Personal Branding

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Personal Branding

Creating personal branding can be a daunting, mythical task. And one of the easiest ways to get lost in the process is not to know where to start.

What Is Personal Branding? Here’s Why It’s So Important

Personal branding is the process of creating a brand identity for a person or a company. As the name suggests, this is a brand for you or your business.
Essentially, it is how you project your brand and its values to the world and ensure that your target audience knows who you are, what you stand for, and why it’s worth choosing you over your competitors.
Personal branding is not just about marketing but about being your marketer.
It is about standing for yourself and your business to command respect and confidence from your peers and customers.

Why Is Personal Branding Important?

In an era where people’s attention spans are getting shorter by the minute, the need to make an impression is more important than ever.
And the best way to do this is by creating a solid and memorable brand identity.
Unfortunately, most business owners do not realise the importance of personal branding because they think it’s much extra work.
However, the truth is that if you want to create a successful business, you must create a successful brand.
People who know you and your business will trust you more and buy more products and services from you.
In our look-at-me cultural shift and evolving job market, it’s helpful and necessary to stand out when applying for a job or starting your own company.
A personal brand is for (almost) everyone.

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So here are 12 of the golden rules for creating an engaging, unique, and inviting personal brand. After this article, you will be able to develop your brand successfully.

Helps One Stand Out from The Crowd

A strong personal brand in today’s competitive job market is more critical than ever.

A personal brand results from what others think and say about you when you’re not in the room. It is your reputation, and it can make or break your career.

So, why is personal branding so important?

For starters, it helps you stand out from the crowd.

In a world where everyone has a degree, employers are looking for candidates with something extra that makes them unique.

By developing a solid personal brand, you can make yourself the one they remember.

In addition, personal branding can help you command a higher salary.

There are many ways to develop a personal brand, but it starts with knowing who you are and what you want to be known for.

By taking the time to define your brand, you can set yourself up for success in your career and beyond.

Leads To Opportunity

We live in a competitive world where everyone vies for the same jobs, clients, and opportunities.

To stand out from the crowd, it’s essential to have a solid personal brand.

A personal brand is the unique combination of skills and experiences that make you who you are. It’s what makes you unique and sets you apart from everyone else.

By developing a personal brand, you’re giving yourself a competitive advantage.

People will remember you and your brand when they look for someone with your skills and expertise.

In addition, a solid personal brand can lead to new opportunities.

When people see that you’re an expert in your field, they’ll be more likely to give you opportunities to collaborate or work on new projects.

Your Audience Will Trust You More

Personal branding is creating an identity for yourself as an individual or business.

This involves developing a well-defined and consistent look, message, and presence online and offline.

You might want to work on your brand for many psychology-based reasons.

For one thing, it can help you build trust with your audience.

Then people feel like they know who you are and what you stand for and are more likely to trust you.

That’s because they feel like they have a relationship with you.

They know what to expect and that you’re an authority in your field.

Personal branding can also help you stand out from the crowd. In a world where everyone tries to get noticed, having a solid personal brand can make all the difference.

Finally, personal branding can help you attract opportunities.

When employers or clients see you have a solid personal brand, they’ll be more likely to consider you for their next project or job opening.

So, personal branding could be the answer if you’re looking to build trust, attract opportunities, or stand out from the crowd.

Measure your success regularly:

Set some KPIs for personal brand success so that you know you are heading in the right direction.

Celebrate even small wins to remain motivated to achieve more.

So, how do you know if you have successfully built a personal brand after doing all this?

Here are a few valuable KPIs that include:

When a sale converts through your blog
When you are asked to speak at an event or on a podcast
When someone refers you to a potential client
When a publication reaches out to invite you to guest blog
When people start mentioning you online, on social media, on their blog or other essential media

People Will Always Screen You Online

In the digital age, personal branding has become increasingly important.

With social media and Google, it’s easy for anyone to find out information about you with just a few clicks.

As a result, it’s essential to be aware of how you are presented online.

Personal branding can help you control the narrative about yourself and introduce yourself in the best light possible.

It’s also a way to stand out from the competition.

In a world where everyone has a website and an online presence, personal branding can help you make yours stand out from the rest.

Personal branding can also help you build trust with potential customers and clients.

If they see that you’re an expert in your field and have a solid personal brand, they’ll be more likely to do business with you.

Therefore, personal branding is essential for anyone who wants to succeed in today’s digital world.

Try and leave a legacy.

Once you’ve built your brand with a reputation and community, the next step is to consider the legacy you’ll leave behind.

What are the keywords and actions that you want to be known for?

A personal brand is a lifelong project that constantly evolves and changes.

Even the experts who build or enhance the biggest brands in the business know that there are no hard-set rules for creating a personal brand.

But these general guidelines help provide first steps, especially if you’re starting a new brand or rebranding.

Be consistent.

Consistent is very similar to having a narrow focus—it’s much easier to get recognised for one topic if you consistently create content and brand voice around it.

You must demonstrate consistency across your communication, gravitas, and appearance.

Don’t underestimate how tiny inconsistencies can derail personal brand effectiveness.

Be Authentic.

When it comes to self-branding, being authentic is essential.

But what the heck does that mean? It means to be yourself.

Everyone’s got their quirk.

Maybe you randomly burst into song in the middle of a conversation.

Or maybe you have a different way of dressing yourself.

There’s something about you that makes you an original.

And if you’re serious about branding yourself, now’s the time to come to terms with your quirkiness.

The truth is that particular trait is what will make you stand out on a planet of 7 billion.

Celebrate your differences and let your true self show.

Step out of the spotlight.

I know it seems counterintuitive, but being in the spotlight all the time can take a toll on your life.

Plus, sometimes people need to miss you for a bit to realise how much they need you in your life.

When building a personal brand, you’ll realise there is a downside to too much attention.

It’s okay to step out of the spotlight to build yourself back up.

Become a Creator.

Some build a personal brand by being controversial.

This can sometimes backfire and result in much negative publicity.

The safer way to create a great personal brand is to become a creator.

Don’t underestimate creativity’s essential when creating your online store, a unique product, or content.

The best influencers are creators and doers. So start that online store, create that YouTube channel, and commit to posting weekly or writing guest articles on notable blogs.

Be an Expert.

Branding yourself can be hard when you don’t have an area of expertise.

Every influencer has a niche.

If you have an online store selling tools, you might want to make sure you’re an expert in carpentry, furniture design or some suitable place.

If you sell car parts, you should probably build up your expertise in the automotive industry so you can provide value.

Another way to look at it is to build a brand around your area of expertise.

Amplify Yourself.

Earlier in this article, we talked about being authentic.

Amplifying yourself is the second step. In a crowded world, it can be hard to stand out.

Amplifying yourself is where you take the essence of who you are and run wild with it.

For example, say you’re a risk taker.

If you want to build a personal brand around how you love taking risks, you might create content of you doing a bunch of daredevil activities.

You might not do something as extreme, but you’d do more extreme activities that the average person wouldn’t do.

How To Get Started Developing Your Brand

One good place to start is by cleaning up your social media accounts.
You can control what your reputation is online, and so you don’t want anything you post on social media to impact your presence negatively.
Another positive place to begin would be to create a personal website.
Use your website not only to build your brand but to add value to your audience.
This platform showcases your skills and experience and shares valuable advice with your audience.
Please create a logo and theme for yourself and keep it consistent throughout all your social media profiles.
Define who your audience is and devise a content strategy with them in mind.
Publish compelling content that will draw in your audience and keep them coming back for more because your content adds value to their lives.
Consider creating specialised, personal content you can give your audience in exchange for their email address; this is a great way to build your email list.

The Most Effective Process For Building A Personal Brand

We have established that personal branding is the process of presenting yourself as a marketable brand.
As you start to go through the stages of creating a personal brand, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. But before you throw your laptop on the ground, take a deep breath.
Think of building your brand and personal branding as an ongoing process that can be broken down into the digestible phases.
You don’t have to go from an inactive Facebook user to a top influencer on Snapchat.
This isn’t an overnight process, and the objectives and specifics look different for everyone.

Below we’ve gathered the most important tips on how to build a personal brand with long-term success in mind. This entire personal branding process can be broken down into 3 pillars:

Pillar 1: Building a basic brand
Pillar 2: Building credibility & an audience
Pillar 3: Targeting Opportunities

Pillars of a strong personal brand

Pillar 1: Building a Basic Brand: Looking the part

Build an online presence that reinforces your qualifications. When someone looks you up online, they need to see a strong presence with fresh content in your area of expertise. To look the part, you will need to:

Audit your search results
Clean up any content that doesn’t fit your desired image
Define yourself and your personal brand
Build an online presence that reflects your brand and expertise
Follow a personal branding strategy and stick to timelines

Audit Your Search Results

Before you build a personal brand, you need to know where you stand in search results.

Google yourself, so you know what others see when they look you up.

Is an article from a high school play you were in 12 years ago your first result followed by your aunt’s travel blog from 2002? While these aren’t terrible results, they aren’t relevant, and could be hurting you.

Don’t worry about what you find.

While some results may cause a knee-jerk reaction, keep looking. You have to know everything that you’re dealing with before you can come up with an effective personal branding strategy.

Identify what search results or online content attached to you can damage your reputation.

If you’re worried about how long this will take, sign up for our DIY tool. Our software will instantly scan your search results for potentially damaging information.

Clean Up Risky Search Results & Social Media Posts

Once you know what kinds of search results are closely attached to your name, you can take steps to remove them. Start with the easy wins.

You can simply unpublish or delete posts, images, videos, comments, etc.. Take some time going through your social media profiles and website(s).

Get rid of anything that doesn’t fit your vision for your personal brand.

Clean-up can sometimes be tough, even if you’re not particularly active on social media. That’s because there’s always the chance that a post, comment or picture from years ago could come back and sabotage your personal branding strategy (even if you didn’t write or post it).

Define Yourself And Your Personal Brand

After you clean up existing web properties, you can start thinking about the personal brand you are trying to build. Create your own personal brand online by identifying the unique elements that make you you.

What is your personal brand? What do you want to achieve by putting effort into how you look online?

When figuring out how to start your brand online, ask yourself questions like:

Who are you?
What makes you unique?
What is your vision for your personal brand?
What is your goal with personal branding?
What are your professional goals?
Who is your audience? Who can you help?
How can you help them? What makes you different?
What’s your X Factor? What makes you reliable? Trustworthy?
How do you prove that? What’s the evidence?

In addition to these kinds of questions, start thinking about your accomplishments and gather any supporting materials that can reinforce them. What are your short and long-term goals for your personal branding strategy?

Before you build your brand, think about (and find examples of) the information you will want to share about your own successes.

Showcasing Your Skills And Accomplishments

You’ve just finished thinking about your goals and what differentiates you from others. Now it’s time to hone in on showcasing your assets.

You can do this by:

Writing out the accomplishments that make you proud
Listing moments when others recognized you and your work publicly
Thinking of times, other people acknowledged your work privately

Whether you’re building a personal brand while: applying to schools, job-searching or just trying to increase your network and earning potential, take some time to answer the questions above for yourself.

Think holistically about what you are projecting and the impression that you want to leave with anyone who searches for you online.

Spend time reflecting on who you are and what you want to highlight through your personal brand.

Building An Online Presence That Reflects You And Your Expertise

Just to recap, you should have the following written out somewhere:

A clear outline of your brand
Short and long-term personal branding goals
Your unique qualities, talents, areas of expertise
Your accomplishments

Once you feel confident, it’s time to start building an online presence that people find easy and leaves a great impression.

A Strong Foundation Of Sites And Profiles

To have a strong online presence, you must build the sites and profiles you want people to find. This involves having a strong combination of personal websites and professional profiles. What does a strong foundation look like?

1 Personal Website
10-12 Professional profiles

You need to build these because each page of search results typically shows at least ten results.

By taking control of at least 10-12 properties, you give yourself the chance to curate those key search results on the first page of Google. And what is a personal brand without visibility?

Make your personal brand stand out

When choosing which profiles to build out for your personal branding foundation, we suggest that you select at least 10-12 from the following list:

Personal Website
LinkedIn
Twitter
Facebook
YouTube
BrandYourself
Vimeo
Tumblr
SlideShare
Medium
me
CrunchBase
Pinterest
Quora
Instagram (while this is not as strong for Google search, it is an excellent networking tool and a place to showcase your personality)

Optimize profiles for your personal brand

Optimize the existing sites and social media profiles you control for search engines and people looking you up online.

To optimize these properties for search engines:

Use your full name on all profiles and domains (be consistent with the name you go by)
Write in the third person when you can
Fully fill out all profiles
Include your location when possible
Include relevant keywords in meta-data
Take advantage of h1 tags
Personal branding link foundation

If you have an amazing personal brand, but no one sees it, it’s not helping you. That’s where strategy comes in.

Personal Branding Strategy And Timelines

When it comes to getting started with your own personal branding project, it’s easy to get a lot done quickly.

Phases of personal brand creation:

Building
Auditing
Clean up
Optimization
Content Creation
Monitoring

Depending on the current search results for your name, some of the sites and profiles you build might start to rank pretty quickly.

However, in most cases, it takes time for Google and other search engines to index these profiles.

Typically, indexing takes 2 to 6 weeks, but that doesn’t mean that your new account will automatically shoot to #1 when someone looks up your name.

Search engine optimization and personal branding are part of an ongoing strategy that depends on your consistent updates and regular engagement across platforms.

You will see incremental changes over time.

Pillar 2: Building Credibility

Use your personal brand to get credible placements in relevant third-party publications and channels to syndicate your content.

In addition to ongoing content creation that you publish on sites and profiles you control, it’s critical to show others (and search engines) that you are relevant and knowledgeable. Publishing on well-respected and high-quality platforms helps establish this kind of credibility.

Writing strategic content in the right places.

As you get used to creating content (blog posts, images, infographics, videos, audio clips or a podcast, presentations, status updates, etc.), start to publish it in places where interested parties in your field will see it.

Whether that means publishing on LinkedIn, Medium, or a super niche site devoted to a particular aspect of your field, do it!

By finding your audience, you have the opportunity to create and share something directly with the people who will get the most out of it.

And don’t be afraid to reach out to other well-regarded thought leaders in your industry to see if your work can appear on their sites and profiles as well.

How to build your personal brand through third-party placement

As you start your personal branding campaign, try a combination of pitching to third parties and getting your content syndicated.

When it comes to guest blogging – or creating new content for another platform, consider the following points:

Understand the audience and content typically found on that platform
Pick out the top-performing content
Replicate aspects of what made that perform so well

Data is your friend

Keep track of the engagement that your content receives on different platforms. See if you can recognize any patterns in the type of content that tends to do well on some platforms and not so well on others.

Consider what day of the week and what time of day you post content. Use the tools at your disposal to see if you can recreate those successful posts and avoid those people don’t want to engage with.

Stay organised

In addition to using different tools to help you analyze the performance of the articles, updates, tweets, comments, videos, photos, etc., that you’re posting, consider using social media management tools to make life easier when sharing content consistently. While organic posting is important, don’t be afraid to make your life easier using tools like Hootsuite or TweetDeck.

Pillar 2.2: Effective Personal Branding By Strategically Building An Audience

Start building a relevant audience of “opportunity gatekeepers” on key social media platforms and publications.

Determine the gatekeepers of your opportunities

First, identify what your goals are:

Who is your target audience?
Where are the best places to connect with these people?
What kinds of content interests them?

Once you identify this, you can figure out who you need to get in touch with to get in front of that audience and accelerate your personal branding campaign.

Make your brand stand out by getting endorsements or even mentions from respected industry leaders. Who really has the power regarding exposure and endorsement of your brand?

Look to people in your industry who are highly successful and visible on social media. But also look for the best platforms to connect with your audience. Get creative when it comes to asking influencers in your field for help.

Start with who you know.

Not everyone you know will fit into the “strategic audience members” bucket for your personal branding efforts. However, there’s a good chance that you already know many people who are interested in your area of expertise who want to help you and see you succeed.

When you’re starting out, connect with these kinds of folks online since you’ve already developed a relationship with them in real life.

Keep track of these key players because you may have special content, information or opportunities for them as you build your brand. These are the people who can share your brand with other interested people that they know. This is an important facet of audience building.

Connect with gatekeepers & influencers via social media & strategic publications

Find inspirational influencers and mentors who align with what you’re trying to accomplish.

Connect with and follow them using the personal branding tools at your disposal. An easy place to start is by looking at the people recommended to you or “also searched” (depending on the platform), when you look at a profile of a thought leader you admire.

You can also do a quick Google search for the top influencers within a given industry. Plenty of lists online outline the “top people to watch” or “top people to follow”. Do a quick search of “Top [industry] influencers on Twitter/LinkedIn/etc.” and go from there.

Start by focusing on people in your industry, but don’t be afraid to learn more about people from other disciplines who embody something about your brand.

Whether you end up speaking directly with these influencers or not, you can learn a lot by watching how they (or their team) execute their branding strategies.

In addition to connecting with the people succeeding at goals similar to yours, make sure that you also connect with relevant publications, forums and news sources specific to your industry.

Pay attention to the tone and type of content published there, especially items with great engagement metrics.

Figure that out so that an editor will take an interest when you pitch a piece there.

Pillar 3: Nurturing your audience for personal branding opportunities

Make unique, high-quality content to stay top of mind with your audience and to win more professional opportunities. You never know exactly how or when a piece of content you publish will resonate with a potential business partner, client or employee – so keep at it.

Branding yourself as an active thought leader in your industry opens the door to many possibilities. This includes (but isn’t limited to):

Speaking gigs
Jobs
Partnerships
Blog exchanges
Interviews
Mentorships
Promotions

If you opt-out of consistently developing your personal brand and engaging online, you are choosing to limit potential growth in your career. None of these opportunities your audience presents will last if you don’t have the talent and drive to support the person you illustrate through your personal brand.

But, if you have the skills, why not open as many doors as possible for yourself? And that starts with personal branding, actively connecting, and building your audience.

How To Cultivate Your Brand With Advanced Audience Building Techniques

When it comes to developing your brand, visibility is a necessity. In addition to the initial steps suggested in Pillar 3, make a consistent, ongoing plan to ensure “personal branding recognition”. Again, steps you can take to increase your visibility online by strategically working with your audience include:

Outreach
Networking
Ongoing engagement
Ongoing content creation
Link building
Advanced keyword strategy

This process blends best practices and proven strategy when creating a personal brand that showcases your strengths and increases your earning potential.

Outreach

This is a broad topic, but it refers to contacting people, organizations, news sources, etc., that you think would interest you or your work.

Outreach can range from tweeting at someone to sending a message on LinkedIn to cold calling, emailing, pitching and more. Your goal in outreach is to create “brand awareness” in others.

Networking

While “networking” usually elicits groans and eye rolls, it doesn’t have to.

When done well, networking is about making a sincere connection with another person that can develop into a mutually beneficial relationship. It’s as simple as that. Personal branding tactics don’t always have to scale to be powerful.

You already have a network, so when it comes to growing your audience and creating personal brand awareness, think about people you’d like to reconnect with and new people to bring into your orbit.

Really listen to what they’re up to, and check in with them regularly. Avoid using people when networking. Instead, focus on finding good, hard-working people, that you respect and who may have some overlap in your industry or desired profession. While “networking” meetups and conferences exist, it doesn’t have to be so formal if that’s not your style.

Just find events in real life or online relevant to your industry and talk to people.

Ongoing engagement

Publishing high-quality content isn’t enough. You must regularly engage on these platforms to keep your existing audience interested and attract more people to your brand.

Respond as best as you can to the comments, questions and content directed at you from your audience.

If you don’t acknowledge the different ways people are choosing to interact with you online, your brand may come off as out of touch and inaccessible.

While you don’t have to craft long responses to everyone who comments on your Facebook page, respond when you can. And if you notice general trends in questions and posts, acknowledge that and respond publicly.

In addition to engaging directly with your growing audience, publicly engage with people and prominent news sources in your industry. From commenting on articles to retweeting people you admire, it’s important to demonstrate that you are active in the conversation in your industry.

Ongoing content creation

When developing a personal brand, regularly updating your profiles and website(s) with fresh content is a must. Consistent content creation positively impacts three channels of your overall personal branding strategy:

Search engine optimization
Personal brand development
Audience engagement and growth

Search Engine Optimization

From an SEO perspective, high-quality content people engage with shows search engines that your property (and that particular video, blog post, photo, etc.) is valuable. Over time, this translates to an increase in authority, which mimics the authority you aim to grow with personal branding.

Sites that search engines view as “high authority” outrank their competition … which means that when people look you up online, they’re more likely to click on that link as opposed to those ranking below it. When people find this profile or piece of content, they are exposed to engaging information and see your positive personal brand which may increase your audience numbers.

In short: Ongoing content creation + optimizing your properties for search engines = higher authority = best chance at ranking high in SERPs = Better chance of people finding you = successful personal branding.

Personal Branding Development

After you’ve created and optimized a strong foundation of profiles and websites, you still have to keep them fresh by updating them with new content to keep your branding campaign heading in the right direction.

Here’s why:

Demonstrate that your brand is part of your industry’s current conversation
Present your brand voice as relevant
Reinforce your brand values through examples

Audience engagement and growth

Another critical reason for ongoing content creation is, that it nurtures your existing audience and encourages new audience acquisition.

Nurture existing audience

Content creation with personal branding in mind reinforces the aspects of your brand that audience members enjoy with each post.
Provide value to those who are already on your team
Encourage the existing audience to engage more frequently with your properties
Increase the likelihood that your audience will follow your calls to action, which is the main purpose of personal branding at the end of the day
Sharing new content regularly gives you the chance to see what your audience responds to and improve their experience with your brand accordingly

Expand your audience

New content is a must when pitching to news publications, blogs and magazines – getting placed exposes you to an entirely new audience.
Increase your chances of being featured and then discovered by a new audience on social media
Tailor new content to target emerging demographics that should know about your brand but don’t yet.
New content increases the likelihood that your current audience will share something with potential new members.

Link building

By growing your audience with personal branding, you increase link-building opportunities.

Link building is a search engine optimization tactic where you try to earn links to your website or social media profile from another site. The value of these links increases based on the site’s authority linking to you.

In other words, a link to your website from the New York Times is much more valuable than a link to your site from a spammy website that doesn’t rank well.

There are two main benefits of effective link building. The first is that you will earn referral traffic from the site that links to you, bringing your brand more exposure. The second is that new links to your site give it a greater chance of ranking highly for your target keywords.

These can be links to your home page so you can rank for your name or links to a specific page on your site so that it might rank for its own set of keywords (more on this in #6).

As you connect with the new community that you’ve built through personal branding, the opportunity for link building will undoubtedly present itself.

Expanding your audience and developing your personal brand increases the potential for link building. As you start to collaborate with others (many of whom may come to you or you’ll find through your network and audience), you start the process of link building if they agree to link to your site from theirs. You can use many advanced link-building tactics in your branding strategy, but for now, stick with the basics.

In addition to SEO value, the process of link building takes advantage of your current audience and expands your reach to a new one.

Advanced keyword strategy

Don’t shy away from a keyword strategy when it comes to capturing your target audience and growing your personal brand. If you look at the top personal branding experts, most of them are comfortable with the basics of keyword research.

Use free tools like Google Adwords and Keyword Planner to create a list of words related to your brand and industry. Using tools like these lets you investigate the volume of searches for specific keywords.

So what? You may ask. By researching words related to your industry, you can find specific keywords or phrases (long-tail keywords) that a subset of your desired audience is searching for.

The search results currently ranking for those keywords probably aren’t that competitive. By choosing content topics carefully and optimizing the content properly, you can likely get your piece ranking for that keyword.

Even if only 100 people look up that term per week, you’ll get a significant portion of those people to view your content once it’s ranking in the first or second spot of search results.

While this takes research, patience and awesome content, an advanced keyword strategy gets new people to discover you organically and help the audience you’ve built with personal branding continue to grow over time.

In conclusion:

A business is nothing without a personal brand behind it.
However, this does not mean you must forsake your business for your brand.
Instead, it would be best to have a clear and purposeful strategy for the two.
Personal branding can only be successful if backed by a strong business strategy.
If your plan is weak, your brand is already defeated before it has even begun.
When you integrate your business and personal brands, you have a powerful branding combination that can help you reach your goals faster and easier.
Building a personal brand can help elevate your business to new heights.
By following a combination of the personal branding tips, such as being authentic, consistent and social, you help increase your chances of success in your career.
I know it can be scary to put yourself out there, but the reward is much greater than the risk.
You can have the power to make an impact in the world.
Your legacy lies in your hands.

Creating the right personal brand will not only help you be known in your field and consistently land work, but it could be the difference between “Who are you?” and “Thank you for being here” in your career.

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