Creating Your Personal Brand
Personal branding develops a sign around your name or your career. You want to express and communicate your abilities, personality, and beliefs. We all can be a brand and nurture our power to stand out and be distinctive. Microsoft, Bang Energy Drinks, Disney, McDonald's, Audi, and thousands of well-known brands instantly come to mind. Today anything (or anyone) can be a brand. Branding is basically means that even as an individual, you can create a clear identification. Comedians, actors, and entrepreneurs do it, and so can you.
Identify Who You Are
In order to build a personal brand that accurately reflects your personal and professional identity, you first need to know who you are. Be introspective, and create a list of your personal strengths and weaknesses. In which areas of work do I excel? What motivates me? What characteristics have others complimented me on? To make sure you’re on track, ask friends, family, and co-workers how they would describe you.
How Do You Want to be Known?
In addition to understanding your existing skills and competencies, assessing your strengths and weaknesses as they relate to whichever industry or career you want to break into can make the process easier. Predicting where you want to be in five or 10 years—and the attributes you want to be known for—can help you better determine what steps you need to take in order to get there.
Who Are You Trying to Reach?
Before you start crafting your personal brand, you also need to determine who you’re trying to reach. Industry leaders? A specific company? Recruiters? The sooner you define the audience, the easier it will be to craft your story, because you’ll better understand the type of story you are. If you are a musician, you should have music samples everywhere, but if you want to work in marketing, try to keep your image professional and looking the part.
Network. Network. And Network Some More
As you cultivate your ideal personal brand, it’s important to network regularly to grow your professional sphere. Connect with peers and industry thought-leaders by going to formal and informal networking events. The more connections you make, the more likely it is your personal brand will be established.
Using Social Media and Your Website
Using LinkedIn as your primary source for networking is best. While Instagram and Facebook are more “fun,” you should see them as extensions and not the primary way to present yourself, as you can’t control user comments and a lack of “likes” can create the impression you’re not influential.
Websites are a better way to control your brand. You can create your own site using Squarespace, Wix, Weebly or WordPress, among others. You can create vlogs, blogs, and other types of content to generate website hits and develop the type of brand you want.
No matter how big or small you are in your industry, you are still a brand and you still have to cultivate and control it.