Do you want to build your personal brand? Don’t know how to promote your personal brand like a pro? don’t worry, in this article I have clearly explained proven techniques to build authentic personal brands that will truly represent you as an industry expert.
Creating a personal brand is one way of ensuring to remain relevant in the business world and also a way of showing that you are an industry expert. However, there are a number of elements and requirements that are vital when building a personal brand. It is clear that personal branding has the ability to change the life of an individual in the corporate world, so if you want to build a strong personal brand, take the following advice into account.
The world we live in today is hyper-competitive. What makes the market even more cut-throat is social media and online presence. In a flash of a second, people will form opinions, give reviews, or judge your business based on whatever information they get online.
This is where personal branding can help you out. We often mistake personal branding to be something that is restricted to celebrities. However, whether you are a recent graduate, an entrepreneur, or a small business owner, you must focus on building your brand.
Why is it important to work on your brand? Statistics do all the talking. People with strong persona branding set themselves up for success. Employers, clients, and businesses use social media and search engines to find more information about you.
Here are a few personal branding tips for you to get moving!
1. Create an Unique Mark
To begin with, a brand can be defined as a unique mark that does not resemble any other business, thus bringing out the aspect of identification of a particular item. From this, personal branding can be defined as a way of developing a personal uniqueness that separates a person from other people. Think the brand you want to build or about the one you already own and ask yourself this question: is it distinguishable from the rest? Does it bring a certain value to the world?
Seth Gobin is the best example of creating an unique mark, his writing style is very unique where he convey the important message in a small piece of content.
When building a personal brand, one should be aware that the brand will be a reflection of the business. When an individual decides to create a personal brand, he should be fully aware that this brand will resemble his public image. This means that the brand should be appealing to the public. Also, it should be able to pinpoint the creator’s areas of interest. It may help develop his passion and pay more attention to this certain area of interest. Lack of passion and interest can be the major causes of the failure of a personal brand, so if you are not sure that this is what you want, re-think your strategy and try to change things as soon as it’s possible.
For example, if during the process of trying to build a design business you realize you are more into marketing, you can easily change the approach. Since it is only at the beginning and your portfolio is not very big, you can propose an alternative strategy to your customers.
2. Ask for Second Opinions
When creating a personal brand, one should try to speak to other people. Speaking to people gives confidence and it’s a source of inspiration when laying the foundation of a personal brand. Additionally, speaking to people helps one develop good communication skills, which are essential when interacting with different groups or with a target audience.
However, when speaking to different people one should be prepared to handle criticism and be judged all ways ranging from negative to positive ways. One of the risks of every business is putting some expectations out there and be judged for it. You may happen to be disappointed but you can also be pleasantly surprised, so do not hesitate to get in touch with people and ask them what they think about a certain aspect of a brand. For instance, if you are not really into asking people for their opinions, you can create a survey or a poll and send them a friendly email asking for a little help.
3. Integrate Technology
In the modern world, when creating a personal brand, one should also focus on integrating technology in this process. This can be achieved by creating a personal domain. Creating a personal website can help one interact with other people who may be interested in the same field. Additionally, one can also advertise his or her expertise in this particular domain.
Advertising through a website can be used as a means of attracting like-minded people and as a platform to get feedback concerning a certain expertise. Various feedback from people can help to improve weakness and maintain the strengths who have been pointed out by various individuals. Technology has become a part of our lives nowadays so missing this point when trying to create a strong personal brand could lead to failure in the long run.
4. Create an Online Presence
To prove you’re an industry expert, try to create an online presence. This can be done through social media. For example, one can decide to create a Twitter, Facebook and a LinkedIn account. Such accounts can help one to update the progress of the company’s work. Additionally, these social media sites can be used to invite people and engage with others that have the same ideas when it comes to a brand’s values, mission or vision. Probably most of your users can be reached through online platforms so it would be a pity not to take full advantages of these platforms. There are a lot of authority websites that put much emphasis on establishing a good online presence.
One other example of such a social media website is Quora, an established a platform where people can assist each other. Through this platform, people can ask questions and receive answers from different quarters. These types of questions also include inquiries about branding, which can prove to be very useful in the long run during the process of building a personal brand.
5. Define Your Target Audience
The first personal branding strategy is to identify your target audience. There are three questions to determine your target audience: What is their demographic profile? What are their goals? What are their issues?
It is significant to remember that not everybody is in your target audience. Moreover, brands that do not have a target audience in mind are unimpressive because they try to please everyone. Your business will flourish only when you align with the right client.
6. Create An Interesting Offer
The next personal branding tip is to offer a solution to a problem. Also, once you know the pain points of your target audience, you will be in a better position to solve their issues.
You need to provide your clients with specific solutions to their issues. This involves making them an offer that they can’t refuse. If you understand your audience well, they will show an interest in your product or service.
7. Optimize Your Personal Website
Building your website is another professional development tip that could help you in your personal branding journey. A unique website will help create a positive first impression of your business, which will eventually help you build your career in a much better way.
It is a known fact that visitors will decide the legitimacy of your business based on the quality of your website. You should ensure that all the necessary details like your logo, contact info, what you offer, call-to-action, and client testimonials are all presented neatly on the homepage.
8. Become A Storyteller
When creating your brand, you need to capture your audience’s attention. Why did you start your business? What expertise do you have? How can you help them?
Your clients will look for answers to these questions. When you share your story with them, it adds a personal touch to your brand. Moreover, try not to bore them with the same content.
Moreover, visitors often come across the same type of information multiple times. You must differentiate your brand by providing authentic, engaging, and valuable content.
9. Build A Content Strategy
One of the best ways for building your personal brand on social media is to provide your audience with free content. By focusing on your content strategy, you will grab more eyeballs, get clients, and become a reputable business.
You can research all the trending topics related to your field, use tools like keyword research, and publish your content on various mediums. Podcasts, personal blogs, social media, e-mails,and YouTube are just just some of the options for you.
10. Improve Quality And Consistency
It is essential to focus on the quality and consistency of your brand’s content. People often mistake quantity for consistency. Rome wasn’t built in a day, so it is advised not to fix the amount of content you release.
Moreover, limited high-quality content is way better than releasing frequent low-quality content.
Hence, you need to adopt a content strategy that helps you in the long run. For this, assume a primary content channel. This could be your blog or social media pages. Furthermore, you can move on to other platforms when you get a good response on these mediums.
11. Build A Community
As noted above, knowing your target audience will take you a step closer to establishing your brand. Over time, you will create a niche for yourself and a community of happy clients.
By having frequent interactions with your clients, giving them regular updates about your business, and forming groups on social media you can accelerate the growth of your community.
Personal branding will decide the opportunities that come to you. For a business,an entrepreneur or a student, this could mean more clients or prospects. Additionally, the professional development tips mentioned above can also help you in building your personal brand at work.
Also, we know that persona branding can seem like an overwhelming task, but you will see the difference it makes to your professional life over time.
12. Staying Informed
In order to stand out as an expert in personal branding, it is also recommended to try and ensure that you keep getting more information about the area of expertise. This can be a great way of creating new opportunities. Also, one should also learn to accept change and adapt to any new modifications, because change is inevitable and it can happen anytime during the process of defining a brand. It is also a means of ensuring to keep up with what is trending to build your powerful personal brand.
Staying informed about what a certain industry you are interested in and showing this to your customers can generate new customers. People follow people who know where they stand and where they’re headed. Also, staying informed means knowing all about your competition. It is very important to be informed about the leaders in the same domain so you can always improve your strategies and try to overcome theirs. In some situations, you can also take them as a role model and evaluate your strategy in comparison to theirs. Learn from the best and you will soon begin to know all about the finest branding techniques.
Eric Enge is a well-known personality in the search marketing industry and I personally love how he analyze and explain complex search marketing updates. He did not just explain the topic, but he proves his analysis by giving different examples of complex problem. Checkout this video where he is explaining the Semantic search and its impact on SEO:
When you want to build a personal brand, try to ensure that you create value and develop something that tends to be outstanding in comparison with others. This can be used as an opportunity to reach a target market. Uniqueness can help create an outstanding personal brand, different from others in that field of expertise. Lastly, do not refrain or give up on a certain venture. Be ready to deal with any form of negativity and try to keep a regular audit of one’s activities in order to ensure consistency and efficiency.
