TOP TOOLS TO MANAGE YOUR ONLINE PERSONAL BRAND IN 2021

When you're running your own business, it can be tough to manage your personal brand. Your brand should be present and active across various platforms. From using consistent headshots for a cohesive aesthetic, and ensuring posted content reflects your brand's values.  

One day you may Google yourself just to triple check your hard work is paying off. When you find that you're not the first person with your name to pop up, it can be quite frustrating.

Your brand's presence and reputation on the internet are vital for long-term success. With more than 1 billion searches a day on Google, it can seem impossible to constantly monitor what others are saying about your brand, what results appear in searches, and what unprofessional photos or content might pop up from the deep, deep depths of the internet. Luckily, there are services and tools available to manage you and your brand's online presence and reputation.

Our Favorite Brand Monitoring Tools

BrandYourself works to protect your online reputation and improve your Google results. You can use BrandYourself's services to scrub any unprofessional posts you may have lurking around the internet. With services for individuals and businesses, the company also offers personal branding services to help you build and optimize your brand's online presence.

SocialMention is a social media search tool that allows you to track and manage what people are saying about your brand. It's a part of BrandMentions, a brand monitoring tool. Whether your brand is mentioned on a website, blog, in a video, or written up in an article, you can use Social Mention to learn what customers are saying about your brand. Use Social Mention to gain customer insights, manage your online reputation, and monitor all of your social media platforms.

Google Alerts might seem obvious, but don't discount the power of this free business tool. Google will email you mentions for any alerts you set, like mentions of your brand and your name. You can also use Google Alerts to monitor keywords related to your brand across forums, blogs, and even YouTube. You won't get detailed analytics, and customization is limited, but it's a quick and easy step to include in your brand strategy.

Management Tools You Need to Try

Hootsuite is great for social media management with a full suite of powerful tools. You can create and share posts, manage all of your channels, and schedule future posts – all on one intuitive dashboard. You can use Hootsuite to amplify your social reach by analyzing your brand's performance across all social networks and creating customized reports to illustrate your brand's impact across the industry.

Mention is a monitoring and social media management tool to help your brand monitor the web and listen to your audience. Use Mention to uncover trends in conversations and adjust your social media strategy accordingly. You can filter and analyze data to learn from competitors, stay ahead of the pack, and understand how your brand is perceived across the web.

Rebrandly offers a link management platform for sharing and tracking short branded URLs. A branded link is a great tool for promoting your personal brand. It's essentially a shortened URL that's built around your brand's name or related term. Rebrandly's services include more than 100 integrations so you can add extensions to your Chrome browser, Slack channels, and other tools to expand your brand recognition even further.

Writing and Content Tools

Medium is a digital publishing site with more than 170 million readers. You can create curated content, embed videos, and interact with your readership – all for free or for a small monthly fee. It's a great resource to expand the voice of your brand's blog and to pull in traffic to your website.

Substack provides a newsletter service that allows you to write and send digital newsletters directly to your readers. If your blog is getting a lot of traffic, consider offering a weekly or monthly newsletter as an added bonus. Newsletters possess an intimacy that audiences are craving today. Intimacy builds trust and trust builds loyalty – exactly what a brand needs to remain successful.

Website Tools

Namecheck.com scours the web to see if your desired domain name is available and gives you a detailed out of your name's availability across websites and databases. The site will even inform you of available social media usernames, so you don't waste time creating a brand name that is only available on one platform. Namecheck will help make sure your brand name is consistent across the web, regardless of site or account.

Squarespace is one of the most popular website builder sites active today. Even if your brand is present across multiple sites, it's important to have a central place where customers can visit for vital information about you, your brand, your products, and your services. With a large library of award-winning templates available, you are sure to find the perfect site for your brand. Squarespace also allows you to create and distribute email campaigns, social stories and optimize your site with third-party extensions.

Canva is a great design tool to help you create stellar graphics and presentations for your brand. The vast suite of features offers stunning templates for social media posts, professional deck presentations, posters, and animated graphics for use across platforms. If you don't consider yourself a designer, have no fear, Canva also features in-depth articles and resources to ensure you have confidence with each design!

So many tools, so little time!

With so many tools and resources available to help you manage your online personal brand, you might feel ready to dive into one, but maybe you don't know where to start. Let Bell + Ivy do the work for you!

Bell + Ivy offers online services such as content research, personal brand websites, and personal brand bios to use across platforms. With our expertise in strategic consulting, personal branding, and digital marketing strategies, we can maximize the reach and authority of your personal brand. For a consultation, contact us today.

And, if you’d like to learn more about personal branding, grab a copy of Platform: The Art and Science of Personal Branding by Bell+Ivy Co-Founder and CEO Cynthia Johnson.

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