 Are you thinking that maybe starting a personal brand is going to be expensive? Unfortunately, you won't be able to use that as an excuse not to get started. Today, I'm sharing some of the best free tools that you can use to grow your personal brand. Stick around. And it's Leanne and whether you're an entrepreneur or an entrepreneur, developing your personal brand can come at a cost. It can take time to build your brand as well as some tools and resources to accurately capture what it is that you want to amplify through your brand. Over time, you could end up spending hundreds, maybe even thousands of dollars on these tools and resources. And in time, my friend, you may decide to invest. But if you are just getting started on your personal brand, I have good news because there's a ton of tools out there that you can capitalize on using their free versions. So we're gonna go through some of those tools today to get you started on your personal brand without the added expense of tools and resources. Before we start looking at these tools, don't forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel and click on that little bell to be notified of new content. We have personal branding tips and tricks for the hospitality industry coming out each and every week. So let's take a look at some ways that you can amplify your personal brand without breaking the bank. For you content creators out there, if you're looking to create native content on a consistent basis, you can do so using a ton of free tools. For my bloggers out there in the community, tools like WordPress and Wix are great places to get started to start building up your blog resources. If you're using video and maybe hoping to post to YouTube, YouTube is also free and you can use your phone or even your laptop or computer's webcam to record and edit your video. And finally, live video is really storming the stage for personal branding and both LinkedIn and Facebook have the ability for live video and it's also free for you to use. Another quick word for my video creators, if you're looking to edit your video, there's some great free video editing tools as well, including Movavi Clips and InShot. If you're interested in creating visuals of any kind, be it images to accompany your blog posts, images to accompany your videos, or even just images for your social media, you're going to want to rely on one of my favorite tools in my toolbox and that is Canva. Canva is such a robust design tool and its free version gives you all the fonts and colors you need to create eye-stopping images. Now, if you're looking for stock photos to kind of spruce up your images, you can find royalty-free stock photos over at places like Pixabay, Pexels or Unsplash. And as you know, distributing all of these great visuals and all of your great content is free using the social media channels. Now, granted, social media is rented land, but if you're not quite ready to stake your claim on a blog site or a WordPress site, distributing your content using social media makes sense. Of course, you've got all the platforms available to you, including Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, TikTok and Snapchat. For my Type 8 organizers out there who are looking to schedule some of their social media in advance, there's a couple of free tools for you as well. Hootsuite is the one that I use and you can schedule up to five messages, which may not be a lot, but here's the other trick. By using Facebook's Business Suite to schedule to your Instagram and your Facebook business page, you can schedule unlimited posts to those two platforms. Now, aside from all the content creation and all of the great social media engagement that you're giving out to your community, there are some other ways that you can grow your brand outside of technology. And that is good old networking. Nothing can beat one-on-one conversations or group conversations with like-minded individuals to grow your personal brand. It does cost you some time, but the return is plentiful. So start to look at ways that you can network in your community and get your name out there and start to establish yourself as someone with a professional reputation. Collaborating with other like-minded individuals is also a great way to build your personal brand. Find like-minded individuals with whom you share common interests and passions and find ways that you can capitalize on each other's strengths. Want to see collaboration and networking in action? The new social media app Clubhouse is just that. And finally, if you are anxious to talk to your community and get your content out there, host an online event using a number of online event tools that are free to use. Zoom has a 40-minute free feature that you can use to host your event or you can use Facebook Live, YouTube Live, and again, LinkedIn Live if you have access. Now I'm handing the mic over to you. I want to hear about the free branding tools that you use in your business. Please drop them in the comments below. I'm always up for collecting new tools to help grow my personal brand as well. And if you decided to include stories as part of your personal brand, don't forget to check out my recent post on storytelling found right here. It gives you a few tips on how to find your stories and how to amplify them through your brand. I look forward to staying connected. And if some tools come to mind for you after you've ended this video, come and join us over on our Facebook page. We're always sharing best practices and tips to help everyone grow their brands and bounce ideas off of one another. I hope to see you there. Thanks for watching this week's video. Bye for now.