If you’re not sure what personal brand means, it’s the way that you present yourself to others. You can be a wildly successful professional without having a strong personal brand, but if you want to achieve your career goals or grow your business, then building a strong personal brand is worth investing time in.
Discover your unique value.
- Discover your unique value.
What are your strengths and weaknesses? What are your goals and ambitions? What are your passions? What are your skills and knowledge? What are your experiences? What are your values and beliefs? What are your hobbies?
You have to know yourself first before you can market yourself, so be honest with yourself when answering these questions. If you don’t know the answer to one of them, do some research or ask someone who knows you well!
What is your personal brand statement?
Personal branding is about creating and communicating a personal brand statement. A personal brand statement is a foundation for your brand, and it’s what you should use to guide your actions. Your personal brand statement should be clear and concise. It should be memorable and something that people will remember about you in an elevator pitch, as well as something that makes sense for your business or career goals.
Here are some examples of great personal brand statements:
- “I’m excited to help businesses grow by connecting them with customers.” -Austin Kleon (author)
- “I’m here to make the world a better place.” -Elle Woods (Legally Blonde)
Run an audit of your digital presence.
The first step in developing your personal brand is to get a copy of your online archive. This is important because it will allow you to see what content exists across the web when someone searches for your name. It’s also helpful for knowing how much organic traffic (traffic from people searching for keywords) you are getting on search engines, as well as through other places like social media channels.
You can export all this data from Google Analytics which will give you a comprehensive dashboard that shows where most of the popular content about you is coming from and what type of audience engages with it most often.
Create a content plan.
If you want to build your personal brand, you need a content plan.
A content calendar will help you stay on track with what content you should be posting for your personal brand and when.
When building your content calendar, take into account the following:
- Your personal brand statement. A good way to do this is by using the questions we outlined earlier in this article—what problem are you trying to solve? What are the benefits of solving that problem? etc., as they can provide direction for what kinds of topics or ideas you should be focusing on in your blog posts and social media posts. If there’s no clear answer at first, don’t worry! It may take some trial and error before things start falling into place properly. Just remember that if one thing isn’t working out well enough (for example, if all of your blog posts seem too similar), then try making changes until it does work better than before—and then move forward from there!
Have a clear message and be consistent across channels.
You and your brand are one, so it’s important to make sure your message is consistent across all channels. Your personal brand should have a clear message and voice that you use consistently. This will help people recognize you as an expert in your field and build trust with them, so they know they can rely on you for quality content around the topics that matter most to them. Make sure everything from the tone of voice to the images used in social media posts reflects what people expect from you—and don’t ever stray too far from this standard or create confusion about who you are as a person or organization.
Building a strong personal brand can help you achieve your career goals.
It helps you stand out from the crowd, build trust with your audience, and connect with people who are interested in what you have to say. It also helps build your reputation as an expert—and that’s important if you want to be promoted or gain new opportunities at work!
Personal branding is about more than just how people see you—it’s also about how they feel when they’re interacting with you. When people think about what makes up their ideal colleague or boss, they don’t just want someone who looks good; they want someone who communicates well and speaks from a place of authority.
When we think about brands, we often focus on logos or slogans (think Apple), but these things aren’t usually what makes us buy something over another option. Instead, it’s usually the experience that draws us in: whether we feel like our needs will be met by using the product/service or not
Conclusion
The most important thing is to have a clear sense of your personal brand. You don’t have to spend hours writing out every aspect of it and working through all the details, but do spend time considering what you want people to think about when they hear your name or see your face. Connect with other people who share similar values as well as those who disagree with you—this will help you find common ground and learn new perspectives on topics that matter most to you.