Ensure Your Personal Brand is Authentic

Everyone once and awhile, Erik will have our team here at Array Digital post to social media on his behalf. In episode 184 of Journey to $100 Million, Erik explains some issues we’ve had dealing with Erik’s social media postings. In the beginning, Erik would have our team post every once in a while. The team would post things like if he had a video created, they would post that on his behalf. But, over time, Erik started to ramp up the quantity of social media content he pushed out on his personal brand account.

Erik’s personal brand is on four main channels: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. As we ramped up the quantity of this content, Erik was not able to keep up with all the postings - and now we have a full time team member that takes care of all social media for us. Now, our social media expert is doing a lot of Erik’s social media posting for him. Most of these posts consist of a regurgitation of something Erik has already produced. We even use these Journey episodes as content on social media as well, creating a piece of content called an “audiogram.” Overall, the posts going out on Erik’s channels are something Erik has already said, done, recorded, or written about.

There have been some instances where a team member posted on Erik’s behalf in his “voice.” What that means, is that the team member would basically pretend to be Erik. A post like this would consist of a statement that would be posted on social media, and if you read it you would have no idea if it was actually Erik that said it, or someone else. But the implication was that he was the one saying this, and that is something that Erik felt uncomfortable with.

We have now learned to not do this anymore. Erik is completely fine with someone effectively repurposing content that he has created and putting it out in the world in a slightly different form - that is of great help. But, he does not want someone to pretend like they are him. It is not authentic, and Erik might not even agree with the content that is posted! This content could be a stat that Erik doesn’t know is true, could be contradicting, or maybe he does not even know what it means! Erik’s personal brand is just that, HIS personal brand! Everything that goes out on his platforms should be information that he 100% agrees with, and knows about.

The bulk of what Erik has on his social media is coming from previous content, and he is comfortable with that, he just needs a little help getting it out there from time-to-time. If you have someone running your content, Erik highly suggests that you do the same thing, especially for a personal brand. For a company brand, it is a little bit different. But for your personal brand, when someone is speaking on your behalf, make sure they are speaking your words, and not words that were created without your knowledge!

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Erik J. Olson is an award-winning digital marketer & entrepreneur. The Founder & CEO of Array Digital, he is also the host of the Journey to $100 Million Flash Briefing and daily podcast, and the organizer of the Marketers Anonymous monthly meetups.

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Kevin Daisey is an award-winning digital marketer & entrepreneur. He started his first company when he was just 23, and is the Founder & CMO of Array Digital. Kevin is the also the co-host of the Journey to $100 Million Flash Briefing and daily podcast, and the co-organizer of the Marketers Anonymous monthly meetups.