 Welcome to The Journey, and today we're going to talk about how to use social media to build your personal brand. Hey, it's Emma over here at GoDaddy Social. I'm our local outreach manager, and today I'm really excited to be joined with my co-host, Justin Neely. Hey, Justin, what's up? Hey, Emma, how are you? I'm good. We're actually going to use a real-life use case. We have an employee, Isaac Irvine. He didn't tell me this. Surprise. Oh my gosh. Right? Isaac Irvine is one of our basically personal brand gurus at work. We're going to check out some of the things that he's doing and how you all can use it in the real world. Ready to get started? Absolutely. Let's do it. Your personal brand is really just your reputation or what people think about you, and we're going to use Isaac Irvine to kind of demonstrate some of these qualities. So when we figure out what that personal brand is, the most important thing is trying to figure out what you want to be known for, like what sets you apart from everyone else. So looking at Isaac's profile, what do you think he's all about? What is he setting himself apart for? Okay, cool. Yeah, so I was just glancing at this. I get the very, like, he's deep rooted in being a husband and dad, 80s kid, also really proud of his position over at GoDaddy, and he loves talking about internal communications. And I see a lot of positivity in the posting to the voice. Absolutely. It's very uplifting. Yeah. So what he thinks about his family is what's the backbone of all he does, so a lot of the videos he does and the things he talks about is about his family and him being a dad and helping them out and really setting himself apart that way. Is that the end of the day? That's what he wants to be known for, just a rad dad that's tattooed up that likes Star Wars and likes to be with his kids. And I got that impression when I met him in person too. Yeah. So this really lines up the personal brand online, lines up offline. Absolutely. Is that a really big important thing, you think, when it comes to businesses? You have to be consistent, right? Yeah. You gotta really show the real you. So it's super important to be consistent with it. So what's the biggest part of social media? What do you think the biggest driving factor is? Why do we have social media? Well, one of my favorite things, and I think while it has existed to this day, is that it offers us a two-way street, a two-way dialogue. Right. So you can give, sure, information about your brand, how you want to run your business, what makes you, you, but you can also have a conversation then with your target audience. Absolutely. So you build that rapport, like even before they come into your business, while they're at your business, after they've left your business, and that to me is what makes social media so exciting. Yes. They really embrace the social. All right, social media is about being social. Yeah. We have to have conversations. What I see a lot of people do, really with building their personal brand, they try to make it all about me, me, me, me. Oh, my gosh. They don't actually just talk to people and say, hey, that's really cool. I like that. Sure. Hey, add ice cream there and just start that conversation. And if you could look at Isaac's Irvine's Twitter here, and you can kind of see all the things that he's retweeting and commenting on and liking. Very engaged. And really just having that conversation and being engaged. And that's crucial. And a common misconception about a personal brand is it's not all about him. It's not all about that person. It's about how he helps the community and those that he's trying to serve. And you can see that with what he's retweeting too, like on Twitter. Absolutely. It's also things that are relevant to his personal brand. But it's not him just pushing this content out there as original content. It's like, hey, I read this super great article that is relevant to what I'm about, but it's by this guy named Bob. So that also builds potential relationships with other people in the industry, which is just a domino effect for potential success. I love that. And it's really awesome too to build those relationships because there are people that will help you build that community and that you can compliment. This also works really well in your personal lives or dating lives. Like make it a conversation. If you just sit down for dinner and you just talk about yourself the whole time, you're not getting that second date. All right. I'm getting dating advice. I love it. So with social media and personal brand, I guess you want to have those conversations. You also want to create your own content or just let people into your life. And I love Instagram for that reason. Instagram stories is fantastic to just go quick little 10 second video. If this is my day or here's what I'm doing and help people really relate to you and just open up. I'm a huge fan of Instagram stories. It's all about the gram. I love it. Cool. So you have this great understanding of using social media for your personal brand and next step is really to just experiment. Figure out what you can do and kind of go beyond just staying in your comfort zone. It's really easy to just be a thing and just post random pictures of yourself all day. But like if you check out Isaac's Instagram here. Yeah. There's a ton of variety. So what catches your eye when you look at his profile? Well, I instantly wanted to have a good chuckle because I'm seeing him in a Santa Claus outfit. And I want to click on this just because what could that caption possibly be? In Santa Claus in April. Oh, well, when you forget your hoodie at home and grab a jacket, you have laying around to warm up and it fits perfectly. He really is living his best life and showing people how he's living that best life. Definitely. I see that. And you're right about experimentation. You know, when it comes to your personal brand on social media, it's not like one size fits all. Here's your guidebook. Just follow that. You'll do great. No, you have to do trial and error. Check the analytics and metrics and see what works. And what works for Isaac may not work for you or whoever else with their personal brand. Show you guys experience with video, with captions, with images, with storytelling, with Instagram stories. Go on and have conversations on Twitter. Maybe check out LinkedIn, whatever is relevant to your brand. Yeah. Try it out. At the end of the day, you'll either figure out if it works. Awesome. Keep going. And if it doesn't, scratch it off to not do in the future. Yeah, exactly. Because his audience is unique to him. Yep. It's personal. Hey, look, he went to Voodoo Donut. I'm hungry. Justin, thank you so much for coming in. This was super helpful, very personable. And if you want more videos like this, subscribe to our channel. Look out for what we've done and what we're going to do in the future.