Effectively utilizing social media is about more than sending a few tweets and making sure your LinkedIn profile is up to date.

Much has been said about the benefits of investing in your author brand. From exactly why you need an author brand to establishing the messaging and visual components of your brand identity, all of these details fall under the larger umbrella of a brand strategy.

If you have ever thought about writing a book, it’s likely you’ve done at least a cursory exploration of how becoming a published author might pay off financially. What you’ve almost certainly discovered is that publishing a book is a business endeavor with options along the entire spectrum of investment and payoff.

Take every opportunity your audience gives you to share value as an opportunity to simultaneously reinforce your brand.

Much has been written on the important role a personal brand plays in shaping a thought leader’s impact, both on his or her business and on their wider audience as a whole. A strong personal brand connects a face to the company, which is critical when it comes to helping people relate to (and remember) the brand itself.

A highly effective way to reach and engage with your audience is through speaking. If you’re passionate and knowledgeable about your subject matter, what better way to share and add value than in person? Once you decide to pursue speaking as a way to grow your platform and share your big ideas, where do you start, and what’s next?

In order to effectively build your brand, you need to know your starting point, the current status of your brand. A brand audit is a tool that companies use to analyze their brand and marketing effectiveness, to identify forward-looking brand goals, to expose gaps between how the company sees its brand and how consumers see it, and to get everyone on the same proverbial page regarding messaging.

Here’s the big tip I’d offer to build strong platform messaging: Don’t lose your content! You need every bit of it to redistribute and heighten your platform.

Where do you begin a task as daunting as becoming a veritable expert like Gary Vaynerchuk? A strong platform starts with your ideas. Your ideas are your foundation; they’re what you offer your audience, and they’re what will make you money.

What is a Content Entry Point?

Authors naturally love to write, so getting ideas down on the printed page is a process that often flows easily. While writing a manuscript, it’s common for authors to enjoy exploring all angles of their subject and to offer readers different ways to engage with their content. “Content Entry Points,” as I like to call them, are places in a text where a reader connects with an idea and jumps in to learn more. These entry points can be quite diverse and include devices such as anecdotes, statistics, historical information, quotes, illustrations, graphics, maps, checklists, and worksheets.