You need these tools to build your personal brand
As with any art, you need a series of tools to help you create your masterpiece.
Which tools you use and how you use those tools will completely depend on you.
But one thing is certain...
You need some tools to help you build, grow, and monetize your personal brand.
Imagine telling a skilled chef to cook up a tasty meal without giving them some knives, pots, pans, and cooking utensils.
They could have the best ingredients in the world and the perfect recipe in mind.
But without tools, it is going to be a mission to bring their recipe to life.
The same goes for your personal brand.
Without the right tools, you make it hard for you to bring your ideas to life.
Just like a chef uses certain tools and process to aid them in the cooking process.
You also need to a series of tools that will help you in the process of building your personal brand.
You need some tools to help you come up with content ideas.
Some tools to help you create these content ideas.
Some tools to help you distribute this content.
Some tools to help you promote your brand.
Some tools to help you sell your products and services.
You get the idea.
You need tools.
These tools are here to support you.
They are here to make your life easier throughout every step of the process in your personal brand journey.
In this newsletter, I have collected a list of tools to support you build your personal brand.
I have included some tools that I use and also other options you can try.
Let's get into it.
1. Content Research + Inspiration
An important part of building a personal brand online is to create content.
And in order to create content that resonates with your audience, you need to understand their problems.
You can use a few tools to help you better understand the problems of your audience.
Chat GPT is a good way to brainstorm content ideas.
With the right prompts, Chat GPT can list out problems you audience face which you can use to make content.
However, it can spit out some false things sometimes so use your own judgement when using it.
You can also use SEO software to look up what people are searching for on search engines like Google.
Create content around these questions people are searching for.
What I use: Chat GPT , Google Keyword Planner, Quora
Other options: SEM Rush, Ahrefs, Ubersuggest
2. Content Creation
Now, once you have the ideas, you need some tools to help you create this content.
I have broken down the tools by category:
Writing
The foundation of your personal brand.
You need a tool to write out your thoughts.
Whether you are producing a long form article, scripting a youtube video, or writing captions, you need a tool to help you write.
I personally use Hemingway to write long form articles to check my contents readability.
I also use Chat GPT when I have writers block to get ideas and to get feedback on my writing. I want to note that I use Chat GPT just as a guide, but I write everything myself.
You can also use other writing tools like Pro Writing Aid and Grammarly, which have more robust features to improve your writing.
What I use: Hemingway
Other options: Grammarly, Ulysses, Pro Writing Aid
Visuals
Whether you are making an instagram carousel or a thumbnail for a youtube video, you will need a design tool to help you make graphics.
If you have some design experience, I would recommend Photoshop.
If not, then I would go with Canva. They have a huge library of amazing templates to make graphics with ease.
Other options: Canva
Video
Video is all the buzz at the moment, especially short form video.
Whether you are putting together an instagram Reel or a long form youtube video, you will need a tool to create and edit your videos.
For more experienced video editors, I would recommend Final Cut Pro if you have a Mac and Premier Pro if you have a windows.
If you don't have much experience, I would recommend CapCut. It's super easy to use, powerful, and enough for most uses cases.
What I use: Final Cut Pro
Other options: Premier Pro, DaVinci Resolve, CapCut
Audio
If you are thinking about having a podcast, then you need a tool to help you record, edit, and distribute your podcast.
I plan to use Riverside to record and edit my future podcast.
The cool thing about Riverside is that you can record audio and video at the same time, which allows you to use your podcast for video and audio.
I also plan to use Spotify for Podcasters to host and distribute my future podcast.
What I plan to use: Riverside, Spotify For Podcasters
Other options: Buzzsprout, Audacity, Descript
3. Organization
Building your personal brand has lots of moving pieces. You have content ideation, creation, distribution, projects, clients, and a whole list of other things happening all at the same time.
In order to stay on top of the game, you need something to plan and stay organized.
I personally use Notion as my "second brain".
It's an easy to use productivity and project management app.
The cool thing about Notion is it is easy to customize based on your needs.
You can build out something super simple or complex depending on your process.
What I use: Notion
Other options: Asana, Trello, Clickup
4. Website
A website is an essential part of your personal brand.
You need a place to direct the traffic you are receiving from your content creation.
Your website invites your audience explore all that you have to offer such as resources, lead magnets, products, and services.
I am a web designer and developer so I use Webflow to build websites.
However, you can easily buy templates to get yourself up and running on any website platform like Wordpress, Webflow, Shopify, Squarespace.
What I use: Webflow
Other options: Wordpress, Shopify, Squarespace
5. Email/Newsletter
Your email list is a crucial part of building your personal brand.
An email list is one of the most powerful tools you can have for your personal brand.
You can automate email to communicate with your audience.
It outperforms a majority of all other marketing efforts if done correctly.
And best of all, you can take your email list with you wherever you go and you are not locked into a single platform.
I use mailchimp but you can use whichever one is best for your needs.
The good thing is if you do not like one, you can just export your email list and import it into another option.
What I use: Mailchimp
Other options: Beehiiv, Convertkit, Substack
6. Selling
Monetizing your personal brand is a big milestone.
Whether you are selling a product or service, you will need a tool to process payments.
I personally use stripe as it is easy to use and they have lots of different integration options I can use on my website.
You can use others options depending on your monetization strategy.
Gumroad is good for digital products.
Shopify is better for physical products.
What I use: Stripe
Other options: Gumroad, Patreon, Shopify, Teachable
7. AI Tools
I can write a whole separate article on AI tools.
Even the tools I listed above have lots of different AI features integrated.
AI is here to help you throughout the process, however it will not do the work for you.... Yet....
Get used to using these tools.
They will spit out a nonsense from time to time but they do spit out some golden nuggets.
With some practice, you can get these AI tools to help you in every step of process.
See What Works For You
The tools that I use may not work for you.
That is why it's important that you find the tools that work best for you.
If you don't have the skills to use certain program, don't complicate it.
Use one of the easier tools.
You can always learn the more skill demanding tool and use it once you have more experience.
The good thing is most of tools offer some sort of free version so you can test them out before committing.
After all, the tools you use should help you and not be a bottleneck.
So see what works for you and build your arsenal of tools to help you build, grow, and monetize your personal brand.
Happy cooking!
- Angel