up a half hour so I can still post in my ideal window of 8-10:30 am local while also being available to monitor comments and respond in real-time as they arise.

3. Including video in my content mix 

Did you know that 80% of a person’s time spent on a smartphone is watching video? Hilary Billings shared this illuminating insight on a recent short-form video workshop I attended, and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since.

While you may think, “Duh! TikTok, reels, and YouTube heard of ‘em?” I want you to reflect on that stat again. She didn’t say that 80% of social media time was spent watching videos. She said 80% of ALL time spent on a smartphone is watching videos.

LinkedIn is no dummy regarding this proliferation of video, either. I’ve already seen some early indications they’ll be making platform adjustments to account for this and hoist video further up their content food chain.

4. Tripling down on long-form content

This is less a “pivot” and more an intense magnification. You may counterintuitively assume that in a world of shorter and shorter videos, long-form may have seen its time in the sun. But I’m here to tell you that’s not true, especially if you want to build your personal brand 

Long-form content by way of articles, podcasts, and lengthier YouTube videos brings about many benefits, including:

• Increased discoverability (search engines love them)
• Better conversion rates (people want to research you more before purchasing, especially if your price tag is high)
• More opportunity to showcase your expertise/increased authority (very important for thought leaders)
• A place to validate product ideas and audience strength (someone willing to read a six-minute article is going to be further along in the decision cycle than someone who is glimpsing here and there)
   

5. Being obsessive about warming up my network

Again, this is less a “pivot” and more a “turning up the intensity dial.” When building our personal brand, we can get so infatuated with “new” — new content, new audience members, new platforms, that we overlook what we already have.

Remember that most of your purchases will come from people who have been fans of yours and have been part of your network for a while. We must recognize that and find ways to engage our “dream clients hiding in plain sight” rather than constantly looking externally to add new prospects and audience members to our universe.

The Recap

Those are my “Big 5” pivots in 2024, and I strongly suggest you try on at least one for yourself. Are you trying anything new to build your personal brand this year? If yes, what is it?