Personal Branding 101 & Everything You Need To Know

• This an already published post I contributed for a social media marketing manager internship I finished. I felt this information would benefit someone on here and I hope you can gain some insight from it. Peace.

A personal brand according to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, is “what people say about you when you’re not in the room”.

Also, there is a time where you’ll be evaluated as a person separately from your business, that’s why your personal brand will be what will stick with you in the long run. So let’s get a better understanding on how you can build a strong personal image with a quick personal branding 101.

Whenever we think of big-name brands like Microsoft, Apple, Amazon and so forth we don’t only think about the company’s reputation but the people behind it such as Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Jeff Bezos who created and managed prosperous products/services worldwide.

You should know by now that what you are trying to achieve with personal branding is what companies like Nike, Amazon, Red-bull achieved after years of exposure to brand messages over people. Almost everyone can relate Red bull to extreme sports and Nike with its slogan “Just Do It”.

These things act like the voice of the company. It shows how exciting, aggressive, positive or fearless a brand is. For small companies like startups, now it is the most important aspect of marketing. Let us go a little further than this by saying that it will mean everything in the near future.

So what you should do about this as an entrepreneur and as an individual in the business world if you don’t own a big organization with big resources?

If you can’t build the infrastructure offline with PR campaigns, public appearance, ruling online networks with your brand is the perfect strategy especially after 2020. There hasn’t been any better timing for digital branding.

Especially for individuals, the rise of social media made easier to shift the attention of the public constantly on different topics. Let’s start step by step on how you can start building your personal brand.

1. Assess what you already have: If you’re a novice entrepreneur you’ll have to begin by evaluating what you already have. Any skill, knowledge, mentor ship to offer to your people will be your most valuable asset.
2. How you will deliver it: How you deliver your message will determine the size of your audience. Think of newspapers with different framing for the same news, some people will not wanna listen your voice, but rather listen to the same information from someone who makes them feel comfortable.
3. Build a consistent public reputation: Both in real life and in social media, there is a common notion that people have to be careful about and that is being consistent with your messaging. Your brand has to represent your values and who you are. If you are pivoting too much and lose your direction along the way, why would same people listen to you?
4. Never Underestimate Promotion and PR: If you don’t have an amazing content, no promotion nor ad can bring you the attention you seek. However, if you believe you are ready with first 3 steps, now investing in your image with right PR strategy, reaching out people in your circle to promote you, and pouring some amount of investment into online promotions may bring you great exposure.
5. Make a business plan: Let’s be honest this might even be the first step after deciding on your value proposition. Treat your personal brand as a company asset and map out a plan that can take a few months with objectives, goals, and strategies on how to get achieve them and how much time you’ll invest in getting this all done. Accountability is vital to sticking to a plan so keeping track and reviewing of all your work will only further build your brand and its reputation. Building a personal brand pays increases with rewards throughout your career. The more time and effort invested in becoming an expert,the better opportunities you’ll get.
6. Be aware that this process takes time: If you’re willing to give up after couple of failures during the process, you shouldn’t start investing time in this. Because building a personal brand online is a much bigger process than going viral in social media or selling stuff via ads. It will take much longer for people to embrace your message and associate you with your unique messaging. It’s a process with financial and mental investments.

Conclusion

Building a personal brand takes time and effort and a lot of trial and error under getting the desired results, but at the end of the day you owe it to your own business to build a unique audience and expand beyond with your own messaging and vision. Leave a like and comment if you would like to chime in. Follow my page so you stay up to date with future posts. As always peace and keep it real.