Skyrocket Your Business with Social Media Branding: Personalize, Increase, and Grow Demand for your Brand

By Isis Bradford

Skyrocket Your Business with Social Media Branding

"As a next-generation leader and trusted voice in the digital arena, Isis Bradford provides the blueprint to take your brand from the ground floor all the way to the top.” —Pauleanna Reid, founder of WritersBlok and nationally published journalist

Skyrocket Your Business with Social Media Branding guides you on how to start and build your brand and business. Through social media branding and selling digital products, you can scale your business to be extremely lucrative—let’s get started!

Grow your business and your brand. Social media strategist and content expert Isis Bradford  created this guide book to help small business owners acclimate to social media branding and promoting digital products and goods. Learn how to utilize an instagram following to your advantage without a business development manager using Bradford’s The P.A.I.D. Equation method. P.A.I.D stands for  how to (P)personalize the experience of your audience, bring (A)awareness to your business daily, create an (I)intimate relationship with those who are ready to shop from you, and increase (D)demand for purchases!

Social media and business strategies made simple. Engage with your audience using updated strategies on social media branding. Learn how to personalize intended experiences for your audience, build brand awareness daily on social media, and inspire your audience to purchase any of your digital products and courses without famous influencers.  

Inside, you’ll find:

• Marketing and social media branding guidelines to grow your business
• Business strategies to inspire purchases of your digital products and courses
• An online business book taking digital serial entrepreneurs to the next level

If you liked Hook Point, The Nuclear Effect, or The Fearless Woman's Guide to Starting a Business, you’ll love Skyrocket Your Business with Social Media Branding.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Jul 11, 2023
• ISBN: 9781684811618

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

THE PAID EQUATION

A Manifesto to Change Marketing

When I developed the PAID Manifesto, I never realized the impact it would have on my business and my clients’ businesses. I didn’t start out with this great idea or a formal plan to change the social media marketing game, but it became increasingly clear that I had created something bigger than myself. I used the system to grow my own social media following to 74,000 followers within two years. The clients who hired and implemented the same techniques were growing, too: averaging about 11,000 followers. I realized the system, when utilized correctly, worked for everyone—regardless of reach or interest.

The PAID approach combines my experience as a business coach and influencer into simple, realistic steps that any individual or business can adapt. Building sustaining relationships and being accessible is paramount to the PAID approach:

• Personalization : This step is all about understanding yourself: your purpose, your direction, and your brand identity. Why did you get started, and where do you hope to go? What values do you hold near and dear, and how do they impact the way you run your business?

• Awareness : In this section, we dig into the ins and outs of building awareness of your brand. Does your audience know who you are and what you stand for? Do people know you/the brand? How can you leverage the unique aspects of your personality or the specific talents you’ve cultivated to push your message forward? And what are the practical steps you need to take to turn your idea into a thriving business?

• Intimacy : The connections you make as a business owner are fundamental to your success. In this section, we’ll discuss the importance of creating a community (as opposed to just gaining followers or customers), and how to cultivate and feed those relationships authentically. Social media can either be a tool for connection, or an added responsibility. It all depends on how you use it.

• Demand : In this section, we talk about growth. How do you ensure that, as your business expands, it remains in alignment with your values? And how do you build a community that will stand by you through all the various stages of your business’s life?

On the surface, the formula seems simple, and it is—if you know how to use it effectively. Until I understood this, I felt lost. I had so many questions. How can I track my analytics across various channels to make a genuine impact on my business? Where should I focus, and how can I build authentic connections with my followers?

I didn’t figure this out until late 2020, when circumstances made me slow down and reconsider my approach. Every year, I slowly put together bits and pieces, which ultimately led to the creation of a robust marketing and brand growth strategy. Before the strategy was formalized, it was ideas on scraps of paper, voice notes, and insights from my analytics. Slowly, piece by piece, the PAID Manifesto came together as I realized what was working and what wasn’t. My system is the result of my own trials and errors, figuring things out and testing them for myself.

THE UNEXPECTED CAN BE BEAUTIFUL

We all tell stories about who we are and who we want to be throughout our lives. The truth is, though, even the biggest dream can be born out of limitations. We create from what we know, the past we have experienced, and the convictions of the people who came before us.

At nineteen, I already had a vision of my future. I would be a pediatric surgeon, a career in which I could serve others, work with children, and have financial security and stability (things that were sorely lacking in my childhood). Knowing what I valued—security and service—I identified the best career path to achieve it. I was set.

I didn’t know it then, but the life I was busy trying to create was an attempt to heal the wounds of my younger self. My parents separated when I was just a year old. During that time, I really got to see both sides of the money equation. My dad was financially successful. I spent much less time with him than I did my mom, but during his visits, he would spend thousands of dollars on me and my siblings like it was nothing to him. He was living a life of affluence while my mom struggled to support us and pay bills — a contrast that I felt deeply uncomfortable with. My mom missed many cheerleading and gymnastics events because she was working, sometimes three to four jobs simultaneously, and was always rushing from one job to another. She felt immensely guilty for not being able to show up to my events, which in turn made me feel remorseful. I began hiding parts of my life from her so that she wouldn’t feel bad about missing out. The discrepancy between my father’s and mother’s financial situations made an indelible mark on my life—and, as a result, impacted my own relationship with money.

I started to believe that wealth would give me peace of mind, and that notion became the foundation on which I built my dreams. I was so blinded by this vision that I never stopped to ask myself if I liked the path to the future I was working toward. In my third year of undergraduate school as a biology major, it became abundantly clear that vision without passion can only get you so far. It takes a strong love to carry you through the twenty-four-hour study sessions, in which you must memorize every bone, muscle, and tissue. Evidently, I wasn’t passionate about medicine.

I felt lost and struggled to figure out what was next. I understood enough about myself to know that I could not chase a dream I no longer believed in. Frustrated, I spoke to my grandmother, who told me that she had always seen me as a teacher. I had never considered teaching, even though both my grandmothers were educators. But it made so much sense, and I couldn’t believe I hadn’t considered it earlier. My favorite game to play when I was a kid was teacher. I was always teaching everyone around me—friends, family members, anyone who’d listen! Even on my report cards, my teachers would talk about how I was the student who was willing to teach everyone.

As I reflected on my life, I started to see a pattern. My very first job was teaching gymnastics, and it was one I sought out. Although the association had not been looking for a teacher, I approached them and asked to teach. In school, I would tutor my classmates, and even students in other grades. I took any opportunity I could get. I was coaching and didn’t even know it. In high school, I worked at a Subway sandwich shop and trained people to make sandwiches more efficiently. In college, I worked as a summer camp counselor and a pre-K teacher for an autism program. I had been so focused on my goal of becoming a doctor that I was missing the signals my heart was sending me. In all my endeavors, I have always sought to share what I’ve learned.

However, even with all of this reflection and insight, I still wasn’t sure. Changing your goal when you are so close to achieving it is one of the scariest and most difficult things to do. There was still a stubborn part of me that was clinging to the old vision I had created of my future, despite identifying a new, more aligned path. Letting go meant taking a chance on a new dream, one I hadn’t planned for. So I prayed and sought clarity, asking for wisdom and guidance. Let me tell you something: never ask the universe a question unless you are ready for the answer. You will receive it and, when you do, it’s your duty to respond.

Although I vacillated for a while before finally embracing my heart’s calling, my journey to becoming an educator was the best decision I ever made. As a teacher, I developed skills, knowledge, and techniques that I could leverage in my marketing and coaching business. The experiences working with kids from low-income and affluent communities helped me understand the importance of connecting on a deeper level with your community. I learned the importance of being vulnerable and authentic as I saw these kids struggle every day to connect to an adult they felt understood them. They taught me to be who I am and to follow my curiosity where it leads.

While I used to think I had one dream and achieving it was the goal, becoming a teacher taught me that it was only the first step in the long journey of life. I found my purpose in education, but the way that purpose manifests is constantly changing. Teaching wasn’t the end of my journey, but the beginning of creating a life more beautiful than I had ever imagined.

HOW TO USE THE BOOK

The PAID approach is about building a custom experience for you and your clients. I will be here to walk you through the pillars, but it is up to you to take the lessons and alter them to suit your needs. Every pillar of the PAID strategy, from the first to the last, is unique, and therefore no single solution fits all. Understanding each pillar will require you to take a reflective stance on your business, goals, and desired outcomes. The PAID framework is about being flexible and adapting it to suit your needs. As you learn the techniques and tools outlined in this book, you will be able to utilize the PAID strategy to address all of your social media and branding concerns. Remember, using the PAID framework is your starting point toward achieving your dreams.

CHAPTER 1

GROWING UP ISIS

"Hold on to your dreams of a better life and stay

committed to striving to realize it."

—Earl G. Graves, Sr.

Every part of your journey prepares you for the next challenge that you will face. In many narratives, entrepreneurship is portrayed as a young person’s game. We romanticize stories of people who created successful businesses in college while eating ramen in their dorm rooms, but research and reality tell us that the average age of a successful entrepreneur is forty-five.¹ Entrepreneurship knows no age limit, and for many of us, life experiences help us find our dreams and equip us with the skills to turn them into reality. I would not be the coach I am today if I had chosen to start in a career other than education.

I took an opportunity to teach in a low-income school, where I truly embraced the idea of changing your mindset to take charge of your future. I was tasked with teaching the kindergarten classes—with five- to six-year-olds. These kids had already learned that the system was stacked against them. They held so much pain and anger but were too young to understand how to articulate it. Instead, they acted out by calling each other names, swearing, and disparaging their parents. They felt powerless in their circumstances. There was something hurtful about seeing kids who should be amazed at the beauty of life be so jaded that every word they used was a dagger. My students had already seen some of the worst parts of life, and they were trying to protect themselves. It was unfortunate, but this was how they were growing up, through no fault of their own.

I remember I refused to teach the kids anything from the curriculum until they learned respect for each other. My colleagues, the administration, and the parents were upset with me, but I was determined to stand my ground. I did not want to teach for the sake of teaching. I wanted these kids to learn, see their potential, and reach their goals. We practiced cheering each other on, making space for one another, and being kind. If one kid misbehaved, the entire class was called back from recess, and we would practice again. My heart was torn for these kids, and no matter how sympathetic I was, I knew what they needed was someone who kept trying.

I saw an opportunity for something better in them and understood my assignment as a teacher. In three months, they went from referring to each other as hoes to respecting and empowering each other. They began to refer to each other as Kings and Queens. By the end of that year, my class was one of the brightest in the school. All the work, fighting, and negotiating that I’d done with the school administration felt validated. The principal came up to me at the end of the year and thanked me. God always places us in positions where we can make a difference. Whether it is one person or a group of people, never underestimate your ability to impact and change a person’s life.

I loved my impact as a kindergarten teacher, but the constant grappling with the system was getting to me. It wasn’t a system created to help people learn, but to indoctrinate them with a specific way of seeing the world. I enjoyed teaching, but what appealed to me more was empowering those who wanted to learn and move beyond their current situation. I realized that there were people who needed a supportive and empowering teacher, even though they were done with school. I knew I could influence change by working with people who were ready to break out of the system and create a new narrative around abundance and wealth, one that focused on healing relationships with money and aligning with a deeper purpose.

As a teacher, I had the opportunity to work in diverse settings and with individuals from various backgrounds. My experience helped me hone my skills and prepared me to listen to and understand the needs of my clients. What barriers are they facing? How can we change the way they think to unlock their potential? Good teachers—like the best coaches—are excellent at figuring out the best way to help their students succeed. Both professions are about changing behaviors to help your student/client achieve their goals, whether to be an astronaut or get six figures in sales. With all this new insight, I took a leap, created a business built on my passion for education and teaching, and created one of my most successful courses—the Profit Blueprint.

EMBRACE YOUR STORY

Before diving into the Profit Blueprint, it’s important to get clear on your values. Understanding your past is one of the best ways to determine what drives you and your vision. Our driving forces, especially those we wish to bring to our brand, are rooted in our past. A clear example of this is someone who becomes a doctor because of their experience losing a loved one to illness. The businesses we create and the ways in which we position them in the market are interlinked with our personal histories. Examining our past can help us understand the whys of what we do. In many cases, this involves examining how our traumas affect the life and business we want to create. Knowing my past helped me identify the values I wanted my followers to associate with my brand: community, resilience, and security through financial abundance.

BUILDING COMMUNITY

A sense of community is an important aspect of my brand—my followers, clients, and customers know they are part of a larger network of success and support. The importance of creating a community of support was instilled in me by my grandma. She is a bright and creative person who has a love for life. She draws people to her by being authentic and vulnerable and sharing her gifts. She once made me a jacket that said Digital Sales Guru on it. Her generosity inspires others and organically builds a community around her.

The strength of her community was evident when my grandpa passed away in 2021. My grandma created a nonprofit called Widows Companion to help other widows deal with the loss of their spouses. Every month, she sends them themed gift baskets to lift their spirits. Through her strength and efforts, she showed me the importance of community to help you overcome the parts of life that seem too hard to do on your own.

Creating a community that will support and share your vision is essential for any entrepreneur. It is vital for building a business and making connections, but beyond the financial benefits, a strong community supports you and can help build your resilience and creativity. Your community should align with your values and