Personal Branding DOs and Donts for Founders

As a startup founder, I constantly ask myself, how can I create more valuable content to increase our exposure at Handshakin, without compromising the integrity of the content.
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Do you ask yourself the same?  Are ghost writers okay?  Are you spending too much time reposting your blog to 3rd party websites?  Is consistency or quality more important?

Here's my list of the Dos and Don'ts for personal branding for founders. ​

As well as ideas for content distribution that you your assistant can help you with.

DO

1. Repost your content to other platforms.  
   
   Every week, I publish my blog on Handshakin.com on Mondays, and have my virtual assistant repost to Medium, LinkedIn, Builtin, and more.  
   
   Make sure to link back to your original post so search engines can identify the content as your site’s original content.  
   
   All of you that are posting your blogs on LinkedIn or Medium before your website, you’re decreasing missing out on an easy search engine optimization (SEO) strategy.  Start publishing on your blog first, and then link back to your blog from other websites.
   
   
   
2. Tweak your old content and submit your content to 3rd party publications.  
   
   Each week, my assistant also helps me submit my blog as an article to 3rd party publications.  Some will accept it, and many more will reject it altogether.
   
   If you want to submit to places like Entrepreneur, like my interview with Kimbal Musk, make sure you familiarize yourself with their guidelines.
   
   
   
3. Write longer posts, shoot for 600-1200 words
   
   If you look at most articles that make it to the first page of google, they almost always have 1200 words or more.  Don’t be afraid to go into detail if you can take the time.  
   
   
   
4. Find questions online that your blog can answer.
   
   Each week, my assistant searches Quora for questions that people are asking that have the same words in the title as my blog post.  I now have about 3,000,000 views on my answers since I start pubilshing regularly in early 2016.  All I do is copy and paste the blog post, and then tweak the intro and delete anything that isn’t relevant.  Sometimes one blog can answer 3 or more questions!​

​DON’T

1. Have a ghostwriter write your blog's content...
   
   ...at least without editing it and turning it into your own words. You should be reading, editing, and the one pushing publish.
   
   In the last 4 weeks, all 4 of my blogs were 100% written by me; however, sometimes I rely on ghost writers and copywriters to come up with a draft for me to work with. I request certain topics, or specific article titles, and then they present me with a draft to work from.  It really saves time on those busy weeks, and still gives me the chance to put in my perspective or add my favorite web apps.
   
   I recommend Blogmutt (Use this link for 50% off your first month), I’ve been a customer of theirs for years, and we also use them to manage our clients’ blogs.
   
   PS Our clients are always looking for more content so if you’d like to request to be interviewed on one of their sites, you can hire us to curate that interview.
   
   
   
2. Take longer than a week to publish your first blog.
   
   Seriously, the most important thing for the majority of entrepreneurs that I meet through organizing Startup Fuse, is to get started.
   
   I remember I was so nervous with my first blog, I recorded an audio file about planning v. execution, and was so nervous.  Eventually I published it in blog form.  It was so short and simple and broard.  
   
   Now, I really try to writer longer pieces out that go into much more detail and they generally are only helpful to a smaller amount of founders, but I promise they’ll be very helpful--both my content and the resources I link you to.
   
   
   
3. Be afraid to edit your title.
   
   There are lots of tools that can help you analyze your blog’s title.  It’s important, right?  If someone doesn’t take an interest in your title, you basically wrote it for nothing as far as that person is concerned. Ask a friend or team member if it makes sense in relation to what the content is about--second opinions are always high value. 
   
   
   
4. Set goals to publish too often.
   
   It’s generally pretty challenging to blog on your personal website or startup’s blog regularly because you don’t always see results right away, or even in the first year. 
   
   Therefore, set the easiest goal you can think of, and make sure you can do that for a few rounds.  In my case, I choose to publish weekly.  
   
   And, I had the help of Blogmutt, so I had emergency blog posts if I didn’t make anytime to write my own from scratch.  It’s been very challenging at times for me to publiish weekly for almost the past 3 years.  Sometimes I’m late, and there’s been a few times where I really wish I could have spent more time on.  If that’s the case, I can always edit it later, and then request my virtual assistant to 
   
   
   

I hope this helps you as a founder who is looking to grow their brand.  It’s really important for your employees, team members, mentors, investors, customers and even family to know what is new and what you’re writing about so that your life is aligned.  

It keeps everyone up to date and gives them an idea as to what space you’re in and sometimes your angle on it. The peole who wouldn’t be customers or mentors won’t engage with you, and those who take an interest have somewhere they can immediately learn more.  Both save you time and help others. 

Check out some of the personal websites we've built for our clients here.