Speaker 1: 0:10

Welcome to episode 36 of the Profitable Speaking Podcast, where we provide practical tips and insights to help you succeed as a public speaker.

Speaker 1: 0:17

In today's episode, we're going to be looking at creating consistent social media images.

Speaker 1: 0:23

In today's digital age, social media has become an indispensable tool for professional speakers to amplify their voices, connect with their audience and establish a powerful personal brand. As a professional speaker, your social media presence serves as a virtual stage, enables you to showcase your expertise, your insights and unique speaking style to a global audience. However, standing out amongst the vast sea of online content requires more than just sporadic posting. It demands a strategic approach focused on creating a consistent social media image. Building a strong and consistent social media image is essential. It not only enhances brand recognition, but also cultivates trust and credibility with your target audience. In this podcast episode, we're going to explore some of the fundamental principles that underpin the compelling social media branding strategy specifically tailored to you From brand storytelling that forms an emotional connection with your followers to leveraging visual identity to convey your unique speaking personality. I'm going to delve into some practical techniques that you can use to elevate your social media presence and propel your speaking career.

Speaker 1: 1:34

In today's digital age. As a speaker, your social media presence serves as your virtual stage, remember that, and it's always out there working for you. However, you need to keep working on it at all times. So what can we do to improve our social media presence so that it actually engages our audience in the way that we really want them to? So, number one, the first, is brand storytelling. As a speaker, your brand storytelling is at the core of connecting with your audience. You need to share the journey that led you to become a speaker, your passion for your topic and the impact you make with it, that you're trying to get through your presentations, your unique experiences and perspectives will create an emotional bond with your audience, making them more receptive to your message. So let's look at what you can do to make that happen. First of all, let's make a list of stories that you can use. So sit down and make a big list of stories of things that relate to your topic. So, in my case, I might write down a whole pile of leadership stories that are relative to firefighting, as that is my topic as leadership from a firefighter's perspective. Then go through and write out some short outlines about each of those topics and tie it to a message. Remember, we're trying to tie this content in with our overall brand message. So make sure that you don't just write random stories, that they're actually tied to a message that you're trying to get across to your audience which is related to your theme and topic. Then group those stories into themes. Okay, so there might be different things. One might be change, one might be leadership, you know, one might be teams, you know whatever they happen to be for you, depending on your specific topics.

Speaker 1: 3:34

Then you need to use those stories. Okay, use them on stage, use them in videos, use them in reels, use them in all your social media and understand where you know you can use those stories. Now, it doesn't have to always be video stories. You can use excerpts on social media posts and again integrate those stories in. And if you've got a, you know, signature story, as most people have, maybe, use some elements of that on a regular basis. Make sure that you tell those stories through the pictures you use as well. So when you're doing your social media posts, use pictures that illustrate the story. It doesn't have to actually be from that day, so to speak, and it should still reflect the meaning, the feeling, the visual of what you're talking about, and remember that you're trying to keep the same theme throughout, okay, so remember we did silo them into theme groups. Make sure you keep them through.

Speaker 1: 4:37

Number two second thing we need to look at is our visual identity. Okay, developing a distinctive visual identity is essential for you as a speaker. Your logo, your colors, your design elements should reflect your personal brand and your speaking style. Consistency and visual elements across your website, social media and marketing materials will enhance your brand recognition and it'll reinforce your expertise. Colors are really powerful things, okay. When you use consistent coloring in all of your marketing materials, it becomes linked to you. I have friends that are only seen in pink and they're well known for that. Okay, and so you have these visual identities that get attached to you depending on what you wear. In my case, I use Rural Firefighter Orange, which is a special color orange that our uniforms are, and I use that with black and red to other colors and white that are related to fire. So I don't know what your colors are. I mean, it's up to you, but get a set that work together. Remember, you can look that up online and get color sets, okay, and then consistently use those and remember different colors have different effects on people. So blue is calming, for example, and indicates trust. You'll read all those sorts of things, but I don't overthink it, but just remember if you're stuck and you don't know where to start, maybe look at some information on that.

Speaker 1: 6:04

But careful with the fonts you use. Make sure that they're readable, that they're styles that are professional and that they make impact when people read them, so that they cut through on your social media posts. Otherwise, you know, if you're switching fonts all the time, there's no consistency there. Now, often we do social media posts and we will make something up and we'll throw some fonts on there that are pre-designed. You can't do that. If you want consistency, okay. So what you can do is a whole pile of things and I will go into that further. So I'm getting ahead of myself here.

Speaker 1: 6:40

You should also look at choosing a brand picture. In my case, I use a half and half, where it's half me in business and half me on fire ground clothing. So that is consistent, that you know I'm half business and I'm half volunteer firefighter. You might have a photo or two or three that are from a set wearing a particular suit or something like that, but keep that visual identity. I've seen it done really well by a friend of mine recently who has a green suit on and it's on the cover of her book and I see it consistently around her stuff. So you're looking for that, so people see it straight away. And there's that brand recognition. If you're gonna use a photo, link it with a story, okay. Again, coming back to the colors in the photos is also important and then linking it to a story pulls those colors, those fonts and the story together as one.

Speaker 1: 7:34

Remember, once you've chosen your colors, that your website, your PowerPoints, your printed materials and all your socials should be consistent in using those. Now, at first you're gonna flip back and forth a bit, but once you get it down, you've got something consistent that works well for you, that visually is identifiable and clean and easy to read when it's up on the big screen and all that sort of stuff. Then lock it down and stick with it. Okay, the longer you use the consistent brand styling, the more effective it becomes. The more you change it, the less it becomes useful to you People who see your posts. They should know who sent that post before they even read it. Just scrolling down, you know how you flick your phone and just scroll the Unreal fast. As soon as they see that color scheme, they should know it's you. That's the sort of impact that you're looking for.

Speaker 1: 9:40

Number three we've got profile optimization, so you need to optimize your social media profiles to showcase your expertise and accomplishments. Okay, using a consistent handle or username across all your platforms makes it easy for event organizers and your fans to find you online. Your bio should be succinct and compelling as a representation of your unique, your mouthful there and your unique value proposition as a speaker. Okay, go through and match all your profiles on your social media. Okay, they shouldn't all be different. They should be all the same. Try and get the same or similar name on all your platforms. Make sure that you bring your branding colors across to all your social media profiles and make sure the images are consistent as well. Go through and check your bio and make sure that's the same, because we all know that things change over time and when you're using your social media, remember that different people like different platforms, so you'll need to work out where your audience is, and that's probably the place where you should spend your most time and then share your information as you post across all the other platforms. One of the things you can do to help that is to link all your profiles together by using a tool like Okoya. There's a whole pile of social media tools that are available to you that will actually allow you to basically post once and have it come out on all platforms. Now remember, if you want interactivity but you're going to have to work on the platform that you're wanting to interact with people on, and that means actually logging into the platform and continuing to do it.

Speaker 1: 11:20

Number four we need to look at our visual content guidelines. You need to establish clear guidelines for your visual content to maintain a professional image. This includes branded templates for quotes, images, visuals that reflect your speaking personality. Visual consistency will help create a cohesive and recognizable brand across your social media platforms. I highly recommend that you use templates for your design.

Speaker 1: 11:46

Everybody thinks that you can just use anything, but templates make life so much easier. If you've got a set of templates, you can work with those templates and know that you're going to get the same look every time, and I see this when I scroll through other speakers feeds. I can see certain speakers are using templates and it's really obvious, because the minute I see their stuff, I know it's theirs Again. It has consistent layout, consistent colors, consistent fonts. Okay, one of the things you can do is just get a set of them, find a set that you like and then stick to those. Okay, if you've got 10 to 20 different styles, as long as you change the message and the pictures in that you don't need a thousand different layouts, okay, you just don't.

Speaker 1: 12:33

Canva has plenty of designs there. The key is finding a consistent set that you can use over and over. Now, one thing you can do is you can actually buy them from a designer, so you can go to Fiverr or Upwork and get a designer to make you a set, or even go to Etsy and places like that, because on Etsy, you can actually buy sets of Canva based social media posts. Then you just open the file that they give you and it opens up in Canva as a template, and then you save it as a new file and you get all your templates laid out ready to go, and it's very easy and very cost effective. Okay, all you need to do, then, is customize the messages and the photos used and the colors in some case, to reflect your branding. But the great thing is when you're using Canva and you've got a set, if you change the color of a heading down the bottom of the Canva screen, you'll see change all colors that match this to this color. So you can go change this to red and every single post in that set will change to red, so you can really change the whole lot over your branding colors very quickly.

Speaker 1: 13:39

Okay, as I said, remember to use your brand colors and your fonts. Don't mix it up. Be consistent, and that's the advantage of getting a set made or buying a set. And the last thing you probably should do is write a style sheet that anyone doing work for you can use and apply when they're doing the work. So if you are going to hire someone to create a set of templates for you, please write up a brand script with your colors, your fonts and some examples so that they know exactly what you need and what you want and how you want it to look. Do not just let people fly freely unless you really don't know what you want. Okay, but that is the long way to getting where you want to go. Make some choices yourself first and then give them their head to do the development of the designs.

Speaker 1: 14:25

And number five, your bio and tagline. Okay, your bio and tagline are your elevator pitch to potential clients and your different event organizers. Crafting a captivating and concise summary that highlights your speaking niche, your key achievements and the value that you bring to your audience is really important. Okay, a compelling tagline, or elevator speech, as I prefer to call them, can instantly communicate your expertise and capture attention. If you don't know where to start, write something and then use chapter GPT and just put it in there or get it to ask you some questions and then get it to write you a bio, okay, that's the easy way to do it, and then you can craft it and fiddle with it and make it better or whatever, but at least you'll have a baseline piece of content that you can work from. It's always easier to work from a piece of content than it is to create a piece of content from scratch.

Speaker 1: 15:16

Okay, now, one thing I do recommend is go and have a look at the storybrandcom framework. That will help you craft that frame of the brand script that you need to use to create other things, such as your bio and your tagline. Remember, when you create a bio, you're going to need multiple length bios. You're going to need, obviously, your bio for your website. It's quite large, but then you're going to need your short one, which is your high impact, big punch type welcome to stage in bio that you give to your mcs and by the place. Like that, Storybrand will definitely help you write a good elevator pitch. Okay, I've just been doing this again myself to try and tidy up a few things. And if you listen to the marketing made simple podcast, which is a fantastic podcast there's been a recent episode about this it's about getting it to talk about the problem, the solution that you provide and the result that they get, and if you use that formula, it's pretty straightforward. So I solve how I do it and what life is like after using me. But I'll let you investigate that a little bit further because it's absolutely worth going down the rabbit hole for storybrand. It will make a massive difference to your business and a massive difference to your impact.

Speaker 1: 16:30

Number six content curation. Oh, I love this one. It's one of my favorites. You can create curate content that aligns with your speaking topics and expertise so you can share valuable insights, thought leadership articles and engaging content that reinforce your authority as a subject matter. Expert. Consistency in the type of content you share will position you as a reliable source of information for your audience.

Speaker 1: 16:53

Content curation is about the fact that you can't create everything, and there's a lot of other clever people out there, so why should you? It's better to actually use other people's content, as well as your own, to reinforce your point of view, because you can give your advice or your opinion for discussion on that article. So I might find an article in the news that Joe said this about that and I can comment and say, hey, check this article out, it's really interesting. But I don't believe that's necessarily a case. I actually believe that the twist is this, or whatever what do you think? And that invites the conversation. It doesn't require you to create a full article. It just requires you to read a few articles and find some good content that you believe is actually worth sharing with people.

Speaker 1: 17:39

It's not about just finding stuff and shoving it out there. It's actually about finding stuff that's consistent with your brand message. There's a couple ways to do that. You can surf the news. You can use tools like Feedly, google News, etc. And you can filter them for keywords or hashtags to find stuff specifically related to your topics. Remember, keep it short your comment and ask what people think. Do they agree with you or don't they agree with you? Remember, you're trying to create a discussion, trying to get people to think about your topic, and just because you're using someone else's information doesn't mean that should change.

Speaker 1: 18:17

Number eight you need a consistent message. As a speaker, consistent messaging is vital for reinforcing your expertise and your brand identity. You need to maintain a consistent tone and language in your captions and directions with your audience. This consistent voice, as we call it not voices in speaking, voices in the overall feeling of what you say will help you build familiarity and trust with your followers, making them more likely to engage with your content and attend your future events. Along with your design, you need to make sure that you focus in on your key message consistently. It's pretty simple. Don't be running 15 different messages. You need to really narrow it down.

Speaker 1: 19:00

Okay, minor, agile leadership and dealing with rapid change, because that's what I do as a firefighter leading teams going into fires when things change really quickly and they do all the time on the fire ground. So that's my message and that's what I'm trying to get through in my content. Make sure you keep the theme strong in everything you do. Okay, don't just roll off because you see something interesting. I am guilty of shiny object syndrome. Okay, oh, look, here's a new social media tool. Oh, here's a new piece of software. Because it hard on my geek and that makes it, you know, hard for me. But the fact of the matter is the messages I push out to other people need to be on brand. Even though this stuff is really interesting I can talk to my friends about that it's not necessarily what the audience needs to hear.

Speaker 1: 19:46

Okay, the stronger your theme is, the more that people get to know you as that person for the topic that you talk about. Remember, go deep, not wide. Okay, we can't go wide. If we go wide, we get shallow. Why, it's fine if you're talking about an overarching sort of topic and there is plenty of keynotes that work in that area, but when you're in a crowded area, then you need to be more specific, otherwise you won't get any cut through. And stick to your messaging. Stick to those key themes that you're trying to cover.

Speaker 1: 20:21

I was listening to a podcast with a New York Times bestselling author and it's a book that everybody would know, but I won't mention it and he said basically it took him three years to get any traction at all with that book. So for three years got no cut through, got the occasional podcast interview and that sort of stuff. But by consistently working on that message and pushing that message and pushing the book and staying on theme, he got cut through and now he's a bestselling author with multiple versions of the book, et cetera. The key thing to understand there is that consistency is important and staying on the long path. Too many people roll over into new paths regularly and I'm as guilty as anyone else of this. Stay on the path, keep repeating your message until you get cut through and if you feel you're not getting cut through, ask some people, find out what's not working. Get them to have a look. I'm sure that they can tell you what's going on.

Speaker 1: 21:20

So I hope you found this episode of our podcast on creating consistent social media images Interesting and if you did, I have a challenge for you. Please hit that like button and subscribe to the podcast right now and then share this episode with another speaker who could use the tips and strategies we've shared. Let's help each other, grow our businesses and make an impact in the speaking world. Together, we can reach even more people and make a bigger difference. So don't wait. Take action now and share the love. Thanks for tuning in and get ready for more exciting business building tips in the next episode. Cheers, welcome to episode 36 of the profitable speaking podcast, where we provide practical tips and insights to help you succeed as a public speaker.

Speaker 1: 22:04

In today's episode, we're going to be looking at creating consistent social media images. In today's digital age, social media has become an indispensable tool for professional speakers to amplify their voices, connect with their audience and establish a powerful personal brand. As a professional speaker, your social media presence serves as a virtual stage, enables you to showcase your expertise, your insights and unique speaking style to a global audience. However, standing out amongst the vast sea of online content requires more than just sporadic posting. It demands a strategic approach focused on creating a consistent social media image. Building a strong and consistent social media image is essential. It not only enhances brand recognition, but also cultivates trust and credibility with your target audience. In this podcast episode, we're going to explore some of the fundamental principles that underpin the compelling social media branding strategy specifically tailored to you From brand storytelling that forms an emotional connection with your followers to leveraging visual identity to convey your unique speaking personality. I'm going to delve into some practical techniques that you can use to elevate your social media presence and propel your speaking career in today's digital age.

Speaker 1: 23:24

As a speaker, your social media presence serves as your virtual stage Remember that and it's always out there working for you. However, you need to keep working on it at all times. So what can we do to improve our social media presence so that it actually engages our audience in the way that we really want them to? So, number one, the first is brand storytelling. As a speaker, your brand storytelling is at the core of connecting with your audience. You need to share the journey that led you to become a speaker, your passion for your topic and the impact you make with it that you're trying to get through your presentations. Your unique experiences and perspectives will create an emotional bond with your audience, making them more receptive to your message. So let's look at what you can do to make that happen.

Speaker 1: 24:23

First of all, let's make a list of stories that you can use. So sit down and make a big list of stories of things that relate to your topic. So in my case, I might write down a whole pile of leadership stories that are relative to firefighting, as that is my topic is leadership from a firefighter's perspective. Then go through and write out some short outlines about each of those topics and tie it to a message. Remember, we're trying to tie this content in with our overall brand message, so make sure that you don't just write random stories, that they're actually tied to a message that you're trying to get across to your audience which is related to your theme and topic. Then group those stories into themes. Okay, so there might be different things. One might be change, one might be leadership, you know, one might be teams, you know. Whatever they happen to be for you, depending on your specific topics.

Speaker 1: 25:21

Then you need to use those stories. Okay, use them on stage, use them in videos, use them in reels, use them in all your social media and understand where you know you can use those stories. Now, it doesn't have to always be video stories. You can use excerpts on social media posts. So and again, integrate those stories in and if you've got a, you know, signature story, as most people have, maybe use some elements of that on a regular basis. Make sure that you tell those stories through the pictures you use as well. So, when you're doing your social media posts, use pictures that illustrate the story. It doesn't have to actually be from that day, so to speak, but it should still reflect the meaning, the feeling, the visual of what you're talking about, and remember that you're trying to keep the same theme throughout, okay, so remember we did silo them into theme groups. Make sure you keep them through.

Speaker 1: 26:23

Number two second thing we need to look at is our visual identity. Okay, developing a distinctive visual identity is essential for you as a speaker. Your logo, your colors, your design elements should reflect your personal brand and your speaking style. Consistency and visual elements across the website, social media and marketing materials will enhance your brand recognition and it'll reinforce your expertise. Colors are really powerful things, okay. When you use consistent coloring in all of your marketing materials, it becomes linked to you. I have friends that are only seen in pink and they're well known for that. Okay, and so you have these visual identities that get attached to you, depending on what you wear. In my case, I use Rural Firefighter Orange, which is a special color orange that our uniforms are, and I use that with black and red two other colors and white that are related to fire. So I don't know what your colors are. I mean, it's up to you, but get a set that work together. Remember you can look that up online and get color sets, okay, and then consistently use those. And remember different colors have different effects on people. So blue is calming, for example, and indicates trust, and you'll read all those sorts of things, but I don't overthink it, but just remember.

Speaker 1: 27:46

If you're stuck and you don't know where to start, maybe look at some information on that. Be careful with the fonts you use. Make sure that they're readable, that they're styles that are professional and that they make impact when people read them so that they cut through on your social media posts. Otherwise, if you're switching fonts all the time, there's no consistency there. Now, often we do social media posts and we will make something up and we'll throw some fonts on there that are pre-designed. You can't do that. If you want consistency, okay. So what you can do is a whole pile of things and I will go into that further. So I'm getting ahead of myself here.

Speaker 1: 28:26

You should also look at choosing a brand picture. In my case, I use a half and half, where it's half me in business and half me on fire ground clothing. So that is consistent, that I'm half business and I'm half volunteer firefighter. You might have a photo or two or three that are from a set wearing a particular suit or something like that, but keep that visual identity. I've seen it done really well by a friend of mine recently who has a green suit on and it's on the cover of her book and I see it consistently around her stuff. So you're looking for that, so people see it straight away and there's that brand recognition.

Speaker 1: 29:06

If you're gonna use a photo, link it with a story okay. Again, coming back to the colors in the photos is also important and then linking it to a story pulls those colors, those fonts and the story together as one. Remember, once you've chosen your colors, that your website, your PowerPoints, your printed materials and all your socials should be consistent in using those. Now, at first you're gonna flip back and forth a bit, but once you get it down and you've got something consistent that works well for you, that visually is identifiable and clean and easy to read when it's up on the big screen and all that sort of stuff, then lock it down when stick with it. Okay, the longer you use the consistent brand styling, the more effective it becomes. The more you change it, the less it becomes useful to you.

Speaker 1: 29:59

People who see your posts. They should know who sent that post before they even read it. Just scrolling down, you know how you flick your phone and just scroll the Unreal fast. As soon as they see that color scheme, they should know it's you. That's the sort of impact that you're looking for. Number three we've got profile optimization, so you need to optimize your social media profiles to showcase your expertise and accomplishments. Okay, using a consistent handle or username across all your platforms makes it easy for event organizers and your fans to find you online. Your bio should be succinct and compelling as a representation of your unique, your mouthful there and your unique value proposition as a speaker. Okay, go through and match all your profiles on your social media. Okay, they shouldn't all be different. They should be all the same. Try and get the same or similar name on all your platforms.