Whether you have been in the online world for 5 years or 5 days, I am sure you started with some DIY branding. And I won’t blame you! In total honesty, I am a HUGE fan of DIY stuff. Partly because it’s what enabled me to start my business… but also because you can’t outsource everything from the very beginning (but you should outsource as soon as possible anyway)!
Although I want to take care of your DIY projects and help you improve them… It is normal to fall into some mistakes. After all, this is not your zone of genius.
So let’s go through 3 of the most branding mistakes to avoid on social media.
You are not being consistent
When you DIY your branding, it is easy to set some temporary rules, or to set them in your mind, without actually following them.
Picture this. You are creating your Instagram posts in Canva, and are using your brand colors. But then, almost last minute, you see this other font that you absolutely LOVE and you decide to use that. Next week, you find a new color palette that is much more aligned with you, and the week after you pick yet another font.
Yes, exploring your brand identity is great, but this way your feed will appear all messed up and inconsistent, and without a clear identity.
The quickest way to fix this branding mistake is to make a promise to yourself to stick to your current branding for at least 3 months. Find your peace and just stay with it. At the end of the third month, you can now revisit it from there. Keep in mind that if you already feel like your branding is limiting, you might wanna revisit your identity before sticking to it for 3 months!
You are not showing your personality
Have you ever landed on those pretty feeds, where everything seems matching, vibing, loving? Sometimes having a beautiful but empty and impersonal feed can be a killer for your personal brand: we all wanna talk to real humans and not unreachable brands!
This is one of the most popular branding mistakes because by not sharing your personality we basically don’t know anything about you. It is hard to connect with dream clients like this, and sometimes all you get is people who are DEFINITELY not your type.
Remember, you are not a generalist but a business owner and you have a specific ideal client in mind. Speak to them by exposing yourself too! Trust me, this is where you’ll get the dreamiest clients!
Sprinkling your personality into your content, stories, website, the way you talk & speak. It doesn’t have to be hard or complex and, if it is, you might wanna change your approach.
You are branding yourself on the surface level
You procrastinated on the deep shit questions, and you are only working on your identity.
Colors, fonts, and logos are created based on what you see from your competitors and not your unique perspective, which is why you are feeling drained and comparing yourself.
Yes friend, it’s time to do some soul-searching.
Some questions to get you started could be:
What lights you up? What is the change you want to see in the world and how are you gonna work on that?
If you truly wanna dive deeper into your branding and are loving this DIY approach, I have a whole branding guide that will guide you from A to Z. By going down the DIY route, you’ll have much more freedom and flexibility to play around, plus you’ll learn so much about yourself! You can check my Freedom-Based Branding Kit here!
Take some time out and focus on the deep shit.
Remember: the branding you are after is already within you. And any branding mistakes you are not making will simply teach you something along the way. The quickest way to get there, is to work from the inside out, and not vice versa.
Are you making any of those mistakes? How are you fixing them? We can also chat over Instagram DMs 😉
