127. How do you build a personal brand as an introvert?
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Is introversion holding you back from building a personal brand? 🙈 In this solo episode of Brand Therapy, hosts Phil and Lauren discuss the importance of building a brand—even if you don't love the spotlight. From our favorite introvert examples to the best tools for success, this useful episode gives you a step-by-step guide to getting over your fears and taking center stage!
Episode transcription
Phil
Well, hello there. Welcome to Brand Therapy. I'm Phil.
Lauren
And I'm Lauren.
Phil
And this is the podcast, where we help you position, build and promote your brands. Listen, welcome, we’re super happy you're here. This is a different kind of episode for us to tell you what, I'm doing something different that I've never done in over 120 whatever we’re at number of episodes, I am podcasting today from bed. No particular reason why. It’s Friday at the time of recording this, I feel kind of spent this week, a time of recording this Mercury's in retrograde and I'm taking that very seriously. Am I using it as an excuse to not do things? Well, it'll be argued on both sides. I'll tell you what. Feels pretty good. I'm laying out in bed. I have my microphone. Lauren can see it. Listener you can't see it. I wouldn't dare show you this. I'm literally maxing and relaxing with the mic. Do you see it? It's like balanced on my chest.
Lauren
I've never seen you this carefree before in my entire life. Usually, when you work you need to be at a desk
Phil
I do. I'm a major desk person.
Lauren
You can't even be at a normal table.
Phil
No. I don't like normal tables. When I'm on Airbnb deciding what apartment I'm going to live in whatever country I go to next, the thing that I inspect and I mean inspect the photos, I look at the table to chair ratio. I need to know what the heck that chair is before I sit my butt in it for hours on end. Today's just not one of those days. I’m in bed.
Lauren
Ergonomics are important to you, but not in Mercury retrograde.
Phil
That's the conclusion today. You know, this is an interesting topic that we're tackling today. Certainly something I don't identify as, an introvert. But I mean, I'm no introvert and everyone knows it. But I'll say I've had more introverted moments this year, like when we decided to take a week off from phone calls. I loved that you and I didn't even speak. We only slack messaged each other. And I got to be introverted for a week and I kind of liked it.
Lauren
Yeah, well, people are a mix of introvert and extrovert. No one is 100% each way, although I will say that when you took the Myers Briggs assessment, and you got your estp results, it said you were 90% extroverted.
Phil
I feed from social interaction in social settings, I guess.
Lauren
I looked up personal branding in Pinterest just to see what popped up, and it's completely fascinating. This was one of the top pins that I guess is popular. How do you build a personal brand as an introvert? So, let's start off by just discussing this in general. Why is it important for someone to build a personal brand if they're introverted?
Phil
I don't think it matters if you're introverted or extroverted, you still need a personal brand in the same degree. They're not related. The need for a personal brand, let's just and not for a long time. But let's dissect what that is. What does it mean to have a personal brand in 2021? I would argue it's the control you have over your first impression, the first impression others get of you. And so whether you're extroverted or you're introverted, it does not affect anything. People aren't going hmm, before they type your name into Google, is this person introverted or extroverted? I'm only going to search their name if they're extroverted. No, it literally doesn't. I don't think it makes a difference. We've had many clients who have happily built a brand as an extrovert, and we've had others that have appreciated our process, in fact, and I've actually been very introverted.
Lauren
Completely. I think a personal brand is a way for people to better understand who you are, what you're all about, and what value you bring. And whether you get your energy from being around people or being on your own doesn't really make a difference in terms of your value as a brand.
Phil
I totally agree with that. Totally agree.
Lauren
And I think that there might be some misconceptions that in order to have a personal brand, you have to be outgoing, you have to be good on camera, you have to enjoy the rush of building a community. And that's simply not true. I think that there are a lot of good examples of introverted brands that have built a very a thoughtful community online without even being on camera. I think of that boundary coach and I actually haven't ever heard her pronounce her name, but it is Nedra is that it? Nedra Glover Tawwab, therapist boundaries expert. When I first started following her, about five months ago, she had something like 180,000 followers, I believe, and now she's almost got a million, and she barely goes on camera, barely. And she barely even post photos of herself. It's strictly text. And I think that's just fascinating, and proof of how sometimes without being outgoing and instead of resorting to more simple forms of communication, you can actually be just as powerful.
Phil
There's also that book about being introverted, Now Is Your Superpower. You bring this one up often.
Lauren
Oh, yeah. Susan Cain, love her.
Phil
You know, it's interesting, I think of when I'm on stage, giving a keynote, and I go through photography examples, and I go through a few that are bright and loud and fitness and entertainment, and they're pink and they're exciting, and they're funny. And then I'll show some of our clients like Rick Lindbergh, our client who is in Stockholm, that's a entrepreneurial advisor, or I show photography of Chandresh Bhardwaj. We have the most amazing brand photography of him in the middle of the woods, contemplating, meditating, being reflective. And I always take that moment to say, by the way, I named those projects because you could go to our website right now, philpallen.co/examples they are there. You can look at those clients as examples on our website. And I think there are other examples I'm not even thinking about right away, there where you'll see, not everyone has to be loud. Not everyone has to be humorous. You know, bold, sometimes just the most thoughtful type of brands are actually the most compelling.
Lauren
Don't you think Judy Stakee is introverted?
Phil
I would say she's actually a mix. She's a mix, like you described at the beginning, because Judy can get up in front of an audience and give a keynote give a TED talk. Yeah, she can turn around and have a very intimate one to one conversation with you about vulnerability and creativity. She's a really good example of someone who can absolutely chameleon her way between the two.
Lauren
So I think there are lots of examples of introverted brands out there where someone who perhaps isn't comfortable in front of the camera could get inspiration and realize ultimately that you just need to decide your preferred way of communicating and the rest will fall into place.
Phil
Absolutely.
Lauren
So Phil, you're the tool guy? What are some tools that might help an introvert with building their personal brand?
Phil
First of all, I don't ever want to be known as a tool or a tool, guys, so can we retract that?
Lauren
Phil is the biggest tool I know.
Phil
Okay, backup. Okay, tools for introverts. So right away, I think about tools that help you take inventory of self. So introverts are probably not the most excited to hop on camera and film their next tik tok video, in my opinion. But I would say, listen to how you enjoy creating content. I think that every single personal brand can find a way that they actually enjoy creating content. I really believe that. And what's interesting too, for me is I go through different moods, sometimes I have to give myself permission to create content for my personal brand, in a way that's less efficient, but more suitable for my mood, in that particular moment.
Let me give you an example. A very efficient way for me to write a YouTube script, or to write a blog post is to talk it out just like this. But I'm not always in the mood for that. And I think introverts are not exactly going to be excited about hopping on camera or recording their own voice out loud talking through their next big ideas. Whereas sometimes it's nice to just sit and start writing. Even if it takes longer, you go back you edit, etc. It might take longer. And I think introverts need to give themselves permission to create content, in whatever way feels, right. Whether it's writing in a blank word doc or Apple notes, you know, notepad or sitting in a coffee shop or sitting at home. I would say listen to your mood, listen to how you feel like working on your brand or working on your content and create in that way.
Lauren
Agree. That's great advice. In Susan Cain's book, Quiet, she talks about how introverts really excel, even if they're put on stage, for example. They excel when they understand the purpose, or the goal behind whatever they're doing. So for example, I'm an introvert, big time, I actually scored 90% introverted on the test that you got 90% extroverted on, just so funny. And for me, it's really hard for me to go into a meeting with someone if I don't understand why we're doing, what the goal outcomes are, and if I don't have the opportunity to be prepared beforehand. And I imagine be the same for an introvert that's creating content. So I immediately think, okay, the way I found this episode is by going on Pinterest, looking for personal branding and seeing what the top topics are, that came up. So if someone were to do that for, say, a blog post, if you go search on Pinterest, look at the top pin that comes up and use that top pin as the title of your blog post, you have your end goal, you're wanting to figure out the three effective ways to use your brand voice or three easy ways to write a hit song. And then you can populate your content from there, because the end result has already been figured out.
Phil
That's a really good point, I think using research tools to prompt you to create, because as you said, without that motivation or purpose, and or goal, it's kind of hard to start, because it's like what is the point of doing this. I recently did an Instagram carousel with a few research based apps that I'll maybe share right now since we're talking about it. One of my favorites is Answer The Public. So start with a key word and shoot back a whole bunch of other queries that people have literally typed into Google. And that will give you some ideas on how to tackle certain topics. Another one that operates similarly, named, AlsoAsked, and that's exactly what it is. So it's like you ask a question, and it will populate other related phrases that have also been asked. Those are really cool. And then let me give two more. These are better for knowing your audience. One is called SparkToro, I think the creator of that app is Rand Fishkin, who created Moz. So this guy has, you know, the most epic background in search, listening, and search, SEO, all of that stuff, essentially creating tools, democratizing it for everyday people to improve their own SEO. But this is such a cool tool, SparkToro, it's free for your first few searches. But it essentially gives you deeper insight into your audiences’ behavior, really cool. You can start with one particular keyword or topic and it will actually tell you what publications, what accounts on social media, those types of people are following. And it's great for targeting for ads, for content marketing, content creation, one more tool that is totally cool. This is specific to people who are in the US, it's called Prizm Premier. This takes the idea of 68 segments that exist in the US. So researchers have basically taken the entire map of the US and divided it by geography into 68 segments. And they drill down on all kinds of qualitative features, essentially, of each segment. Really cool if you're a brick and mortar business, or you're someone who's targeting speaking engagements, or anything that has anything to do with geography, even if it's still remote.
Those are some really cool research based tools. I'll say them again. Answer the Public also SparkToro and Prizm Premier. Most of them have like paid upgrades, but all of them start on a free plan. You're welcome.
Lauren
Amazing. Okay.
Phil
You asked for tools. You got some tools from this tool.
Lauren
Tools from the biggest tool I know. Okay, so to wrap up this episode, I would love to go through actions. What are some step by step instructions that an introvert could do now to start building their personal brand?
Phil
You start, you're the introvert around here, I have no idea.
Lauren
Okay, so first, I think you need to have clarity around what your goal is. So find an account a hero brand, it doesn't need to be in your in your industry, but find an account that's inspiring you that's building something similar to what you want to build. It doesn't necessarily need to be a thriving community, but maybe they're using social media as a conduit, so it's all a bigger service, I would say is step number one. Step number two is, as Phil was saying, start taking inventory of your thoughts. Really, really think about what problem your potential audience might need solved, problems I should probably say, and start to create content with solutions to those problems. The next thing I think it would be really helpful is photography. If you're not comfortable on buying video camera, then at least you can start figuring out the still camera part. So I would say, yeah, I think that would give you just some ammo that you can fall back on so people can start developing a personal connection with you without you having to actually speak to the camera.
Phil
And it doesn't have to be you centered and posed in every photo. It can be a picture of your hand writing in a journal, a picture of you holding a mug of coffee, it could be you creating a little flower arrangement on your table. It could be you walking in the distance in a park, it doesn't have to be like supermodel posey photos. And if you want examples, hello, our website has over 60 of them.
Lauren
Great. And the final thing I would probably say, in terms of steps that an introvert could do, is to get comfortable with direct messaging people. It's gonna be a lot easier for you to engage with people one on one than a group of comments on your any posts that you put out. So start striking up conversations through DM’s and get to know your potential followers.
Phil
That's a really good tip. And it reminds me of something I've learned from Jenny Melrose, who is always saying, Why is everyone so worried about the swipe up feature after 10,000 followers, the swipe ups aren't even useful. I can tell you I've linked to YouTube videos on Instagram, knowing people don't want to go to YouTube from Instagram, I'll get like three swipe ups out of 20,000 and a half people they don't want to swipe up because it feels like an advertisement. Right? Yet when you say you do a poll, or DM me for this recipe or DM me for this link, you then slide into the DM’s with that user and Instagram goes whoa, look at that they're friends. And all of a sudden that person will start to see your latest stories and your content up first in front of other people. Very powerful.
Lauren
There you have it. I think those are great. Next steps I really want to hear for those introverts who are listening to this episode. Let us know how it goes. Take some of those actions and you can tweet Phil, or message him on Instagram or send me a DM I would be delighted.
Phil
A fellow introvert I'm @philpallen
Lauren
I'm @thelaurenmoore
Phil
By the way, she's the fellow introvert not me, I think you knew that by now. #brandtherapy allows us to continue the conversation. We appreciate the time that you spend hanging out with us on this podcast that we work hard to create for you. If you enjoyed it, you know you should do go over to iTunes leave us a review five star, five star, that helps other people discover what we work hard to create for you and we hope you have a great day. We'll see you back for the next episode of Brand Therapy. See you later.
Lauren
Bye bye.