Rosie Chong is a social media strategist by day, and a content creator by night. She has worked in the digital marketing and advertising world for the last 4+ years, developing a passion for all things social media and content. In the last 18 months, she has been on a content creation journey fuelled by a passion to inspire others to do the same, building a combined social media following of 36,000 people. On LinkedIn, building a community of almost 28,000 people, she champions authenticity in content and exemplifies how anyone can build a personal brand regardless of their industry. She is an advocate for mental health, women’s rights and bringing a voice to those that might not have been heard before.

HERE ARE 3 TIPS TO HELP YOU ON YOUR ROAD TO SELF-EMPOWERMENT

1. Understand Your “Why?”
2. Be A Learner.
3. Stop Doubting Yourself And Start.

CONNECT WITH ROSIE CHONG

• Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/rosiechong/
• TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@rosiechong/
• LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/rosielchong/

CONNECT WITH BEVERLY PRICE

• Website - www.herselfexpression.com
• Email - beverly@herselfexpression.com
• Facebook - www.facebook.com/HerSelfExpression/
• Instagram - www.instagram.com/her_self_expression/
• LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/beverly-price/

SUBSCRIBE TO THE HER SELF EXPRESSION PODCAST

• Youtube - www.youtube.com/channel/UCm-RosJxPHumtXJgNoCXHpA
• Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/her-self-expression/id1635143315
• Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/7kIcMXrj1tIWBOmaXBBn1U

If you liked this episode, please don’t forget to tune in, subscribe, and share this podcast with a friend or family member!

If you'd like to move from self-loathing to self-love as Beverly did, stay tuned for today's episode that is Sure to help you take on the world. And now here's Beverly. Enjoy the show!

Today I have these questions for you to think about. What is your personal brand? How can you make sure it's carrying the message you want it to? So today my guest is Rosie Chong. She's going to speak with me about branding for empowerment. Rosie is a social media and strategy specialist. She's a social media strategist by day and a content creator by night.

She has worked in the digital marketing and advertising world for the last four plus years, developing a passion for all things social media and content. In the last 18 months, she has been on a content creation journey, fueled by a passion to inspire others to do the same building, a combined social media following of 36,000 people.

Oh my word. On LinkedIn building a community of almost 28,000 people. She champions authenticity and content and exemplifies how anyone can build a personal brand regardless of their industry. She is an advocate for mental health, woman's rights, and bringing a voice to those who might not have been heard before.

If you want to feel empowered, ready to brand your way to empowerment and are excited about your potential. Listen to our conversation. Hi Rosie. Thank you so much for being my guest today. It's so good to have you here.

I wanted to be able to have a voice or a platform, and a lot of that started growing up as an Asian in a school that was mostly Caucasian people. And being an Asian woman, you know, just a child was different. I was bullied, I was picked on, and I always sort of looked up and I looked at media, especially in Australia, and there just weren't very many people that looked like me or sounded like me, right?

And I thought, Okay, I wanna be able to do something with that. And so I think that's sort of what, that's always been very deep seated inside of me and sort of became ignited when I've discovered this root of marketing and media and advertising and a world that really excited me. And this idea of how brands communicate with people or how an influencer or a creative could have a voice and how they can build a community.

And I guess that's sort of. My journey started. I mean, you've already touched a little bit in the intro about what I do day to day as a social media strategist and as a content creator. And I think in the last sort of, in the last sort of two years or so when I've been doing content creation, I've really sort of been able to ignite and fuel that passion of, Hey, I wanna help someone else.

I don't want another little girl to feel like I did when I was six and be bullied and be an outlier and be picked on. And that's my biggest sort of driving passion and I think is. Always being part of my life. And I almost felt ashamed of my heritage growing up. I didn't wanna associate being Asian, I didn't wanna associate with my culture.

I just wanted to be a white, everyday Australian. Like my friends were just everyday people. And I realize now that I, I almost regret that cause I love my culture so much. I'm very proud to be Malaysia and South African and I'm very proud to where my parents have come from and that upbringing. But I.

That's a lot of where my journey is centered and a lot of where I find that energy to empower others or to inspire others, and I guess what drives my long term goals with where I wanna go, wherever, whatever career that is or what I'm doing on the side with content or speaking or leading others or coaching or whatever it is.

Bully people to hide behind a avatar or be anonymous or just be a keyboard warrior and not have as many consequences. When you think about bullying in person, there's a lot more at stake, essentially, when your face to face is someone, it can get physical or even just. A lot more pressure, I guess, when it's in person that hopefully it doesn't happen as much.

I know bullying is still very pre prevalent, Right? Which is awful. But I think with social media and with being online, it just is such an easy avenue for so many people to just in three seconds, right? Leave a hateful comment, leave a mean comment, and then they get to carry on with their day and there's a lot less at stake.

And it's sad how easy it is for so many awful people to be. Bullying others, or for those people who are on the reciprocal end being bullied, it's just horrendous.

Yeah. But to go back to kind of the topic we initially talked about, what would you, how would you describe what a personal brand

It doesn't have to be just those things, but it's very much the effort someone's putting in to write the narrative or have control over the narrative. Hey, I wanna be known for this, or I wanna be associated with that. And that's essentially what a personal brand is. It's how someone else views you as that person or what you become associated with, or what you stand for.

For example, it could be Jeff Bezos. Most people associate him with being a ceo, the founder of Amazon, and a businessman that could be his personal brand. Mm.

And a lot of it comes from content. Doesn't mean that you have to be a content creator, you have to be putting content out, but it is a very strong synergy between the two. So because you have content, because you have a platform in LinkedIn, because you have a podcast and you have a company, you've already started building a personal brand.

Whether or not you've done it intentionally or not, which is really awesome.

Something that ties it all together. And that could be the way that you use your voice. It could be a tone of voice. It could be the kind of imagery or the visuals that you are sharing. And it could even be the content pillars or the topics that you talk about. There's someone who's. Quite prominent in my eyes as a really strong person.

A brand called Ellie Middleton, and she's a ADHD and autism advocate. Started on LinkedIn and now she's sort of across Instagram and TikTok, and she talks about ADHD and autism sort of, and in the workplace on all three of her channels. She's very consistent with her fonts, her colors, the way that she shows up, the language that she uses.

I think the most impactful, powerful, and powerful personal brands. Other ones do tile together in some way. If it's really disconnected, it's really hard for an audience, person or viewer, whoever, to really sort of draw those connections easily. And at the end of the day, that's what you want. You wanna make it as easy as possible for whoever is raw viewing or your content.

When it's outside of that, I've been helping people out from. Coaching and mentoring perspective very much with LinkedIn and personal branding. So not as much in the traditional sense of being their social media manager or being their content writer or their copywriter, but I think just giving them the skills and the arsenal that they need to be able to go out and actually have the confidence to create content or actually understand how do I make my personal brand unique?

How do I grow a following? A lot of people, A lot of people that I talk to, I think already have the skills and the knowledge and the passion when it comes to building a brand. They just dunno how to do it. They dunno how to start or they dunno how to keep going in. They're in a bit of a rut. So that's where I come in and help out where I can.

But for someone that doesn't want to write, you don't wanna copy, you can't be bothered, and you much prefer expressing yourself in a vocal or visual manner. Do the podcast like you are, or you could do a video route that could be YouTube or TikTok, or sharing purely just video on LinkedIn or even on Instagram.

I guess the, the benefit to me is working social media is that there's, I can see that there's potential with video on pretty much every social media platform. So even though traditionally LinkedIn's probably more. I guess people think of it more as a text platform and obviously traditionally a CV sort of job hunting professional platform, but there's so many different avenues to be able to film a video and just upload that.

You don't even have to put a long copy with it or a long caption with it, and that means that you can still have that access to be able to build a brand without it necessarily needing to be running long essays or wordy posts. Right. Or something that you don't find joy in.

And that's sort of what, as a family, their personal brand is. Attribute the two and built, and a lot of that can be built from their social media presence. It can be from the TV show. A lot of those have been avenues to essentially for them to help control that narrative when it comes to all of their different brand touches.

Kylie, she's got Kylie Cosmetics, or Kendall has 8 1 8 Tequila. That is more a traditional branding as opposed to necessarily pure personal branding. I mean, you think of a brand, most people will think. A clothing brand or a food chain that's very traditional. It's a brand, it's a company. And so they each sort of have gone down the own roots, but it's in my eyes very intentional that Kendall is known for sort of being fun and outgoing and having an alcohol brand sort of lends itself to that. So it's. A direct representation of her personal brand, I think of very smart. Strategic branding choice. But there's, there's so many different things to branding.

But yeah, I think all of the roots that they've gone down, you know, Kylie, Kylie Cosmetics and Kylie's Swim, that's very much the lifestyle that she wants to be known for, what she goes out and does. And you know, there's lots of different differences between how Kim shows up versus how Kylie shows up versus Kendall.

And they're all sort of known for different things, but. What's really powerful about that and power to Chris Jenner is basically she's made this entire world or bubble that starts with the Kardashians Jenns as a whole, and it's really intriguing. Right. So yeah, a great example of personal branding and branding in general.

I work as an employee under someone else, but I still have a very strong personal brand, something I'm very passionate about. When I started building a personal brand, I was using it as a means to get clients, get leads, and that is something that can work for people that. You could be a founder or an entrepreneur, or you could work for someone else.

So that's one avenue where I think it's really important where you're doing it essentially as part of your job, and it's part of what you need to do as you're nine to five. Another avenue is perhaps you wanna be able to inspire someone else, but it doesn't mean you have to be a founder or an entrepreneur.

It doesn't matter if you're a uni student or a corporate executive or working under someone else. You can still. A brand that doesn't necessarily have an end goal of getting clients or getting leads. It could just be getting more experience and exposing yourself. It could be a way to also maybe change jobs.

I know some people wanna completely pivot careers and positioning yourself on LinkedIn or in a podcast in a certain area that you wanna move into is a really great way to build up a portfolio without necessarily having to go out. Internship or not having the experience when it comes to looking and applying for jobs.

So it's so important to, It doesn't matter where you are. You could be a high school student, you could be an executive, you could be a founder. Personal branding means something different to everyone else. It just depends on what your end goal is and how you portray yourself in doing so. Because I,

Not only look at a resume, but turn to the individual's social media to give a feeling for who they are. And if you're real inconsistent or if you're a wild and crazy party animal and you're going for this stoic, Banking job, . You know, you might wanna think twice about what you put on your, on your pages.

Substance, probably not necessarily the best synergy for a corporate value. Yeah. Or a office place. I totally get that. But yeah, that's the, that's the world that we live in is that most employers in this day and age are probably going to check out your LinkedIn if your Instagram's on public. They can see that if your TOS on public.

Yeah, they can see that. And I think it's fair gain that whatever you put on the internet, anyone else can see. And that could be your parents or an employer or a potential partner. I think that's the challenge with the internet is that everything is just, Everything's just there. Yeah.

Mm-hmm. , and then I think of TikTok and Instagram as being for a younger market, and Facebook being for an older market. Does that sound. Is that crazy

There's always gonna be a percentage on each platform. TikTok and Instagram definitely do cater towards that. Gen Z, millennial, younger people. Facebook does tend to skew more towards an older demographic, and LinkedIn does definitely skew towards a professional. Audience. But I think what's fascinating about LinkedIn is that it still has quite a broad target audience.

I think their core audience is like 20 to 45, which is spanning at several different age groups. But yeah, pretty much, pretty much correct on the, on the nose of that one with the, the different sort of, I guess, key demographics of the key users per platform.

Personal pictures like they would have on Facebook? Is that a trend?

I think about a, a year and a half ago, maybe two years ago, it was a little bit cringy. People were like, What are you doing? And I still get comments. This is in Facebook, but at the end of the day, yeah, things are changing. The definition of professional is changing, and LinkedIn's becoming more of a content social media platform and not just a place where you can apply for jobs and put your work experience so, It's as much a trend as I also think it's here to stay for a bit.

Much like Facebook went through a phase of people sharing statuses, and then it became company meme pages, and now it's definitely a lot more sort of funny videos and advertising. Same with Instagram. It started with sharing static images. It's now almost like a shopping eCommerce platform. Things evolve with platforms, and I think that's just what LinkedIn's going through now.

I wanna be an inspiration to younger generations, and so I'm. Instead of waiting for someone to give it to me, I'm empowering myself through taking the reins and creating content, creating my own voice, creating my own opportunities. So that's one, one really great way to be able to use content or personal branding to empower yourself.

It can also be a way to, it can almost be therapeutic in a way. I share a lot of personal things such as mental health as we touched on as you touched on right at the. , and it can be a way to heal yourself or as a way to feel better or find peace, or as an outlet. Some people speak to their therapist, some people journal.

Some people write everything down, and it never sees the day of light. I sometimes use LinkedIn as a way to say, Hey, this is my experience. This is why I've learned, and I can help someone else. So it's not only empowering and strengthening yourself, but it can then also empower community and it can empower others as well.

I think what, what the biggest sort of synergy between them is, or the biggest relationship between them both is you are in control and you get to say what is posted. You get to control the narrative of how it's written or the video that gets posted. And that is, I think, the biggest thing. You get to take the reins and say, Hey.

I wanna start my business, so I'm gonna start posting content, or I want to move into tech from advertising. I'm gonna start learning and documenting my journey or connecting with thought leaders and other people in the industry. It's, that's the most powerful thing that goes not just on LinkedIn, but beyond.

Social media, it goes into any sort of form where you get to be in charge of what you're sharing and speaking about. Gotcha.

So you could be going down that route. So firstly, identifying what is your big driving factor, What is your big goal? In my opinion, it can't just be as fickle as, Oh, I want 10,000 followers. You need to have something that can really drive you on. This is sustainable. The second one, I think is, Being a lurker essentially, or just being a learner.

And that is in the sense of cool, some people are gonna have the confidence and skillset to be able to just start posting. Amazing. I love that. But I know a lot of people struggle with that confidence or they're a little bit nervous or they don't know where to start. Maybe they dunno how to film the video or they don Dunno how to write a long post, whatever it is.

Right. Sit and learn for a bit. And this could. Reading books in what you wanna be posting about. It could be connecting with other content creators on the platform. It could be listening to a podcast. It could even be going to a seminar or a workshop. I think digesting that and being inspired and learning from other people and seeing what's working or seeing where there's a gap or where you could have your unique point of view and seeing that, and then starting to think, Okay, I've got my idea.

That's probably the second step. And the third one I think is just stop doubting yourself and start. A lot of people talk about wanting to build a following, wanting to build a personal brand or wanting to change careers, but then they never do it. They always could or should or would. They're always jealous of other people or just wishing that they had done something.

Just start. There is never going to be a perfect time or a right time. You're never gonna have the perfect microphone or the perfect first post. Maybe it's not even the perfect photo. If you just start and you just push that self doubt aside, which is easy said than done, just do it. Whatever it is, whether it's a LinkedIn post or you wanna start a book or you wanna start a company, just make that first step and then it just gets easier from there.

So I think it's just taking away that fear or having someone that can hold you accountable and just saying like, Yeah, I back myself at the end of the day. There's no one else in the world that knows you better than yourself. You have to back yourself first for others to believe in you. So you gotta be able to have that confidence or just have that conversation with yourself and say, Cool, I'm gonna mute the little voice in my head of self self doubt, and just do it.

Just give it a try, because otherwise you will always be wishing what if or call a shorter order. Yeah. Yeah. I

And then act like that over and over and over again till I actually feel that way. I love that and. That's one of the things that I really think it's, it's essentially the act as if kind of mantra. Mm. But somehow it takes some of the fear out for me because I know that I'm just, I'm following somebody else who's done it before.

And then as I get more comfortable, I can put more of my own twists and turns and things like that on it. Definitely.

They learn more about who they are, who they aren't, what their voice is, what their voice isn't, what they're passionate about, and maybe their end goal will change, and I think it can help them build from this idea of. Expressing themselves in person or in the workplace to being so much more confident in themselves or in who they are or what they wanna be doing.

And it can help a lot of women just really feel like they don't have to just listen to someone else and they sure, like I, I have a boss, I'm so employed and I love that, but I'm a hundred percent in charge of my own personal brand, and I feel so much more confident to have an opinion. I feel so much more confident knowing that I can impact someone else's life or that I can reach my goal.

And I think I was filled with self doubt when I first started. I didn't think I'd ever be able to inspire someone or have a following or. Be a mentor or a coach, but for me, it's gone from this pipe dream to a reality, and I've done that through personal branding, through experience, through connecting with mentors, through connecting with people that have given me incredible opportunities that I never would've had if I hadn't started building a personal brand.

I think the biggest thing I've learned from building a personal brand, and in my case it's mostly LinkedIn, is. Not everyone's gonna hand you life on a silver platter. People aren't gonna come to you, right? If you're not putting stuff out into the universe or putting content out. So you can't just wait for someone to give it to you.

Sure. There are some people that are very lucky and have everything just planned out for them, and their whole life is sorted. Amazing. For most people, that's not the reality. So true. True's not true. So building a personal brand can be such a powerful vessel to be able to help you actually achieve that dreams.

Exactly. Like you were saying, Beverly, is that. If you want to be a powerful, successful business lady, then start acting like one, start doing it because no one's gonna give you that chance probably because it's gonna go to someone else that's putting in the effort. You have to try. Yes. You can't just expect that everyone's gonna give it to you, cuz that's just.

Like, it's just not how it works. So take control of it and get going.

We, meaning you, me, the audience do to help women who have self-doubt knew from self-doubt to self love?

And I think. What I've learned is finding a circle of support that's kind of gets it. So I have my main support circle, my partner and my friends and my family, but they're not people that are posted on LinkedIn. So I, I had to start to, to people that really understood what I was going through and it could give me really specific.

Confidence, advice, support when I needed it. That went beyond just a, Oh, I'm so sorry that you've had a hard day, which I get from my friends and my family, but I needed someone that was very much specific to personal branding or LinkedIn or being bullied online or whatever it was, right? And it was basically putting out in a way that almost attracted the same sort of people to me.

So I was putting out that I was being positive. I. Leaving messages, support and others, which I then started seeing would come back to me. So I think the way to be able to go from that self doubt to that confidence and to be able to get support from others and to no longer feel inadequate or compare ourselves to others is finding a group of people that are very genuine and very trustworthy.

You can really be comfortable with and connect with. And they can very much just empathize and sympathize of, Hey, I've also been bullied on LinkedIn. And I can say, Oh, me too. I really get it. But my boyfriend has never been bullied on LinkedIn cuz he doesn't post on social media as much as he can empathize of Oh, that, that's really awful.

He hasn't been through it. And I think that's something that you can connect with on such a deeper level with other women that have. And then I think at the end of the day, just. Stop tolerating people that are putting you down. I've had my run of bad managers or toxic women in my life who are just always being patronizing or comparing yourself or making you feel worse about yourself.

It's very much like you have control of your own personal brand. You also have control of the people that you can get rid of in your life. You can change jobs, you can stop talking to someone. You can block someone online. So it's not no longer being scared of the but what if Or having that people place mindset, right?

And just thinking, you know what, It's not serving me mentally or physically or spiritually or whatever. In what capacity? It's not serving you. It's just not worth the energy. Just cut 'em out, have that conversation, or just block them, whatever you need to do for yourself. And then just, yeah, really, really put the energy and prioritize that circle of people that you know will a hundred percent have you back.

I don't, you know, I don't know what to do about bullying. Do you have any advice for those younger

Or, how do I navigate, you know, if I have a bad boss or if I have work right. Troubles or whatever it. It's pretty normal. You're not alone. And that's okay. I think in terms of then navigating that and sometimes you just have to ride the wave. I've very much gone through awful friendship breakups or toxic bosses or whatever, and it, I think the biggest regret is holding onto the oh but but.

What if it gets better? Or making a list of excuses, and so I. Don't be scared to speak up. Don't be scared to challenge someone, but it's easier said than done. So I think starting on a small scale, so it could be starting by talking to your best friend going, Hey, I'm really struggling with this boss at work.

Do you have the advice or speaking to a therapist? Speaking to a partner or your, your work bestie, find one or two people or a handful of people that you can sort of start sharing and acknowledging what's going on. You can almost get that sense of yeah, validity that you're not making it up again. It's not in just in your head.

Most cases are that women really doubt themselves or they doubt whatever's going on. They make excuses because they just wanna fit in. They don't wanna cause controversy or anything. So just know that you're not alone. Know that there are people that you can trust, and then when you, it does feel like you need to take action.

It could be changing jobs, it could be cutting out a friend. You just need to understand that the uncomfortable conversation is only gonna last so long, and that the impact after where you get to enjoy life without that toxicity or without that negativity is going to far outweigh the awkward conversation and it's gonna happen.

Awkward conversations are hard or challenging. Conversations are hard. But just think about what's coming next. I know it can be really hard and I've, I've gone through this of just being stuck in this overwhelming state of I can't have this call. I can't, I can't quit my job. Oh, I can't, I can't face them to, Right.

You know, have a friendship breakup, but just think about how much happier you are gonna be if that person's outta your life. Yeah. Or if you change your situation.

Rosie Chong, just as one that username. Same on both platforms and. If you're looking for another podcast to listen to after all of Beverly's episodes, cuz they are incredible . I'm, You can find me on Spotify or Apple Podcast at, It's a definite maybe as well.

You can find our podcasts wherever you listen on Apple, iTunes, Spotify, and more. Please subscribe and share to the episodes. The more we can share and reach other women, the more we can help improve their situation and reduce the time it takes to learn what I have about the journey. I don't want any other women to have to take as long as I have to learn and feel empowered.

Your path to self-empowerment is unique to you. Every challenge or hurdle will teach you something about yourself and make you stronger, moving you from self-expression to confidence and self-empowerment. The more you express yourself, the better you feel. Self-expression doesn't have to be a mystery, is your key to confidence and self-empowerment, both on the inside and out.

But most importantly, remember that you don't have to do it alone. I'm here to help. Thank you and take care.