Developing a personal brand might sound challenging, it is indeed a lot of work, but there are some steps you can take to build credibility and gain a following. Here are five tips to help you create an authentic personal brand and build your career in the process.
Who Are You?
To be able to build a brand that represents you and what you are selling you need to first know who you are exactly. Finding a list of your personal weaknesses and strengths will undoubtedly help you to build a brand accurately. You could ask yourself things like:
- What areas do I work best at?
- What motivates me?
- What characteristics do people compliment me most on?
- Which roles drain my energy or make me feel overwhelmed?
Once you have the answers to these you can take the next step to start your career.
Who Is Your Audience?
Once you have determined who are you, you need to determine who you want your brand to be aimed at and what you want to be known for. Is it other industries? Individuals? Recruiters? Or a particular company?
The sooner you figure this out the easier it will be to start your story. After you have decided on your audience/s you need to work on what you want to be known for and make it your own. Do something different to similar brands so you stand out, maybe offer something extra. Once you have your audience- you want to keep them!
Make a Statement
When you think of any brand, what makes you remember it? The most popular thing people usually think of is a brand tune or slogan- for example ‘just do it’- Nike. The making of your brand could be in your company slogan, so make it a good one!
Another thing to think about is your logo. Generally, people don’t like too cluttered logos, plain ones tend to go down better. Just remember, slogans and logos are part of the marketing strategy. They are important to recognise the product among the millions of the same identical products.
Research
Although you don’t want to be the same as other companies, researching them is always a good idea. Follow their pages and social media accounts. This way you can find out what sort of things they are doing right and wrong. Use it for inspiration, but do not by any means copy.
Go online and find out if they have blogs, or where they contribute their thinking. Look for people who are successful and examine what they’re doing. Imitate them, and then do one better.
Go Online
Once your brand is set up you need to make it a business. Social media and online is the current best way to get out there. Share your page, offer incentives like competitions to your followers and always respond to any feedback, whether positive or negative.
Add your page on several different sites, be active on all, after a little while you will see a pattern as to which is doing the best and getting you the most audience, then you can start dividing your time a little less evenly to spend more time on the most popular one- but don’t forget about the others.
As the world changes, so will people and in response so will your brand, always be ready to grow with it. Make sure to evolve it though and not change it, as people would have fallen in love with your brand and you may lose customers by changing this. We wish you the best of luck in developing your business!
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