Step By Step Guide To Personal Branding

When we think of businesses, we always look for brands. The same is true for individuals; whether you are looking for a job or a promotion or building a network, creating your personal brand will help you market yourself. Personal branding is about building your reputation, creating an image for your brand to the outside world, and promoting your business as one that is individual to other companies selling similar services or products.

In short, a brand summarises your skills, your values, and your passion and distinguishes you from other professionals in your field. The next question is, how do you build a unique, authentic, and trustworthy personal brand?

This step-by-step guide shows you how to bring your brand to market, build your brand, and make sure the right people find it!

Step1: Audit and clean up your search results

When people search for your business online, they must see a favourable profile that reinforces your skills and qualifications. Google yourself and find out what relevant information pops up. Next, you can start cleaning up, starting with those found in your social media accounts.

Check to see if your logo sends the right brand message, make sure all your online and offline marketing campaigns are sending the same message, and use software tools that scrape the internet to see what consumers are saying about your brand. Even companies with a barrage of negative feedback can turn things around with a good reputation management strategy!

Step 2: Figure out who you are and what you want to accomplish

Your personal brand reflects your business's personality. For example, its values, which are the things that guide you in how you live and work, and determine your priorities. Keeping stock of your values will help you identify the uniqueness of your brand.

Passions are what you enjoy doing. Professional passions might include technology, automation and design, while personal ones might consist of your hobbies and family.

Once you know your core, you can start creating an image that will help you get where you want to go and help you attract other people driven by the same things as you or see value in what you offer, thus creating a more robust network.

Step 3: Determine your unique value proposition

It's time to think about your vision for your brand. Identify the traits that make you stand out in a crowd. A survey says that more than 90% of online searchers depend on their impression of a person's website. If you're just like everyone else, people won't remember your personal brand.

Step 4: Define Your Target Audience

Now that you have identified your vision, it's time to determine who your target audience is. Businesses sell goods and services to customers. Job hunters sell themselves to prospective employers. If you want to start your own business, you're selling yourself to potential clients. Start building your community-employers, peers, influencers, and other relevant users.

Step 5: Build Your Online Presence

First thing's first: optimise your website. If you don't have one, then consider creating one. There are free website builders out there, but you may want to consider purchasing a domain and web hosting plan. For cheap domains, we recommend Namecheap. For web hosting, we would suggest Bluehost or you could use free hosting offered by website builders. By using a website builder you can get free hosting while also creating extremely user friendly websites that come with a neat selection of attractive and industry specific templates to choose from.

To establish your brand, make your presence felt from Twitter to podcasts, blogs to Facebook. Tools like KnowEm and NameChk can help you check availability across hundreds of social communities.

For professionals, Linkedin is one of the best places to start. Other social media networks like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram can start building your profiles that will best fit your brand.

Step 6: Start Blogging

Blogging is an excellent way to build a personal brand, but be sure to make the content of your posts valuable and helpful. Here's an important tip. You must be able to manage your content and not give away free information all the way. If you do so, why would people hire you or pay you? Strategize in such a way that your content shows your expertise and make your readers realise that if the free advice worked, they could get even more if they paid for it

Step 7: Build a community

Create a platform where you can talk and exchange ideas with those interested in what your business offers. Find ways to engage your visitors to ensure that they remain connected to you. To start building a community, consider these strategies:

• Facebook and LinkedIn groups: These allow people to start threads on relevant topics and talk among themselves!
• Meetups: These meetings can be one-on-one, or you can host large gatherings of people to come together, share, and learn!
• Webinars: Webinars allow you to gather people together for a shared learning experience!

Summarising Your Personal Brand Building Strategy!

Building a personal brand entails a lot of work, but the rewards are enormous. A solid personal brand is no longer a "like to have" but a "must-have" in today's competitive market. Look at any successful YouTuber, blogger, businessman or online fan, and you will see that their personal brands play a significant role in their success. Your brand strategy encompasses your overall purpose, values and advantages, how your corporate brand stands out and how you stand out from your competitors, and the tangible elements such as your logo, colours, typography, and what you can find in your materials.