Visual marketing is an essential and sound strategy for personal branding success.
No matter how competent, confident, and experienced you are in person, or how comfortable you are sharing the story of your personal brand using words, your career depends on your ability to visually communicate your ideas and build your brand using social media.
Recently, in a blog post entitled, People Think in Pictures–So Should Your Business; Debra Kaye, author of Red Thread Thinking wrote, Visual communication has become a habitual way people share information.
As a result,
…if you can’t communicate your personal brand at a glance, you’re at a serious disadvantage!
Social media is awash with charts, diagrams, icons, infographics, mind maps, sketches, and other “instant” visual communications that your competition is already using as a strategy to communicate at a glance and build their personal brand.
Help for the visually challenged
But, What does this mean if you’re not a graphic designer or visual thinker?
In that case, if you’re looking for a quick course in visual marketing for personal branding success, check out Stephanie Diamond’s latest book, The Visual Marketing Revolution: 26 Rules to Help Social Media Marketers Connect the Dots.
It offers the perspective and the details you need, whether to create your own visuals or to oversee the work of the design agencies or freelancers you depend on for your personal branding.
Choosing the right visual marketing book for social media
Several things set The Visual Marketing Revolution apart from many other graphic design, visual thinking, and social media books:
- Blank slate. Stephanie wrote her book for marketers, not for designers. The Visual Marketing Revolution assumes nothing! Unlike graphic design and visual thinking books which were written by designers for designers, Stephanie Diamond begins with the basics. Chapter 1, or Rule 1, is titled: Recognize the Power of Visual Persuasion. The first chapter builds on a blank slate that is expanded with progressively detailed information.
- Tight organization. The Visual Marketing Revolution is as organized as any university-level course, but you don’t have to show up on time! If you want, you can read a week–or go directly to the topic you’re interested in. Each chapter can be read in a single sitting, l or 2 chapters a week. Soon, you’ll know more about the relationships between visual marketing, personal branding, and social media than your designer may know.
- Practical orientation. The problem with many design and visual marketing books is that they often focus so much on case studies and examples that they leave it up to you to decide where you want to put visual marketing to work building your brand.
Social media focus
The Visual Marketing Revolution‘s relevance to sound personal brand building is the way it describes specific connections to the major social media platforms.
The groundwork is in Part l. The chapters in Parts ll and lll address topics like mind mapping, presentations, email, infographics, social media branding, and landing pages.
The chapters in Part IV, Tactics for Social Media Platforms, describes how to use visual marketing in the following social media platforms:
- Tmblr
- Google+
- Mobile Apps
- YouTube
In each chapter, Stephanie again offers advice that proceeds from the general to the specific, with success strategies that include:
- What you need to know when getting started with each social media platform, and the unique value it offers for personal brand building.
- Tools to consider, focusing on different tools for each of the social media platforms.
- Detailed examples and inspiring examples of visuals appropriately employed on the social media platform.
- Ideas to use, i.e., specific tips for making the most of the platform.
- Idea map, a type of mind map graphic that summarizes the important points relevant to each social media platform. (This idea map, itself, is an important example of visual marketing.)
- Endnotes, so you don’t jump to the back of the book for more information about each social media topic
Putting visual marketing to work building your brand
How effectively are you using visual marketing to build your personal brand?
Are you taking full advantage of visual marketing for the social media platforms you use to build your brand?
After you’ve finished reading The Visual Marketing Revolution, you’ll be better able to develop and express your personal brand using visuals that communicate at a glance. You’ll be better able to take full advantage of the powerful, numerous, and often free, social media tools available to you. You’ll also be better able to get full value from the graphic designers and freelancers you work with.
Today, the ability to write and share compelling stories is not enough to build and expand your personal brand. Unless you’re Stephen King, even the best writing can benefit from visual marketing that immediately attracts attention and sets your brand apart from the competition. Share your experiences and questions about visual marketing and personal branding as comments, below.
Author:
Roger C. Parker offers advice, counsel, checklists, and worksheets to help you build your personal brand. These include 99 Questions to Ask Before You Start to Write and a question hotline.
