How I’d Grow A Personal Brand From Scratch By The End Of The Year

0:00It has never been a better time to grow your personal brand online. And in this video, I want to give you 10 tips so that you could do just that before the end of the year. Right now, so many creators are aspiring to have personal brands like Grace Beverly, who can pivot from active wear and home workouts to productivity planners, healthy lunchboxes, and social media marketing, all without losing her audience. So, if you're somebody who has ever been scared to niche down because you don't want to feel like you're trapped in a box, this video is for you. As always, timestamps

0:29are below. Use them if you need them. Let's jump in. Also, in case you can't tell, new setup because my office is completely a wreck under construction. I'll show you behind the scenes right now. The people who are building our custom bookshelf, they took a break. And so, I was like, quick, let me jump in and try to film some videos. So, for this video and the next video, we're going to have this simple setup and hopefully it does the job. Tip number one, if you are starting from scratch, the best advice I can give you is to just start creating, just start creating and posting anything and everything that

1:03you want or have been wanting to create. This is what helps you get clarity. You don't have to have it all figured out and you don't need to have a perfect plan or strategy right away. This is specifically for somebody who's like maybe you've never created content before, just start creating. Or maybe you don't have a clear idea of what your personal brand is yet or what you want to be known for. It's okay to not have clarity yet. Just start creating and then the clarity will come. Because what you'll find is sometimes there's content that you enjoy to consume as a user, but you actually hate making that style of

1:40content. That's what I found. Like I enjoy looking at fashion content and like watching mom hack videos or watching workout routines, but when it came to creating and posting under those topics and around those things, it was either I really don't like doing this or it just didn't feel natural. But I wouldn't have learned that had I not just created what I wanted to create anyway. Tip number two is eventually to define your personal brand. Now, a personal brand is a unique combination of your skills, values, experiences, and personality that shapes how the world or social media perceives you. The topic of like defining your personal brand and

2:18getting clarity on your personal brand, that is a whole thing that you could dive into. And if you really want to dive into this topic, I definitely recommend there's a like two and a half hour master class that Caleb Rston here on YouTube created. So, if you want like a deep dive on, okay, how do I define my personal brand, I would go and watch that video. But if you want just like a quick little snapshot of generally how to define your personal brand, I'll try to keep this short and sweet. Defining your personal brand is more than just picking colors, fonts, topics, and content pillars to post about. It's also

2:54about figuring out what makes you, your life, or your perspective on things unique. When you have that figured out, then you can really lean into that or showcase that within your content. Harvard Business School said, "Standout brands have one thing in common. They clearly communicate what makes them different." And ideally, that is what

3:14your personal brand will do over time. To help you brainstorm where you can begin, basically just like grab a pen and paper and brainstorm answers to these questions. Answers to all these questions can help shape your future content. I know that's very vague as of right now. Oh, I'm trying to keep this short and sweet. There's really no easy way for me to be like, here's exactly how you can find what makes you unique because like often times that comes over time with creating content and discovering your uniqueness as a creator. And also often times the thing that feels the most mundane to you is the thing that is unique to other

3:52people's perspectives. So, I know it's like kind of woo woo to be like be unique and there's not like a quick tip for me to be like this is how you find what's unique to you. But as you start creating and defining what you want to post about and talk about, you'll start to kind of get glimpses into your uniqueness the more you go. Tip number three is to set up your social media profile for success. Everyone loves to skip this and jump straight into like growth hacks for creators. But if you've ever gotten a viral video and then got zero followers from it, then you've

4:23already experienced just how important it is to have your profile set up before you drive a bunch of traffic to it. If you need even more convincing on how powerful just simply updating your bio can be, this is a screenshot from one of my students who literally hadn't started creating content yet. She just updated her bio the way that I teach and automatically started getting new followers. That's the importance of

4:48setting up your profile correctly. Here's a simple checklist that you could follow when setting up your profile or your bio. Have your profile photo represent your niche, your industry, or what you want to be known for. If you're a travel creator, make sure it's a picture of you traveling. If you're a foodie, have it be a picture of you with food. Make sure your name on both Instagram and Tik Tok, the bold section of your bio is search friendly. So, not only is it like Millie, but it would say social media coach because if people search for that on social media, they're like, "Let me look for a social media

5:19coach." I will pop up because I used search engine to my advantage. Make sure your bio is actually more about your audience and the value you provide to them as opposed to making it about you. So instead of saying mom of three, loves long walks on the beach, two dogs, family blog, I don't know, pulling this out of my butt. Instead, the bio is going to be about why someone should follow you. What is the reason they should press that follow button? What's the value that they will get when they follow you? So it could be something like realistic homesteading for a family of five, cooking, cleaning, and

5:58organizing your home under 30 minutes a day. That is a lot more captivating of a reason to follow someone instead of just talking about yourself. After you summarize what value you provide to people, then you also want to do a call to action at the end of your bio directing people towards one of your offers or the link in your bio. Now, if you've learned something new so far, be sure to give this video a thumbs up since it tells YouTube that other creators like yourself might find this video useful or valuable. And if you learn two new things by the end of the video, I'd love if you'd consider

6:26subscribing to my channel since it's a completely free way to support me and it allows me and my team to continue to make free content like this for you every single week. All right, call to actions leads me to tip number four, and that is creating a link in bio strategy. Now, I want to say all these tips that I am sharing with you in this video, I don't want you to feel like I have to do all of these right now. Oh my gosh, I'm so far behind. because all of these tips will happen at different stages in your creator journey. So, I don't want anyone

6:55to ever feel that pressure of like, oh, I have to do all of these. I need to make money and I need like I don't want anyone to ever feel that way. But, I would say ideally within the first like 3 months of your creator journey, you do have somewhere to direct your audience

7:11to. And it's someplace that you own. It's an offer you own. It's like your email list. We've seen so many times social media apps and talks of them being banned, right? Or if your social media were to get hacked and you lost everything within a day, having another space that you've been growing that you own is your superpower. Now, whether it's by offering a free resource to build your email list or selling a digital product or selling your own online courses or starting a membership, whatever it is that you want to do with growing your email list or monetizing, the number one tool that I recommend

7:50literally to all of my students, no matter what stage they are at, is StanSto. Stand is literally the only and main tool that you need as a content creator to help you monetize and basically go full-time as a creator. Stand for those of you who don't know is a link in bio tool that allows you to make money. You could sell your own digital products, courses, memberships, coaching, and more. They also have email funnels so you could start growing your email list and then nurture your

8:19audience as you grow your email list. Why I'm always the biggest advocate for Stan is because there's a lot of link and bio tools out there that yeah, they help you monetize, you can sell your digital products, but they always take a percentage of your sales. So, let's say there's a link and bio company called and Lio. I don't think there is, so that's why I'm using them as example. I have an account at Think and Lio, and I pay, I don't know, $15 a month to have an account. I could sell my digital products and if I sell my $29 digital product and I sell a hundred of those, I

8:54don't even get all of that. They're taking money from my sales. Whereas Stan, you pay one set price and they never take a portion of your sale. You get 100% of your sales of your earnings and like yeah, your hardearned money as a creator for whatever it is that you're selling on their platform. There's a million reasons why I love Stan, but that is always like the number one reason they push them so much is because it's one set price and you can make as

9:20much money as you want by using them. I've been working with Stan for the past few years now, I think since 2022. I genuinely love them. It's a tool that I will always stand by. And if you want to have a full walkthrough tutorial for how to set up your own stand, I do have a full tutorial on my channel that I'll link above so you can watch that video next. And I want to say thank you to Stan for sponsoring this video. Tip number five is understand the season that you're in. If you are an aspiring creator, you are probably consuming all the creator tips out there. You're

9:52watching YouTube videos like you are right here. Hi, hello. You're listening to podcasts. You're looking at tips on Tik Tok or reals. You're trying to consume and learn as much as possible, which is good. We love learning. But what you'll start to notice is that there's sometimes like mix of opinions or conflicting advice with so many opinions and educator creators out there and it can be confusing. For example, you'll see in one video somebody will say quantity over quality like just post post and put as much content as you can out there. And then in another conversation, you'll hear somebody say,

10:29"Well, quality is better than quantity." Because if you have a bunch of just bad posts, they're never going to perform. You want to take your time and be intentional and really make quality posts. So, I feel like we're constantly getting like this crossfire of feedback. And there is no like right or wrong feedback there. I think it's like right tip at the right time. There will be a time where quantity is better than quality. Like if you are just starting, trying to think quality first is going to be overwhelming. You're going to be like, "Oh, shoot. I don't know how to make quality content. I don't have a

11:04good camera. I don't have audio." Like, forget about quality. Just post and learn how to be a creator. Over time, as you get your reps in, you get 10 posts up, 50 posts up, 100 posts up. Over time, you'll start to learn what quality means to you and what quality means to your audience. and you could start to pivot to, okay, I'm going to start doing quality over quantity. Now, this goes

11:27for so many tips in the industry. There's going to be a time where it's time for you to just throw spaghetti at the wall and try a bunch of things and not have a strategy or care in the world. Just like literally throw spaghetti at the wall. And then there's also going to be a separate time where you want to take a step back and be more intentional with your posts and pause to think a little bit about strategy before

11:49just like putting a post out there. There's going to be a time to do a 30-day sprint or a 100 day posting sprint where you post once or twice a day for every single day. And there's also going to be a time where you're going to want to be in a season of rest and post maybe twice a week or three times a week. Knowing what season you are in as a creator is extremely helpful. and giving yourself grace to be

12:11like, "Okay, this is the season I'm in." And I understand being a creator means my seasons will change. And I'm willing to be flexible as these seasons eb and flow with me and my lifestyle. Tip number six is to lean into holidays and seasons. This one is specifically for this video where it's like if you want to grow your personal brand by the end of the year because we are in the perfect time. Like if you're watching this video when this video goes up, it is the perfect time to start planning ahead with the seasons and the holidays because when you're posting ahead and thinking ahead, you're able to ride

12:47those waves and get a lot of rapid followers during the holiday season. Of course, this is only relevant if you can make certain holidays fit within your niche or your industry. For example, I had a student who is a food content creator and in August September, we started planning and filming out content for her to post in October. So that before October hit, she was already posting about Halloween content. And then mid October, she started kind of sprinkling in Thanksgiving content. And then early November, she started sprinkling in Christmas content. like being able to think 2 months in advance so you could start filming and editing

13:29and prepping so that you could post early is a huge superpower. And when she did that, oh, I don't remember the number. I think she ended up growing over 50,000 followers. I I'll put her stats up here, but it was insane what just simply posting ahead of the curve for 3 months can do to your growth. Tip

13:48number seven is to test everything. Please, this is like everything. Test your hooks. Test the the type of content you're creating. Whether it's vlogs, talking to the camera, B-roll with audio, green screen, reaction content, test your call to actions, test different topics or video ideas. like just test it all because too many times I see students and creators just lean into one style of content and it's usually always like the B-roll videos where it's like a 7-second clip with motivational text and like they just do that for like months and they're like I'm not growing and it's because you're not adding variety to your content. Test

14:31everything and be willing to push yourself out of your comfort zone. talk on camera, try to film yourself in public, you know, like try all the things and test everything because the more you do that and push yourself out of the your comfort zone, the more you're going to grow as a creator, the quicker it is you're going to see the results and the growth that you want to see because you're challenging yourself instead of trying to like force yourself into a box. if coming up with content ideas or you're stuck on like the whole

14:58hooks, how to come up with a good hook. I put together a document that has over 70 viral hooks that you can steal for your videos. I literally did research. I've spent hours just like trying to find viral hooks and then putting some of the proof within the workbook as well so that you could see the hooks in action. So, these are the exact hooks that I've been using in my content the past few months. And so if utilizing viral hooks in your short form is something that you're interested in doing, I'll leave a link to that down in the description. Tip number eight is to

15:29set up an income stream that you own. I know we talked a little bit about email lists and just like setting up a stand store. This is specifically like income. If you want to be a full-time content creator, you want to grow a personal brand, making money is going to be a part of that. And this is one of those tips where I'm like, all these tips are going to happen at different phases. you don't have to jump right in with, okay, I need to set up an income stream, especially if you don't have clarity on like defining your personal brand yet, but eventually this one is going to have

15:56to come up. And when it does, I want you to be able to have income stream ideas that you can pull from. Now, there are so many ways that you can make money as a content creator or with a personal brand. I have plenty of videos here on my YouTube channel that teach how to

16:09make money with your creator business. So, I just want to talk about like the main five that creators use for personal brands right now. The first one is platform monetization. This one is not an income stream that like you own, but it's a great starting point to get your foot in the door for making some money online. This is the most common on YouTube with like YouTube AdSense, creators getting paid for their views on YouTube videos. And then we also see this on Tik Tok. Creators can also get

16:36paid for their views on Tik Tok videos. I feel like Tik Tok has probably the most diverse platform monetization options because they also have a Tik Tok shop where it's also affiliates, but it's platform monetization affiliates specifically. So, I think Tik Tok has good monetization options for short form creators. The next income stream is selling digital products, courses, or memberships. Honestly, this is my personal favorite way to get started with making money online because it's

17:05just like the lowest barrier to entry. You don't need to wait until you hit certain monetization requirements. You don't need to wait until you hit a certain number of followers. If you have clarity on your personal brand, your target audience, and how you can serve your target audience, you know, a problem that you could solve for them, you can set up your own digital products or courses and start making money from the jump. Again, you could do this through Stan's store. Stan has so many of their creators making over six figures just from selling digital products through Stan. A third and very common one is brand collaborations. I

17:37love me some brand collaborations. I'm not like getting brand collabs, but I love talking about brand collabs because I feel like it's the most intimidating and seems like the hardest way for personal brands or creators to start making money because like just getting started with collabs, I feel like that's the hardest thing to break into, but then like once you start, the snowball just rolls. Again, I have plenty of resources for free here on my channel that teach you how to get started with brand collabs. Next is affiliate marketing. I touched on this a little bit with like Tik Tok shop because Tik Tok shop is a platform monetization

18:08affiliate opportunity. But if you don't have access to Tik Tok shop or affiliate options like that, you can start making your own affiliate income. you just apply to different affiliate partnerships like Amazon affiliates where if you are let's say a fashion creator and you're always showing your outfits, your purses, your clothes, you could set up your own kind of link and bio or LTK is a common one where you link all of your clothes and anyone who shops through those clothes, you earn a percentage of all of those sales. Again, this one I feel like is very low barrier to entry. Super easy to get started and

18:42probably the hardest one to build to like a big number per month, like six figures a month. I feel like for me, affiliates have been the hardest one to build, but depending on your niche, it could be really powerful for you. And then the fifth one is one of the first ones that I used when I was growing as a content creator, and that is coaching or memberships. I see a lot of like YouTubers or podcasters having memberships similar to Patreon where members can pay monthly to get access to a membership and get exclusive content or conversations with their favorite YouTuber or creator. Again, you could do

19:16this through Stan Store and you earn 100% of the earnings, whereas Patreon takes a percentage. You could also offer coaching and do like group coaching or one-on-one coaching. Again, this might be a little bit different if your personal brand isn't educational, but it is something that I did when I was started, so I thought it was worth mentioning. There are so many other ways that you can monetize as you grow. It'll just vary depending on your personal brand. I mean, you could take a look at Emma Chamberlain, for example. She's one of the personal branding OGs. And since launching and starting her career as a creator, she's opened Chamberlain

19:51Coffee, has launched coffee shops, has her own coffee brand. So obviously there's other avenues as you grow, but again clarity on which options to take will always come through taking action. So just keep posting and keep getting clarity on who you are as a creator and all those monetization opportunities will follow. Tip number nine is to build an audience that is obsessed with you on or off social media. I feel like this is another one of those like woo woo tips where it's hard to break down practical tips or things that I could say where I'm like do this and it's going to make people obsessed with you. So it does

20:29feel kind of more like a vague woo advice. There are of course some things you can do. So I'll like share some tips, but again action brings clarity and the more you are creating the more you'll figure out what quirks and uniqueness you have that draw people to you. One thing you could do to capture

20:46attention is just like be controversial. And that doesn't have to be a bad thing if you don't want it to be. It's one of the fastest ways to grow an audience or grow visibility. And the reason this works so well is because if you share a very harsh or strong opinion, you will quickly find people who are on your side. And vice versa, you'll quickly find people who are not on your side and completely disagree with you. Like if I say, I think toilet paper should always come like over when it's on the wall as opposed to under. And anyone who goes under is not okay. That could be a very

21:26strong opinion. You know, that could be controversial. But again, you want to be controversial within your niche, within your industry. share your thoughts, your opinions, and it's going to bring people who agree with you into your creator hemisphere. Those are likely the people who will become super fans. And the more vulnerable you are with your controversial thoughts and opinions, and the more people agree with those, the more obsessed I think people could be with you. I think a good example of this is Nara Smith. She posts somewhat controversial content, but her fans will defend her to the end of times and defend her against any sort of negative

22:04comments or hate that she gets on her content. And if you go this route, just make sure you're being like true to yourself and you're not just saying controversial things to say controversial things or saying things you don't actually believe in. Only use it when it makes sense for your industry again, but it is a great way to lure

22:21people in who think similarly to you. Another thing you could do is be authentic and real. I think people right now are just craving authenticity online. And again, Emma Chamberlain is a great example of that. She just showed up so unapologetically herself. And it was a breath of fresh air to a lot of her audience where I feel like a lot of creators at that time in her realm always showed up like perfect polished aesthetic makeup gurus and she was just like herself, messy hair. She really did a great job being herself on camera, too. I think a lot of people have like a camera persona that

22:59they will accidentally pick up as soon as they press record, but as soon as you pressed record, you could see her genuine personality. Like it felt like you were FaceTiming with a friend. Another way to help your audience like be obsessed with you is like engaging with your audience, replying to their comments. A creator who does this really well is Ryan Trean. in his video comments. He'll reply with like voice notes to people who are commenting on his videos. He replies to DMs. It's just like this level of personal engagement that's so powerful. And when you get a response like that as a subscriber or a

23:36follower, you immediately feel way more connected to that person and definitely become way more of a fan. Tip 10 is to play around with all the growth strategies. This is kind of like test everything, but I want to talk specifically about growth strategies because again, the goal of this video is to help you grow a personal brand by the end of the year. And the best way to grow is by using growth strategies. And each platform has their different nuances and preferences for helping somebody grow. For example, on Instagram, niche down. That's going to be your best growth strategy. Period. If you want to be a lifestyle creator,

24:13Instagram is not for you. Instagram was not meant to help lifestyle creators thrive. That's literally how their algorithm was created was to help niche creators thrive. So, if you have a niche, Instagram is going to be your best bet. For YouTube, lean into search engine and really try to study SEO specifically for YouTube because SEO for YouTube is actually not that complicated or hard. It's really simple. And if you could figure out how to show up in search results, that's as a new creator is going to help you get the most traction. And over time as you're getting discovered in search, you can expand and try to rank on the homepage

24:47and suggested, but start with search. That's going to help you grow. Tik Tok. Cool thing with Tik Tok is you don't have to niche down. You don't. You could be a lifestyle creator and you could still thrive on Tik Tok. But that doesn't mean you could just casually post willy-nilly with no strategy for forever and expect to grow. I mean,

25:03maybe that's what some creators did. They just never never tried and accidentally went viral. But I put this to the test where I posted every single day for was it 109 days. I posted 128 videos over 109 days to see if posting with no strategy but still being consistent would help you grow. And I only grew one follower a day. So consistency is only this much of the equation. If you pair consistency with strategy on Tik Tok, that is where now we are growing 10 to 30,000 followers every 30 days because yes, there's consistency of posting three times a week, but we're pairing it with strategy

25:47and being intentional and researching our competitors and the topics we post about to try to make the most enticing videos. So when I say test different growth strategies, you can test talking about different content pillars, right? One way is to rotate through your content pillars and talk about all the different topics, right? Another way to try to grow is utilizing SEO and that works across all three platforms. So try SEO strategies. Another growth strategy is doing competitor research and seeing the competitors in your industry and trying to recreate videos that are performing well for them in your own uniqueness. You could try the repeatable series strategy where you like create a

26:28signature series and you hope that like over time doing the signature series that's what people discover you by and that's what you become known for. Series are really strong. They keep people coming back. They help people binge your content which increases your views and since they want to come back for more you get more followers. And of course there's hook strategy. I love love love me some hook strategy when it comes to short form. I have done full deep dives talking about hook strategies and hook layerings because it is what's working on social media right now specifically in short form. And if you want to dive

27:00further again into hook layering and what that means I have this video here that you could watch over on my channel. And overall, I know these are just general tips, but if you want like a deep dive, a 3-hour master class that teaches you how to go from zero to full-time content creator, I made a video for you here on YouTube. It's completely free. It's my zero to full-time content creator master class that took me, I think it was 7 hours of filming and more like 40 hours of scripting and planning. My team and I put so much energy into this master class so that you can literally pursue

27:35your dreams of being a creator and grow a personal brand as soon as you want to. So, be sure to watch that video next if that's something that you are ready to do. Now, if you'd be interested in seeing a separate YouTube video talking about how to create a signature series with short form or any of the other topics that we talked about in this video, just let me know down in the comments so that we can make that in a future upcoming video. Thank you so much for watching and I will see you in the

28:01next one. Follow your joy.