Whether it’s a brand that’s unveiling its newest entrant or a candidate pursuing his dream job; Personal Branding is for everyone.
Personal Branding is more than just another buzzword coined by the burgeoning personal development industry. Rather, it is a potent concept with immense practical applications, which enables every professional to build on their core competencies, inherent strengths and unique expertise to create a distinct personal brand. This, in turn, helps them to stand apart from others, thereby ensuring immediate recall value in the minds of their peers, potential employers, or customers.
A personal brand represents one’s values, ideas, and personality. It stimulates the exact and meaningful perceptions that one identifies with as a person.
A personal brand helps one stand out from the rest especially when it comes to the spheres of influence within business circles. It is the way that one presents himself to potential clients, fans and followers – online and offline.
Here’s a guide on how to build a personal brand
Decide on your brand identity
Identity is crucial in branding. People need to understand what you stand for and what you can offer them. People are always looking for brands that can help solve their problems or provide leadership. You have to let your target audience know what your personal brand can do for them. How you brand yourself is how they will identify with you. Here is a guide to help you create an amazing brand name.
Own and claim your name online
The name that you choose to use on both your website and on your social media accounts ought to reflect your brand. Professionalism is key if you want people to take you seriously and also if you want to attract the right kind of audience.
Choose your social media platforms
Contrary to what many people believe, you don’t have to be active across all social media platforms. Start with just a few and probably work your way up depending on the need. Identify where your core audience is active and begin there.
Content plan
Once you have identified the social media platforms for your personal brand, you now need to develop a content plan. Remember, you’ve now opened a communication avenue between you and your target audience so you must ensure that you keep them consistently engaged with relevant content. Your content plan, therefore, needs to have a mix of educational, informative, thought-provoking, problem-solving and most important of all, social content.
Get featured in the media
Media exposure is key to building your personal brand. Look for opportunities that will generate positive publicity in the media. Take advantage of the various avenues available such as interviews, thought-leadership articles, op-eds, and pictorials. Ensure that you have a plan in place that outlines the different media opportunities that you can use to create awareness about your personal brand.
Use videos
You can create quality videos with great content that can be used to market your personal brand. Share it with your target audience on prominent platforms such as Google, LinkedIn, and Facebook.
Answer relevant questions on Quora
Quora is a popular public platform that you can use to showcase your expertise in your field or profession. By participating in this forum, you gradually develop a following that will always look up to you for tips and advice on related issues. This is a good opportunity to position your personal brand as a problem solver.
Publish an e-book
If you can, consider writing and publishing an e-book. This is a good avenue to position your brand strategically within your industry. Identify a niche that you can authoritatively speak on and share your experiences with your target audience.
Collaborate with others
As you build your personal brand, you will also build and expand your network. Identify people who share your vision or ideas and collaborate with them. It can be through publishing an expertly written blog, op-ed, or working on a project that will benefit both you and your target audience. This way you tap into each other’s audiences and hence expand your respective customer bases.
Get media trained
Whilst you build your personal brand it will be worth your while to learn how to deal with the media. This can be tricky because the media can either make or break your brand. It is, therefore, crucial to get media trained and equip yourself with the right skills to handle media.
Getting media trained is also important because it enables you to speak in a manner that makes people notice. It helps you articulate your key messages in a way that can be easily understood.
Personal branding is essential, and it starts from the mind eventually coming out through careful nurturing. Are you ready to take the plunge towards building a personal brand?
Get in touch with our team now!