Personal Branding.
When you read these words, what’s the first thing that comes to mind?
“Is it a brand for ourselves?” “A brand to promote our image?”
If you thought of these two, then you are half right.
Unlike business brands, you are marketing yourself. In other words, personal branding is how you try to showcase yourself as an individual and your career as brands.
However, it’s not only about promoting yourself to the world. It also helps you gain a better understanding of the person you are, and the person you want to become (which also includes the perception of the people around you).
Through personal branding, you’ll be able to prove your strengths and weaknesses. What you’re good at and what you’re not good at. It’s one of the most effective tools to get to know your self-potential better. Through recognizing your ups and downs, then you’ll be able to figure out what makes you unique.
What is it that makes you stand out from others?
Others can try to be like you, but they’ll never achieve the perfect equation. Same goes for you — you can try to be like how others are, but you’ll never actually get there. Instead of copying others, be the best version of yourself and thrive to become a better version.
Don’t forget the main point of what we mentioned earlier:
Personal branding is not just about you. It’s also about the certain people you come in contact with.
The personal brand you’ll make for yourself is also meant to be shown to others. Once you’ve made clear of the target audience, then will you be able to highlight the key points of yourself and resonate the impact to others.
So, how can we create the perfect personal brand that spells out YOU?
Define your target audience
Once you’ve figured out the main goal of your personal brand, ask these questions to yourself:
- Who will be paying you?
- Who will influence those who pay you?
- And who are your supporters?
The answers will help determine the various aspects and highlights that you should focus on and the ones you need to forget. Your personal brand has got to be clear as crystal when shown to the audience.
For example, you’re one of the candidates for a job search. Your audience will automatically be the potential employers. They’re not going to directly devote their attention to you only, because there are hundreds of others just like you.
85% of U.S. recruiters and HR professionals say that an employee’s online reputation influences their hiring decisions at least to some extent. — Learning Hub
So, let’s say you are are an exceptional speaker, how about creating podcasts or videos that showcase your talent of speaking? Surely, this would be a bonus for you as your employers are then compelled to get to to know you better. And get to know what kind of capabilities you offer.
Set a unique and compelling value proposition
After you’ve found the perfect muses, it’s time to amuse them with your unique self. So what’s your secret talent? What sets you apart from billions of people?
As long as you’re presenting your true identity with all of the unique personal quirks, no one is able to overcome you. You are the unique and compelling proposition itself.
Again, ask yourself: What are you trying to solve? And how are you going to solve it? Quicker? Quality first? or In a fun way? Will it give the audience what they want?
Create the best version of your personal brand
This is where everything is going to go down. It’s time to cook what you’ve been planning this whole time. Don’t forget to keep your audience in mind.
Focus on creating the best you. What you like and what you don’t like. Try to lean towards whatever you have going on and try to pull it together into something that could compel and be useful to people.
The next best way to start developing a personal brand is to find out how it’d be represented on the outside. How to present the values and things you believe in physical form where it’s visible for everyone to see.
But it’s also okay to have boundaries while you’re looking for the right image. Don’t overexert yourself to show everyone what you’re not. Everyone’s got them and so you have the permission to do the same.
Once you’ve retained the perfect image of yourself, how about adding a tagline or brand message to help people remember you better. Like Nike’s Just Do It or KFC’s finger licking good.
In a way, taglines also help communicate your personal brand very quickly, especially regarding your audience, your objective, and the benefits you offer for them.
Make sure that your tagline is clear for everyone. But if you fail on the first attempt, don’t fret. Try something different for a while and see how it goes. And if it still doesn’t work, try looking for another different thing.
Present clear and consistent images
Audience? Check.
Proposition? Check.
Unique brand and tagline? Check.
What else is there? The power of visual images.
Everyone loves looking at a well-designed images with vibrant and beautiful colors, especially when they tell a marvelous story behind them. To help share your brand, it’d also be best to have a design professionally made or consult with someone to decide on a fixed brand color palette. Through fixed palettes, this will surely help with your brand’s consistency.
Choosing the right colors for your brand can boost brand recognition by up to 80% — Learning Hub
However, if you ain’t sure yet of what exactly your brand is all about, you could also use a minimal design as long as it’s clear and consistent across the platforms. Try not to overdo it and make things complicated for the audience to understand. Or else they’ll sure lose interest in getting to know you.
Crafting brand images should be the last step in creating your personal brand. The first three steps will lead to this final step as the image is comprised from your defined audience, the value proposition you offer and the compelling persona you’ve created for your brand.
Start creating your personal brand now!
Those were the four steps to help you create your own personal brand. Bear in mind that it is not an easy task. In fact, just breathe it all in and understand that it’s a work in process. It’s also something that you may not finish overnight, so it’s better to go over it once in a while.
Tackle it one at a time.
In the end, the process and results will surely help you become a better version of yourself as well as bring you closer to others.
Good luck!
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