Help! How to self-promote in a non-twatty way?

[MalFunkshun]

I’ve been at mid manager level for the last couple of years in a professional services firm and been headhunted by a competitor whilst on maternity leave with DC2 . Really unexpectedly, as my head was a bit distracted with a newborn, I’ve been offered a significant promotion to leadership level and pay bump to match.

I’m really excited, as well as slightly terrified (imposter syndrome + usual loss of confidence after baby). I’m an expert in my field, but I haven’t been particularly active at promoting myself through things like LinkedIn or industry publications - largely because there hasn’t really been the support or encouragement to do so at my current company. In the new role, I’ll be heading up a team and I’m keen to create wider awareness of us, and of myself as the lead, to help generate opportunities and grow my network.

However - I have no idea how to go about it! I have lots of industry viewpoints, but second guess myself about their value if publicised on social media or through think pieces. Has anyone had to learn this skill set? Any tips or recommendations for training or coaching? I’m prepared to invest in this as this role feels like a pivotal step for my career. Thanks in advance.

I used to freelance and had to do this too, it felt unatural until someone just told me to keep doing what I was doing - basically helping people and giving them a bit of guidance and getting involved in stuff.
I would contribute to industry online boards, answering adhoc questions or linking users to answers on my blog, where id post some how-tos, advice and ideas.
I attended meetups and got into conversations with people about the sort of work we were doing then got invited back to talk!
All this made me feel validated and less of a fraud

I'm no expert, but what I started doing was sharing things from within the company with a bit of my own words 'so excited to see this making a difference', then stuff our customers published, as well as making my own content of maybe a photo of the team at a conference/event and a call to action like 'getting ready to kick off xxxx, looking forward to seeing so many of you there!'
I don't do long pieces as they really can be a bit ick unless you really get them right. Add your industry viewpoint to a link to a professional body piece just published on 'widgets in the time of COVID' with a few sentences on what you think and your teams amazing experience in providing added #widget value

Fab advice from @CMOTDibbler!
Another idea is to copy people... If you have seen something recently by another team and still remember it, then it's worked. Did they do a video, top 5 or LinkedIn post and it didn't come across cringey? Copy the format and writing style!

Thanks so much @LonstantonSpiceMuseum and @CMOTDibbler, that’s exactly what I needed to hear. Also good to know I’m not the only one who struggles to do this naturally!

How do you maintain the discipline of regularly doing it? That’s something else I’m quite bad at - I’ll do a post, which generates a lot of views and / or likes, then I let my feed go quiet for a few weeks. I feel like I need some sort of schedule to stick to, but not sure how to go about creating one.

I try and look at LinkedIn every day and do something, even just liking a post someone has done. Schedules can be a bit forced imo, but there can be a rhythm to your calendar based on events you know will happen - we have (eg) 4 big tradeshows a year with associated events, so that would prompt a post a month out to get people to book demos, 2 weeks ahead to talk about the user meeting, a week before about prepping, then a first day team photo, last day 'its been amazing' etc etc. Then if your industry has awareness weeks put those down in your schedule to do stuff (and remember to use hashtags so they get picked up by prof bodies), and things like 'women in widgets day'.
Use it to celebrate your team too - 'Claire got her diploma in widget studies today, so proud #widgetinc is a supporter of lifelong learning' or 'Meet Dave our new head of widget control who is bringing a new level of innovation to widgets'
I'd much rather see more intermittent, thoughtful content, or that which is relevant to them than stuff which is filler