You’ve found How to Create a Cool Personal Brand, 2nd Edition.
This post is broken up into the following sections:
- Identifying Your Own Authentic Personal Brand
- [INFOGRAPHIC] Personal Branding with Social Media
- CASE STUDY: How Would Gary V Rebuild His Brand?
- 8 Steps To Creating Your Personal Brand
- Using Errors as a Way To Build A Cool Brand For Your Company
Since you are still reading, it is probably safe to assume you already get the gist of personal branding, and you recognize it as a successful marketing tool.
But, what you might not know is that customers can often sense if your branding efforts are artificial and/or forced.
In some cases, they will reject your brand if they sense it is being forced, because they don’t feel you are being true to yourself.
That leads us to the first topic, how do you…
Identify Your Own Authentic Personal Brand
Your brand is in essence who you are professionally.
It’s what you stand for, what you sell, what you do, and what you are passionate about, generally what you want to tell the world about yourself. Having a defined brand is a must in today’s technologically advanced and connected society.
After all, each time you post online on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, you are telling your followers something about yourself, whether you realize it or not.
That's right, each time you post something on social media, you are in fact communicating about your brand.
But, before you begin sharing your brand, though, you have create it.
1. Keep True to Your Own Personality
Make sure your brand accurately reflects who you are.
Go through the below infographic from Gigoing to get a general idea for your own cool personal brand.
To determine what your personality is if you are unsure about it, ask your friends and family members. Your family members and friends will likely be more than happy to help you out with this.
Ask your family members and friends to describe you. Ask them how they feel you handle the details of life or if you have a good sense of humor.
After you get this information, check it against your personal brand. The two should not contradict. Your brand should reflect your personality and interests not go against them.
2. Share Your Passions
Another way to have fun while building your personal brand is to incorporate your passions and/or hobbies into your brand.
If you are an avid football fan, for example, then make sure you communicate that in fun ways. Other interests or hobbies could include your commitment to learn the art of gourmet cooking or speak to your love of martial arts.
It doesn’t matter what you enjoy, be it sports or other interests, make sure the things you love are incorporated into your brand.
After all, it will always be easy to talk about something you are passionate about.
For example, Tweeting about your love of football when you are huge fan won’t be difficult, and keeping your brand in social media feeds is important, regardless of what you are posting about.
3. Allow Your Customers to Come Along
Whether it be for business or pleasure, letting those who follow your brand in on what you do from day-to-day is wise.
This could include mentioning when and where you will next speak, or when that book you wrote it due to hit the stores or where your next book signing will be held.
Keep your followers up to date. But, be careful. This can be taken too far. Remember, no one wants to see countless selfies of what you look like as you wait for a red light to turn green.
Make sure that what you are posting is something of interest to your followers.
Use social media, such as Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter to keep your followers informed. Review this infographic that hits on some of the social media channels you need to be active.
Another big one, not covered above is Instagram. I'm finally coming around and starting to see the power of this network.
The thing to remember is to let them see your day-to-day life as it happens. This will make them feel like they know you and are experiencing a bit of your life right along with you.
Also, don’t be afraid to post pictures of your family. Most people appreciate seeing the “real” side of those they look up to, so sharing some of your personal life will help you not hurt you.
Creating a personal brand is something that you need to do to succeed in business.
After all, you need to communicate what you are about to those who would seek your services and/or advice.
Remember, though, it’s okay–and even advantageous—to have fun during the process!
CASE STUDY:
How Would Gary V Rebuild His Brand?
8 Steps To Creating A Powerful Personal Brand
What is it you want to communicate to the world about yourself?
Read below for eight easy-to-follow tips on how to create a powerful personal brand that fits your long-term plans and overall goals for success:
1.) Choose ‘What’ You Want to Represent
Thankfully, you can decide what you want to represent, and what you want your brand to say. No one else can make this decision for you. Anything and everything is fair game when it comes to what you want to represent.
However, it is easier to build a brand around something that you know well. That doesn’t mean you can’t choose an industry or product you don’t know well, but you will have to learn quick if you go this route.
So, the more you know from the beginning, the easier the process.
Keep in mind, you want to choose something that truly motivates you, something you are driven and passionate about.
Otherwise, it will be too easy to give up if things get difficult.
2.) Figure Out ‘Who’ you Want to Target
No matter how well known or obscure you are, you have an audience. Everyone does.
Therefore, when you begin building your brand, envision who your audience, customers or clients will be.
Are they men or women?
College educated or street wise individuals?
Are they into the latest gadgets, or do they prefer old school ways of getting a job done?
Answering these questions is the first step you need to accomplish when defining your target audience.
3.) Learn to Network And Utilize Your Contacts
In the same way realtors will say it’s all about location, location, location, in marketing, it’s all about networking, networking, networking.
Word-of-mouth is still a huge aspect of marketing and crucial to success in business. After all, people will almost always listen to someone they know over a general ad.
Therefore, get to know as many people as possible.
Put the word out about your brand, who you are and what you stand for. Networking creates an instant trust in potential customers.
They might not know you personally, but if one of their friends recommends and trusts you, they will likely trust you, and trust is crucial.
As Zig Ziglar once said, “If people like you, they will listen to you, but if they trust you, they’ll do business with you. ”
4.) Get a Great Logo
You can do everything right, follow every tip on this list and create the most phenomenal product ever, but if your brand doesn’t have a logo, it will likely fail.
Therefore, to ensure your brand has what it takes to make it big, you must create a logo. This logo should instantly speak for your brand, and it should be recognizable and likeable. Consider it your way of communicating to your audience without using words.
5.) Don’t Hesitate
You will get nowhere by playing it safe. If all you ever do is daydream about creating your brand, that’s all your brand will ever be…a dream.
To make your dream a reality, you have to get moving.
Go after what you want, and don’t give up until you get it, and don’t wait until the “perfect time” either, because that time won’t ever come.
6.) Create Social Media Profiles That Reflect Your Brand
Don’t underestimate the impact social media can have on your brand, and don't worry if you aren't overly tech savvy.
Today, social media is very user friendly. This means all of us, even those of us who are technologically challenged, can figure out how to create a profile on social media. Just make sure that your profile reinforces the ideals you want to promote.
In other words, don’t contradict yourself.
Also, a professional profile should remain professional. So, avoid posting cutesy videos of adorable puppies, unless of course your brand involves cute puppies.
7.) Be Present on Social Media
Now that you know the importance of creating social media profiles, you need to remember how crucial it is that you actually utilize these connections.
Think of your profile as a way to exchange business cards with clients or colleagues. Use your profile to network and to communicate with your audience. Also, make sure you post regularly and don’t allow your profile to get out-of-date.
You want the latest news and information about your brand to be available to anyone who checks out your profile.
8.) Be Consistent
We talked about this briefly earlier in the piece, but this tip is so important it deserves another mention. Make sure you are consistent. That means you say, do and stand for the same issues across all platforms.
To make sure you remain consistent, think of it like this, your emails, social media profiles, accounts and everything else you do to promote your brand should all say the same thing about your brand.
If they don’t, your audience will begin to wonder which one is the real you and which one isn’t. You don’t’ want that.
Follow the eight tips listed above to create a powerful personal brand that will take you far.
Using Errors To Build A Cool Brand
The video below is from a Ted Talk by Renny Gleeson. Gleeson shows us, while he runs through a slideshow of creative and funny 404 pages, every error is really a chance to build a better relationship and develop a unique and fun brand for your company.
…and that is it for 2nd edition of “How To Create A Cool Personal Brand”.
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