Personal branding is a fairly new idea, but millennials are becoming increasingly interested in it.
The personal brand that you create for yourself can impact your career and life in general. Building unique brands is an essential part of the personal development process.
Most people mistakenly think that personal branding is only for business owners, but it goes much deeper than that!
Personal branding takes many forms and can be used in many situations. If you’re ready to start your brand journey, then this blog post will give you ten concrete steps to help you get started.
What is personal branding?
Personal branding is the image that you create for yourself. The personal brand you build will help others see your vision, and it can be used in many different ways.
For example, if you’re a writer, your personal brand might focus on the topics you write about. If you’re an entrepreneur, then your personal brand will be all about what kind of work you do and how it can benefit others in their lives.
You are unique! Your personality is unlike anyone else’s, meaning there are countless ways to build your personal brand.
Why should I create a personal brand?
There are many benefits to creating a personal brand.
A solid personal image can help you attract the right kind of people to your life and career.
For example, if you’re an entrepreneur, then building a solid personal brand will make it easier to find clients who share similar values with you. Personal branding is also a great way to increase your network.
Your personal brand will act as the main thread that ties all of your different interests, skills, and talents together. This can be useful for attracting like-minded people in any given situation!
Where to start?
Now that you understand the basics of personal branding, it’s time to start building your own.
There are many different ways to go about this process. However, being authentic is one of the most essential parts of creating a personal brand that will resonate with others in your life and career.
It’s perfectly fine if you don’t have all of the answers when it comes to creating your unique image! There are many great resources in this blog to find inspiration and ideas for shaping your style.
To start the process, take a look at the different types of personal branding that you can explore.
- Personal style (fashion, design, etc.)
- Leadership image (how others see you in leadership roles)
- Personal philosophy (what you believe in and how it influences your life)
- Career brand (how others see you in the workplace)
- Identity brand (how you want to be seen by others)
Once you know what type of personal branding interests you, start exploring different ways to achieve this goal.
For example, if your personal style is flannel shirts and jeans, make sure that your social media accounts reflect this image!
If there are some changes that you need to make along the way, don’t be afraid to try something new or go against conventional wisdom. The most important thing is being authentic!
For your brand to resonate with others, it must also reflect who you are on the inside!
This process can take time, but if done correctly, then it will make a significant impact in all areas of your life.
The best part is that once you have created a solid personal image, this experience won’t ever go away, which means more opportunities down the road!
Focus on the needs of your audience.
Your personal brand must be built to serve others. This means that you need to think about what other people want and how they will benefit from following your lead.
You don’t have to change who you are for this process to work, but you must understand where each person is coming from when looking at your image.
For example, if someone wants a style guru, then make sure they know that you can help them reach their personal goals for fashion! Of course, this doesn’t mean you have to change who you are. It simply means that your brand needs to be relatable and trustworthy so someone will want to follow in your footsteps!
It’s also crucial for your personal branding campaign to have some purpose or goal.
This can help people understand why they should invest their time into following along on this journey with you.
For example, if you’re an entrepreneur, then it might make sense for you to share all of the trials and tribulations that come from being a business owner at first glance.
However, the more important question is what type of value you offer to your audience.
You might have some excellent advice for others in a similar situation or know how to avoid common mistakes that other business owners make. These types of details will resonate with anyone who wants to emulate your success!
If they feel like it adds more meaning to their lives while also helping them achieve their personal goals along the way, then your mission has been accomplished!
There are many different ways to serve your audience, which means that you have plenty of opportunities no matter what type of business or lifestyle interests you.
Don’t alter yourself to fit into another person’s perspective; instead, create a strong personal brand as an extension of who you are already as a person.
The key here is finding what works best for you and putting those ideas out there through social media and beyond.
There are no limits when it comes to sharing information these days so take advantage of every opportunity to reach new audiences worldwide!
Be consistent with your personal branding.
It’s essential to be aware of what people like and dislike about how you present yourself online.
Some social media platforms may work better than others, while some might not even make sense for your specific industry. It all depends on the type of brand that you’re trying to promote!
For example, if someone is looking at a fashion blogger, they expect that person to have more pictures or videos about clothes rather than food recipes. On the flip side, someone who follows a food blogger might not be interested in seeing about fashion.
Each platform will have some common ground, but you must think about your audience’s needs before sharing any information online.
This way, you won’t waste time promoting things on social media that people don’t want to see!
It also helps if each post is consistent with your personal brand’s overall tone and theme, so there’s never anything too confusing or abstract for anyone who stumbles upon one of your posts somewhere online.
Again, this process takes time because you’ll need to go through several rounds where everything gets adjusted just right until feels comfortable enough to share with others, so there needs to be consistency across every platform!
Online Presence is Key.
One of the biggest mistakes anyone can make when creating a personal brand is neglecting an online presence.
If you don’t have an official website where people can learn more about your background and interests, it will be much harder for others to find out what makes you unique!
The same goes with social media channels like Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, or Twitter; you need to make sure that you have an account with each one of these platforms, if possible.
Even though it’s not necessary for everyone, your official website can be the place where you share all of your most important information about who you are and what makes everything work in perfect harmony.
Everything else is just icing on top at this point because it will help bring people into contact with the central hub online, which should always be easy to find thanks to search engines like Google.
Harmony between multiple platforms.
For the mission of creating a powerful personal brand through one’s unique perspective and talents, there needs to be a certain level of consistency with how each piece of content is presented.
This doesn’t mean that everything has to be exactly alike. Instead, it focuses on ensuring every post works in harmony with all others so people can make connections across multiple platforms without feeling overwhelmed or confused by what they see at any given time.
Each post should inform audiences about who you are as an individual while also adding value which helps keep everyone engaged over time!
It might take some time for everything to come together, but once you’ve finished building out all areas of your brand (website included!), then you’ll be amazed at the level of success that can come your way when everything finally falls into place.
Establish Relationships.
The importance of establishing relationships cannot be stressed enough.
Having a network where people know, like, and trust you will make it much easier to take advantage of any opportunities that come your way because they’ll feel confident in standing behind the things that you do!
Building effective relationships requires having some interaction with other people regularly.
It could be as simple as liking or commenting on posts they’ve shared across social media platforms. It might also mean reaching out to different influencers and organizations who can help you get the word out about everything you’re doing effectively!
The more relationships that one builds, the greater chance for success which makes this step even more important than simply having great content.
It’s all about bringing together unique ideas and turning them into something amazing where everyone involved benefits from them!
Make Time to Reflect.
There needs to be a certain level of reflection when creating and maintaining your personal brand.
Having a daily routine that focuses on ensuring there are no loose ends anywhere will help keep everyone moving in unison.
It’s necessary to ensure that you’re creating something of value along the way, which means taking some time each day for self-reflection. Without this step, it will be much harder to keep things moving positively because there won’t be any real motivation or drive behind what you are doing!
This step is vital because it helps ensure that everything you’re doing ties into your overall mission, which should always be focused on helping people and positively impacting the world around you.
Don’t be afraid of failure.
Embrace the idea that nothing ever goes perfectly.
If you think about it, this makes perfect sense because everything we do as human beings comes with its own set of problems and issues, which means that at some point or another, someone will end up getting hurt in one way or another.
It’s important not to let these small bumps along the road stop you from pursuing your dreams but instead push through until something finally clicks!
There might be times when things seem impossible or like they’re never going to work out, but if there’s enough passion behind what you want, then eventually, everything else will fall into place.
Components of a Personal Brand.
Several components come into play when it comes to creating and defining your personal brand. You must understand what each one represents in order for there to be no gaps between them!
Logo.
Your logo is the most important part of your personal brand because it’s what people will see first when thinking about who you are and where they can find more information.
For example, if someone looks at a picture of your logo on Instagram, they will instantly react based on the design and color scheme.
On top of that, it’s also what you use as your avatar across all social media platforms so people can easily recognize who they’re following online!
To be successful with branding yourself, take the time to come up with something that will stand out in any environment where it appears.
This way, there won’t be any confusion about who created the content or why anyone should care enough to check out more details elsewhere online!
Tagline.
A tagline is like an elevator pitch for your personal brand because it sums up who you are and what core values you hope to promote. Everyone has heard of “Just Do It,” which perfectly captures all of the reasons why people should be interested in Nike products across various social media platforms!
It’s critical to keep this short, sweet, and memorable, so anyone can quickly make sense of everything when they first see it online. Someone might only have a few seconds before deciding whether or not something looks interesting enough to check out more information about, so there needs to be an incentive right away through these types of mini-slogans!
Slogan.
A slogan is like a mantra that represents the bigger picture of why you’re doing what you do. This can be anything from “Empowering Women,” which perfectly captures how Dove wants everyone to feel about their products, or something similar regarding all of your top values in life!
This doesn’t necessarily need to promote specific brand names since there’s nothing wrong with advertising generic messages like “Caring For All People.” It depends on who you are and what type of business model works best for your industry, so remember that everything needs to come together seamlessly between each component! So take some time coming up with slogans that will make people think about you every time they see them!
Color Palette.
This is a unique part of your personal brand because it represents all of those feelings that you want others to receive every time they see anything online. For example, there are specific colors associated with everything from trust and loyalty to happiness and optimism, so think about what makes sense for promoting various topics across social media!
It’s also important not to overdo this portion either since too many different colors can be confusing or distracting depending on how people perceive them in real-time situations.
You’ll need consistency across each platform which means choosing a handful of appropriate tones rather than saturating the environment with way too much information at once.
Mission Statement.
This is where you define what your personal brand will be regarding the bigger picture. This needs to work in conjunction with both a slogan and tagline that sum up who you are but also represents why people should care about anything else associated with your name!
For example, look at the Nike mission statement, which is all about inspiring everyone to be their best selves through physical activity and rewarding yourself for sticking with goals.
Bio.
A bio is a short paragraph about who you are and what makes sense for your overall brand. This should give anyone all the necessary information upfront so they know precisely how to benefit from working with you in some capacity!
There’s no way around it, though; this needs to be as specific as possible, which means keeping it simple and avoiding having too much going on at once.
You can still be personable and engaging, but this is your chance to highlight everything necessary about what you do!
Portfolio.
This is all of the most recent work you want to promote, ranging from professional achievements to personal interests. Typically, this will be the most critical factor in gaining trust and establishing yourself as a credible source for more information about something in your industry!
Keep this section brief, though, since people will only take so much time before deciding whether or not they want to find out more about what you have to offer. This is the part where they need to realize how valuable your work can be right away if it makes sense, given who you are!
Social Media Profiles.
This is pretty straightforward about what needs to be included, but you must remember that all of your social media profiles need to work together for a cohesive brand presence.
For example, if someone follows your Twitter account and then notices something different about the profile picture on Facebook, it can become confusing!
So just keep everything consistent across each platform so people know exactly who they’re dealing with from beginning to end at every stage of communication!
This will also help build trust more quickly too, which counts a lot in every industry!
Voice.
A voice is a tone that you use for each platform which can vary depending on what’s most appropriate given your overall brand image.
For example, Nike has an upbeat and engaging tone through everything they do because it makes sense with their mission statement to inspire everyone else!
You’ll want to think about this, too, when determining how much personality to include in any specific post since it needs to work in conjunction with the overall message you’re trying to convey from that point on.
Consistency.
The last step is to take all of these elements and keep them consistent from this point forward so you create a cohesive experience for anyone who comes across your profile.
It’s important not to reinvent the wheel each time you want to make a new post or update the world about something else because this confuses people and makes it difficult for them to find out more information.
Conclusion.
We hope this guide has been helpful to you as a starting point for your journey of building your personal brand. Remember that there is no perfect formula, and it may take some time to develop the proper habits or figure out what works best for you.
In the meantime, we want to hear from people who have successfully created their own brands!
What are some things that worked well for you? Comment below with tips on how others can build their personal brands!
Gabrielle J. Smith is a Human Resources professional, writer, blogger, and mother of three. One of her hobbies is educating herself (and others) about job hunting and resume writing. She has helped many people through her career and continues to share knowledge with the masses in order to help them gain meaningful employment. One of Gabrielle’s favorite subjects is what she has coined “resume tricks,” and she says there are many of them. She has been blogging for the last four years, and her advice has been featured on many important sites in order to help job seekers in their searches. Gabrielle’s advice is always sound and to the point, and she shows no sign of slowing down.