In
the digital age, it has become crucial to establish your personal brand to make
a difference in the crowd. Your personal brand is more than just a good resume;
it is more about your online presence, which is an expression of your outward
professional self. A strong personal brand resides inside you; it just needs to
be nurtured, cultivated, and grown to bring it to the forefront.
Now, it is important to understand what a personal brand is. It is your story, which contains all of your strengths, the stand you took, and the values you created for society. Establishing a strong personal brand early on, exactly like constructing a brand for your business, will help you achieve your goals, whether they are connecting the correct individuals to your cause or discovering the ideal job. It also provides a template to facilitate scaling between platforms and projects.
Let’s explore some of the tips to build a successful and
influential personal brand:
Run through a self-analysis:
It
is vital to know yourself before building a personal brand. You have to ask
those questions that you didn’t ask before and go through your strengths and
weaknesses by sparing and investing time in this crucial step. Doing so
requires following these steps:
·
What excites you the
most is identifying your areas of interests
·
What does not excite
you and is not your type? - find out the things that you don’t like
·
Describe yourself in
a few words - get help from your friends in summarizing you in few words
·
What social issues
actually impact you? - identify those social issues that grab your attention
·
Does it overlap with
your interests? - find out if your interests overlap with the needs of the
market
Target the demographic :
In this step, you need to find out the answer to the question:
Why do you want to create a personal brand, and what motivates you to establish
it?
Do you wish to enter the creative economy? Are you developing a
personal brand as a precursor to a business or product? Are you putting out a
professional public image to help you get financing or other commercial
partnerships?
Answering your why is essential for taking another empowered
step in order to create a successful personal brand because you need to
understand how what you offer to your target audience can create value for
them.
Prepare an elevator pitch:
This
is where you pull it all together to produce a clear personal branding statement
that encapsulates your value proposition, represents your personality, and
speaks your target audience's language. Consider it a combination of a
catchphrase and an elevator pitch for yourself. The best hits are frequently
captured in one to three phrases.
Tell your story:
Prepare a script of your story, long and short, for different websites, platforms, social media bios, and even investor pitches. Try to write that story in your own words, even if you are not a story writer or an editor because your story is not a formal letter; your voice reflects your personality; hence, try to be real, authentic, and ingenious.
Leverage social media:
Social
media is a very powerful tool that you need to use in order to create an
influential profile, and you need to be consistent in creating the value and
the content that you create for your targeted audience. While engaging and
communicating across platforms and audiences, your message cannot be simply
"Copy, then Paste." The tone and language of the content must be
altered on the basis of different platforms.
Consistency
is the key. If you are using social media, it becomes important to be
consistent and optimize your social media handle. To do so, you must analyze
and take an update from the reports about how your targeted audience is
reacting to the content you post.