What Is Personal Branding?
Personal branding is the process of creating a brand identity for a person or a company.
Personal branding is an intentional, strategic practice in which you define and express your value proposition. And though people have always carefully cultivated their public personas and reputations, online search and social media have greatly expanded the potential audience for—and risks and rewards associated with such efforts.
Why is Personal Branding Important?
Help you stand out from the crowd
Our brand is how you promote yourself. It is the unique combination of skills, experience, and personality that you want the world to see you. It is the telling of your story, and how it reflects your conduct, behaviour, spoken and unspoken words, and attitudes. You use your branding to differentiate yourself from other people
Leads to Opportunity
Much of professional and personal success depends on persuading others to recognize your value. You have to do this when you apply for jobs, ask for promotions, vie for leadership positions, or write your dating profile. For better or worse, in today’s world everyone is a brand and you need to develop yours and get comfortable marketing it.
Your Audience will trust you more
When people feel like they know who you are and what you stand for, they’re more likely to trust you. That’s because they feel like they have a relationship with you. They know what to expect from you, and that you’re an authority in your field.
Qualities required being a Personal Brand.
Be genuine. It will make it much easier to manage your brand daily.
Be a master of your craft, skillset or industry before starting a personal brand. Then your content will help amplify who you are.”
Focus. Too many people are unfocused when it comes to press and coverage, trying to be “everything to everyone.” Decide what your key message is and stick to it.
Be consistent. Being consistent is very similar to having a narrow focus—it’s much easier to get recognized for one topic if you consistently create content and brand voice around it.
Tell a story. No one wants to hear you shout about your brand into the social media void, so create a story around your brand that your audience can engage with.
Live your brand. “Your brand should follow you everywhere you go. It needs to be an authentic manifestation of who you are and amplify what you believe.”
Let other people tell your story. The best PR is by word of mouth. Personal branding is the story people tell about you when you’re not in the room. All you have in your life is your name and the reputation you garner.”
Leave a legacy. A personal brand is a lifelong project that constantly evolves and changes. Building a personal brand is much bigger than building a business. The only exit strategy is legacy.”
How to build a personal brand?
Blogging – Blogging gives you a creative outlet to share your thoughts, ideas and passions. It’s like having your magazine, where you are both the writer and the editor. You get to decide what goes into your online magazine AND you get to write all the articles to.
Post content on Social Media – Writing content on social media allows you to collect engagement, grow your followers, and expand your reach and impressions, this leads to more engagement and more followers.
Publish a book – Being the author of a book helps establish your name in people’s minds and encourages them to view you as an authority in your field.
Public Speaking – Communication is the backbone of our society. It allows us to form connections, influence decisions, and motivate change.
When you learn something it will be stored in the subconscious mind in an unstructured form. Writing and public speaking help you to understand those concepts in a much better way & to restructure the unstructured information stored in the subconscious mind.
What people avoid personal branding?
Fear of Judgment: People are going to judge you. No matter what you do, there is always going to be a bunch of people who will say nasty things about you. All of us have the fear of negative evaluation. Stay positive and train your brain not to focus on negativity.
Vanity metrics: When the numbers are likes & shares are not growing people get discouraged. To be successful on social media you need to be consistent. The number will grow with time. Set your goals of having a personal brand. Take the necessary steps every day to grow it and to attract the right people.
Fear of trolls and online bullies: Negative people are going to be there. These are the bunch of people who want to discourage you. It is wise to ignore them and keep doing what you are doing.
Don’t compare yourself with celebrities: No one can become overnight success. It is about inspiring people and setting an example for them.
Personal branding is about standing by yourself and your business to command respect and confidence from your peers and customers.