A lot of people try to improve their company brand by investing dimes and shit loads of money, but how many actually consider building a personal brand?
Well, not many I guess. That is because most of us neglect the key source of branding. Even if you don’t prefer the spotlight and want to stay under the hood, your company’s success still needs a personal branding, people these days consider personal branding as an authentic factor to determine how trustworthy an organization is.
So in this post, let us make you understand the importance of personal branding as well as how you can build your personal branding step by step:
Personal branding means to stay unique and best at same time.
So What does means "Personal Brand"
Personal brand refers your reputation and personalty in your niche or industry.
If you have a good personal brand like Nike,Apple,Burger etc ;then people recognize and care about your name.
1. Be you:
This is the key factor. Nobody likes if someone is pretending to be someone they are not. First and foremost factor in building a personal brand is to be themselves and bring value to your audience using your skills and keep them close via various forms of communication including,
Blogging and writing about you and your expertise and team.
Podcasts are a great way of staying in touch with your readers.
Get into social media and consider keeping your posts worth reading. And we repeat, be you because everyone else is taken.
2. Auditing your audience and what they think about your company:
The only way of determining whether your business or brand is up to its reputation is by asking the audience. It does not only help you build a communication bridge between both and also it helps in increasing the trust factor and credibility of your brand.
Auditing also improves the product and service efficiency, and your customers can let your team know what they want instead of what you can provide.
3. Secure your personal brand website:
Having own personal brand website is a plus and increase the authenticity of yourself. This is also the best way for someone to find you online using search engines. Make sure you optimize it correctly for search engines, and you don’t have to update the content of your site regularly. Just stay updated, and 2-3 pages with your resume, bio and a good landing page to collect email list will also help in expanding your brand.
4. Be purposeful and add value:
It's easy to tweet and update a status via Facebook. But your audience wants something which adds value to their routine and unless it is something unique and contributes to building a relationship, think twice before hitting the post or tweet button. Always mind that your readers are your potential revenue and be strategic about your personal brand because it's easier said than done.
5. Associating with other brands:
During building your personal brand, it might be hard to get exposure and get to know what people actually think of your personal brand; you can overcome this by associating your personal brand with other well-established brands. This strengthens the authority as well as your brand's presence, and also you can improve your potential audience if you associate with brands of the same niche.
6. Reinvent yourself and tell them your story:
Who doesn’t like real stories, be it Steve Jobs or Mark, everybody got their story and people obviously adore them. Take a moment and start writing already. Doesn’t matter about your audience size. Word of mouth is a great channel of publicity. Unify your theme and write it in such a way that your audience feel proud to use your product or service.
And don’t pretend as we mentioned in the first point. BE YOU.
7. Be consistent and curative:
Be active in social media profiles and find ways to add value to your audience, not only by promoting your products and service also by curating content which resembles your brand, let them know what you think about the happenings and make them feel secure in your thoughts. Make them laugh, make them cry curating the content which touches them mentally. You don’t have to be a great writer to make this happen, genuine effort to reach out would do.
8. Get free press coverage:
This sounds tricky, who would give a free press coverage?
Well, this can be done by providing valued content, and there are many tools, and recently everyone is so crazy about getting press exposure using HARO which let you connect with journalists and bloggers through which you can easily get more exposure and free press coverage as well.
9. Arrange webinars and speak with your audience:
If you are sure about building your personal brand, then you should be ready to talk to your audience out there, to stand out from the crowd, always speak from the knowledge you have and expose your skills and how your brand is unique from others. No everyone will appreciate what you do, always be open to feedbacks and be legitimate in your views.
You can improve yourself by speaking engagements, and this is the best way to convey your motto and passion to people out there.
10. Always remain a student of your niche:
Knowledge is divine and always be open to what others suggest. No matter how well you are at something, there will always be someone who knows something you don’t. It would be wise to communicate to these people to learn and don’t be shy in learning. Stay updated with latest fads and changes. Do not stagnate in one place and try to expand your audience by considering multiple factors.
Apparently, it takes the time to build a personal brand. But it's worth it. It also lets you learn new things, be confident and understand the surroundings and knowing what exactly your audience wants. Building a personal has its advantages and odds are you already know that you shouldn’t underestimate your potential to inspire people, and all these factors helps in overall growth of your company.
Final words: In our opinion, personal branding is a factor of growth and consider starting it already. Building a brand doesn’t mean you have to show yourself heroic. Be open about your failures and weakness, because that’s what makes you more genuine and relatable.
