The next week and a half of downtime during the holidays is a gift to spend with family, friends and your pets but also to focus on YOU!

Here are some ways to build your brand during downtime:

1. Use this time to assess your brand and identify areas for improvement. This could involve updating your website, revamping your social media accounts, or reassessing your target audience.

2. Create valuable content that can be shared during downtimes. This could be blog posts, videos, podcasts or other forms of content that showcase your expertise and add value to your audience.

3. Engage with your audience on social media or through email newsletters. Keep your audience updated on your brand and continue to provide value, even during downtimes.

4. Partner with other brands or influencers to cross-promote your products or services. This can help expose your brand to a new audience and increase your reach.

5. Take advantage of downtime to learn new skills or attend workshops or conferences. This will help you stay current and improve your expertise, which can benefit your brand in the long run. (Check out my YouTube channel for lots of videos!)

6. Use downtime to reflect on your brand and consider new ways to innovate and stand out in your industry. This could involve launching new products or services, or finding unique ways to differentiate your brand.

And for some specific marketing tasks you can take over the next few weeks, here are some ideas:

1. Create a personal marketing plan with only 3 to 5 to-do’s so you can actually accomplish them (I have a template if you need one)

2. Reconnect with former clients and top referral sources

3. Research industry conferences and sponsorships and better yet, submit to speak at them

4. Write a client alert, a blog post or an article – co-author with a colleague, referral source or a client if it seems too daunting to do it alone

5. Set up Google Alerts for top clients and prospects – info is always power. Make sure to set one up for yourself too.

6. Update your web site bio using keywords for SEO – if you don’t say you do it – people think you don’t.

7. Create a LinkedIn strategic plan, which includes updating your LinkedIn profile with keywords and all of the sections, sending 5 connection requests per week, commenting on VIP connections’ posts, sharing a post and writing a post yourself, learning how the LinkedIn algorithm works and learning how to use hashtags.

8. Research your competitors’ marketing activities – what inspiration can you get from them and what can you do better than them?

9. Update practice area/industry descriptions and matter lists – people are googling your firm every day – if you don’t say you do it, they may not think you do.

10. Look at the analytics of past blogs, emails and client alerts – this helps you create stronger content

11. Clean up and add new contacts to your email list and create a plan for a client-centric email newsletter (look at your competitors for inspiration and gaps in the market)

12. Research volunteer opportunities for an industry or bar association committee, social cause and alumni associations – this is a great way to network.

Remember, it’s great time to focus on your business development and branding efforts especially since many of your competitors and peers may not be – use that to your advantage!

Which one of these will you try?