Recently I had the amazing opportunity to have a chat with Rahul Rai, the Indian actor, and rising TikTok celebrity who graciously shared some of his wisdom on the art of personal branding through social media.
Now, like Luke Skywalker fresh out of Dagoba, I’m here to pass on what I’ve learned to you and help you attract clients and boost your professional growth through TikTok.
So, without further ado, let us begin by the single most important advice Rahul gave out:
You are never too old
At the very beginning of my talk with Rahul, I happened to express how I wanted to get into TikTok but was afraid of being too old for the platform. To this Rahul answered with a determined “you’re not”, and that was not just a comment about me, you too are not too old to try out TikTok as a Personal Branding tool, no one is. Some of my absolute favorite TikTokers, (that is, content producers for TikTok) are in their 70s, and guess what? They are hilarious.TikTok and any other social media are about telling your story and interacting with people from all over the world, and sometimes having a little more experience can even be a plus to your personal brand!
Keep producing content
Your next step is a little spiritual, you need to let go of all illusion, but not to achieve nirvana, rather accept that, since you are basically the new kid in town no one will know who you are, or even realize you’re there until you grab their attention.
So, what should you do?
- Give up? No, if you’re serious about personal branding that is the last thing you should do.
- Only Post if You’re Sure It’s going to be a hit? Only if you’re a psychic with the power to look into the future.
- Only post when you’re “inspired”? That is also not a helpful mentality, consistency is the key to visibility on the internet, also, what are you going to do if you don’t feel inspired for a long time?
- Post as much as you can? Absolutely! Congratulations you got the right answer, now go get your reward! Actually, don’t, you’re supposed to be on quarantine. But yes, if people are going to listen to you, that means that you’ll have to actually say something first, which works the best if you speak often and out loud.
Be Self Aware
“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.”
Okay, it was not Rahul who said that, but this is a concept that he clearly has dominated as one of his biggest advice is to have “self-awareness.”
Does that mean you should stare at that one pimple in the mirror cursing yourself for eating crusty peanuts last night? No. It has to do with understanding your strong and weak points and using that knowledge to build your personal brand. That means asking yourself some key questions:
What am I good at?
What tone suits me best?
What novelty can I bring to the table?
This is really important for positioning yourself as a leader of your niche as you should always focus on the field that you know best. For example, Rahul used his acting skills to make some really clever and entertaining videos on finances, combining two of his major strengths.
Combine TikTok and Other Social Media
Even though people subscribe to multiple social media, they tend to keep themselves on just their few favorites, which is often occupied by people of similar occupations and interests.
This means that by sticking to just TikTok you are missing out on a large chunk of your potential audience. Luckily, TikTok being a platform of short entertaining videos, they are very easy to transfer to other platforms like Instagram or Twitter. After a while, you’ll realize that each platform will feed the other, multiplying the size of your brand and your capacity for attracting clients.
Okay, now that you’ve got some good tips about making TikTok the frontline of your personal branding strategy, it’s time to put it to practice. What? You don’t know where to start? Worry not, as so it happens, you are reading the article of someone that knows a thing or two about social media and can put you in front of the right people and teach you to stay on the top of their minds, all you have to do is contact me on my social media!
Connect with Rahul.
Keep in touch and send me your questions.
