Offer a Unique Perspective and Build Your Personal Brand with Andreas Jonsson from Shield

Episode Summary

You can’t build your personal brand overnight. But the best time to start building it is NOW. You need to find a platform most suitable for presenting your products or services and figure out how to create content for the right audience.

Andreas Jonsson, CEO, and co-founder at Shield explains why LinkedIn is the best platform if you are starting from scratch. All newcomers, Jonsson says, need to establish a habit of posting. It does not mean you have to post every day, but you need to develop a habit of spending time on the platform to find out what resonates with people.

In this episode of Rep Your Brand, Andreas Jonsson talks about the importance of building a personal brand. He says it is beneficial for both employees and a company. Answering the question about the algorithm, the guest says: ‘’I’m super curious about the algorithm in general because that is what makes or breaks a platform like LinkedIn, especially the social part of it.’’

At the end of the day, Jonsson reminds us, we want to present our content to other people. We need to get close to the right audience. Our focus should not be on the algorithm but on creating high-quality content. If we want people to engage with our content, we need to share our stories and show ourselves as human beings. With that in mind, the guest concludes: ”No one’s perfect. You said it yourself. It’s absolutely true. And certainly I’m not perfect. I’m just trying my best, and that’s all we can ever do. ”

Guest Profile

Name: Andreas Jonsson
What he does: Andreas is a CEO and co-founder at Shield
Company: Shield
Key Quote: ''We are interesting as people, which is why everyone could post to LinkedIn, even if you're a graduate, a student, if you're an intern, you have a unique perspective. And if you can tell stories and if you engage with people and do all of those things, then people are going to follow you regardless.''

Key Insights

LinkedIn is the social platform most people could benefit from. It is a great place to start because you can join it, starting from scratch. One of the reasons is a 'crazy good' organic reach.
Get into the feed and figure out how to define value. Being part of the LinkedIn community can help you familiarize yourself with your potential customers and users and what type of content would bring them to your profile. It will help you figure out how to add value with every post you publish and attract the desired audience.
Building a personal brand is beneficial for both an employee and a company. Andreas emphasizes the importance of building a personal brand and uses his own experience as an example. ''I just started posting to LinkedIn. I just wanted to explore what this is all about. So, people we bring into Shield, I'm trying to incentivize them to do the same. And the reason for that is I've seen firsthand on myself, with my own personal brand, how it's benefiting me, how it's benefiting the company, how it's benefiting the people that are close to me.''

“If you’re always scrolling, you’re missing out.”

Andreas Jonsson

CEO

Shield

Episode Highlights

Establish a Habit of Posting

Andreas says the habit of posting is one of the most meaningful ”skills” he developed to build his following. He explains the importance of consistency and also why consistency is not the same as frequency. It doesn’t mean you have to post every day, but you have to establish a habit. I did that, and it clearly shows, so let me pull out some numbers for you here. In 2019 I posted 136 times. So that wasn’t a whole lot. In 2020 I had 250 posts. So it was an increase in my posting activity of around 85%. All my other metrics on the platform, views, likes, engagement in general, and my followers, grew by 400%.”

No One’s Really Going to Get Any Amazing Reach and Engagement Once They First Start Out

‘If you’re someone who’s never posted to LinkedIn before, if I tell you to post every day, you’re never going to manage, you’re not going to build that habit overnight, and you’ll be exhausted in your attempt to reach that point of posting every day. I’m all about getting into the feed and figuring out what works. So for me, any advice would always be, do something you feel like you can sustain, get that first small win, whether that’s posting weekly or biweekly.”

The Key Metrics Content Creators Should Be Looking at When Posting on LinkedIn

Audience demographics and post tracking are the metrics Andreas is most focused on. He also does a monthly check to review his averages and see if there’s any progression. ”I look over the last four weeks, and that is always on Shield compared to the previous four weeks before that. So we’re looking at an eight week period. And if my most recent four weeks are better than the four weeks before that, across the metrics that I care about, then I’m progressing.”

Should People Be Writing Content for the Algorithm?

Talking about the algorithm, Andreas says he doesn’t think a lot about it, especially while creating content. However, the guest doesn’t neglect its strength, but he’ll always give preference to quality content regardless of the algorithm. ”What will get you far over time is quality content for the right audience. If you post about something close to you, you’re passionate about, that’s much more interesting. And I think over time, you’ll beat the algorithm by doing so because you’re going to have a compounded effect of your consistency that will add people to your following and add people to your content.”

The Biggest Challenges for a CEO

”I think my biggest challenge is navigating the very uncertain and unpredictable climate of things and pulling it all together, making people thrive in the company so we can sustain the growth. We are also a bootstrapped the company. So we rely on our customers paying us. And the only growth that we’re seeing is going to come from customers and customer revenue.”

People Are a Key Resource

”It all starts with people around me. So my colleagues, amazing people who always challenge my thinking. The second layer, customers, users of Shield, then everyone on LinkedIn engaging with my content.”

You Are Your Own Personal Brand

According to Andreas, if you are interested in developing a personal brand, you should know you already have it. ”You are your own personal brand”, the guest says. He also suggests we should focus on other questions, like how big we want to grow (professionally). He thinks the question people need to ask themselves is: would you only want ten people to know what you do and how well you do it, or would you want an unlimited amount of people to get to know you.