With an ever-expanding number of different online platforms, building your personal brand has never seemed so easy, or so you thought. As more and more people attempt to market themselves, the biggest challenge becomes how to make yourself stand out amongst the crowd.
To help accomplish this, we’ve listed some brand building tips below.
The Importance of Your Personal Brand
In order to start building your personal brand, you need to first understand why it is important. Personal brands can help you get that promotion, find a new job or expand your network.
An apt definition of a personal brand was summarised by Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos; “Your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room.”
Your personal brand is not something that you can fabricate, it has to be honest and reflect you. Ironically, that’s not to say that your personal brand is all about you. In order to be effective, your personal brand needs to highlight what you can do for other people and the value that you bring into your industry. That leads us on to our brand-building tips!
Personal Brand Building Tips
1. Be Specific
If people cannot immediately identify what your personal brand is about your efforts will be mostly ineffective.
The significance of this tip is highlighted by Juan Felipe Campos, VP of technology and partner at Manos Accelerator, who says; “Keep your message and content consistent to one niche topic to become memorable within a targeted community.” Having a specific personal brand will make you memorable.
A good way to determine whether your personal brand is focused enough is to practice your elevator pitch. The ‘elevator pitch’ is used by professionals in every industry, from filmmakers to tech professionals, when networking and meeting new clients. Your pitch should emphasise two key things: your technical knowledge, and your ambition. Lasting no longer than a minute – the ride of an elevator – your pitch needs to be brief but engaging.
2. Determine Your Audience
A particular tip that comes up a lot when researching personal brands, is the relevance of defining your audience. Not everyone is going to show an interest in your personal brand, but that’s okay because the Digital Marketing Institute have outlined 3 key audiences that you need to specifically target with your personal brand. The first is your line manager; the person that you report to day-to-day. Although this might seem obvious, because, of course, your line manager would know all about your personal brand, this tip is about you getting to know them. If you are able to clearly define what motivates your manager, then you can determine exactly how they can help you to achieve your goals, and vise versa. The second audience you need to define is the person who regulates your line manager. This person may be slightly more senior, but the idea behind defining them is that it then becomes effortless for your line manager to demonstrate all the excellent work that you have achieved. The final audience to define are your supporters. These are people, let’s call them your ‘network’, that again, will help you to reach your objectives. Perhaps not by giving you a promotion, but by recommending a particular workshop that can help to expand your skill set.
3. Have a Virtual Presence
The final brand building tip is to have a virtual presence. With COVID-19 changing the way that we interact with each other, it is more important than ever to make sure that you are visible online. In fact, it’s basically expected. By that I don’t mean changing all your social media settings to ‘public’, I mean by attending online events in your industry and networking with your defined audience. This is particularly critical as 85 percent of all jobs are filled through networking.
Take advantage of the simplicity that digital networking offers, you won’t even have to leave your house! Where suitable, arrange a video call. Research conducted by Forbes, advocates that video conferencing can be more effective than meeting in person.
As a final point, it is worth noting that your personal brand does not have to remain static and unchanging. You will grow and develop during your career, and your personal brand should reflect that.
Have your personal brand sorted? Get in touch with our consultants about your career today!
