2021 Personal Branding Trends - The Year of Virtual Connection

As we close out 2020, virtual connection has become the new norm and an absolute necessity in personal branding trends.

So when Ross Brand, a friend who I’ve had on the show, asked me to come up with some personal branding trend predictions for 2021, it was obvious where to start.

I wanted to share some of the things I came up with for you guys, too. Now, the best way to predict upcoming personal branding trends is to look at what’s happening now. The year 2020 sets the stage for 2021, and obviously, a lot happened in 2020.

It was a crazy, wild year, a lot going on with society, the pandemic, the economy, and everything else. A lot of us had to stay home with kids, had to figure out how to work remotely and use Zoom. We had to rebalance our schedules and find technology that helped us automate our lives.

Whatever it might have been, there was a lot of change happening, and all of that drives the trends of the future.

2021: The year of virtual connection

In the world of personal branding, 2021 will be the year of virtual connection top to bottom.

That’s what I want to make sure you guys think about: This will be the year of virtual connection. The reason that’s important, and the reason we should be thinking about how to tap into virtual connection in 2021, is that things are always changing. And when things constantly change, it’s good to keep up on what’s next so you can set your proper priorities.

Where will you spend your time? Where will you invest? How will you acquire new skills, and where will you put your efforts so they pay out better than they would otherwise?

Virtual connection across the board is where I think you should start. Think in terms of your tools, your resources, the people you connect with: How do you adapt all of these things to ensure virtual connection is a priority?

This is especially huge for personal brand businesses and for personal branding overall. People are seeking out new opportunities to interact and engage with other people for many reasons: They’ve felt like they couldn’t get the professional connection they wanted because they couldn’t go to conferences. People couldn’t travel to see friends they wanted to see. They couldn’t go to local chamber of commerce meetings or local networking events. They couldn’t go to their WeWorks or co-working spaces.

All of this leaves people looking for opportunities to connect with other people in new ways, and virtual connection is the solution for that.

When you can’t figure out how to connect to people in real life, you connect with them virtually. They are seeking out these opportunities.

New tools for virtual connection

You’ve got to put yourself out there in ways where you will intersect with the same people you used to intersect with, or new people, in an engaging way that doesn’t leave you behind in growing your business.

What does this mean? From a media and branding standpoint, it likely means learning new tools to step up the skills you need.

For example, there’s going to be more live video and more direct messaging. So, you might have to get used to sending people direct messages across social media. This might mean following up with a direct message after you meet someone, just saying, “Hey, great chatting with you. I look forward to connecting more.”

There will be more people out there saying, “I’m going to put myself out there so that if they can’t interact with me in real life, maybe they can interact with me via video so that they can get to know me a little bit better.” So, you might have to get familiar with telling your story in a video format, using those tools to express your message.

Are you set up to interact with people in that way?

New online communities

In 2021, there are going to be more people looking for new places to connect online. Online communities have already set the stage as a place where that can happen, and it’s just going to accelerate.

At the end of the day, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Facebook groups, video calls, small video group chats, virtual events, live video taking center stage, direct message — all of that was already happening. But, because we have this new environment, it’s happening now at a more accelerated rate.

The places we were already going aren’t going to sound new, but they are now of larger importance than they’ve ever been. So, if you haven’t done it already, figure out how you can step into these spaces.

For starters, if you haven’t been interacting with Facebook groups or other online groups, you need to. Figure out how you can join a mastermind, join a Facebook group, be involved in the local online meetups and virtual events in your community so that you can gain back that virtual interaction and learn what it means to interact in these ways.

Virtual icebreakers

Now, say you do join a virtual community. What are you going to do? How are you going to show up? How are you going to present yourself? What are you going to write in your profile? How are you going to reach out to people who are at the same event?

That’s an opportunity. That’s an icebreaker. I just attended a podcasting event that was usually held in person that’s now online, and it was funny to see that the amount of interaction in the chats was lighter than you’d expect.

Why is that? Because people aren’t used to it. There might have been 200 people watching the virtual speech that was being given, but there were only maybe five people interacting in the chat. I think that’s just a new skill people aren’t used to.

You have to get good at interacting in these new environments. Be the person to say, “Hey, I saw that you were also in the same meeting,” and follow up with another attendee within that conference tool. “I’d like to connect with you. Your story seems interesting. We should get to know each other.”

You have to be more active and more proactive in building relationships in these virtual events because you’re not going to bump into people in the hallways. These conferences might have a little networking piece, but you actually have to do a little bit more work virtually to connect.

New introductions

That might mean understanding how you can authentically introduce yourself in a virtual format. How can you convey that, “Hey, I saw you in this, in this speaker session, and I’m interested in this, too”?

And an introduction could be several things — what brought you to this conference, or what you have in common — but in any case, something very personal and introductory is most likely to get them to respond.

Then you can say, “Hey, I’d love to get to know you better. Are you open to a video chat? Let’s set up a time. Here’s my link.”

Being prepared to do that is what’s going to take you from just being a person in a faceless crowd to starting to build back the interaction that drives your business.

One-on-one video calls

Another tool growing like crazy is one-on-one video calls. I think everyone needs to have a Calendly link that they set up that has easy access to their schedule and propagates a video conference call.

I use Calendly and Zoom and connect them together, so anytime someone wants to connect, I can say, “Here’s my link to my schedule. Pick a time, and let’s do it.”

Set time aside for that, because you never know where those calls are going to go. It might be a vendor or a resource. It might be someone who might refer people to you, or it could be a customer you never knew. That networking is what’s going to lead to opportunities for you.

Set up the one-on-one video calls, because email and texting is not enough.

Small group video calls

They sound similar, but small group video chats have different benefits and challenges.

Figure out how to become a part of something like virtual happy hours during the quarantine. Maybe on Thursday or Friday, there’s a happy hour when you jump on a Zoom call with maybe 10 people, maybe 30 people, and connect. Tell stories, tell jokes, learn, interact, and find ways to interact in the chat. Create a funny virtual background. Find ways to engage so people notice you.

Find an opportunity to tell your story, to volunteer or host your own chats, whatever it might be so that people interact with you.

Virtual connection at events

Virtual events, like the podcasting one I attended, are somewhere you should be. A lot of them switched to virtual, but they’re still happening. So, whether it’s your industry event that you always attended or it’s something local, like a co-working thing, find a way to attend.

That’s a perfect email list-building tool for you. You can go, look at all the attendees, figure out who you want to interact with, and now you have an icebreaker. It’s not just, “Hey, George. I want to work with you.” It’s, “Hey George, I saw you at this event. I’d love to know more about you and why you attended,” and whatever else. You have an icebreaker.

Just like when you attend events in real life, the icebreaker is always, “Hey, what brought you here?” Or “how are you enjoying the conference?” These are very normal personal conversations that break the ice and warm up introductions so that you aren’t reaching out to people out of the blue on LinkedIn.

So many invites on LinkedIn are just pure spam with no thought put out onto them. Virtual events are going to give you a way to break the ice and have a real piece of a virtual interaction in common.

Authentic virtual connection is key

People who offer the most authentic access in real life and virtually will win. Anything you can do to take your virtual presence from being spam and pre-programmed scripts to being authentic is so important. Be personal: “I see you in his chat room sometimes,” or, “Hey, I saw you at this conference,” or, “Hey, I noticed you on in this Facebook community.”

All those authentic one-to-one reach outs are so much more important now because you don’t get to have them in real life. You might as well find a way to have them virtually.

The connection point between virtual environments, your authentic personality, and you taking an interest in someone and finding a way to connect will be what takes you and your personal brand to the next level.

That’s what I hope you take with you into 2021. Figure out where you need to improve or step up your game to acquire new talents and new skills.

How are you building your virtual connections, moving out of 2020 and into 2021?

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