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| Rock your personal brand! |
Personal Brand
We encounter brands all day, in everything we do. Symbols, designs, names, slogans, colours – this is branding.
Beverland (2018) said that “people use brands to project whom we want to be, how we want to be perceived and how we want to feel about ourselves.” Your personal brand is everything that people think about you.
Subjective to each person, all you can do is create an impression through the actions you take and what you say on social media.
This week’s topic is personal branding. Ever heard someone say, “I’m not a product, how can I have a brand?” Many people a brand with a product. But it is only because a brand can be so powerful it can become synonymous with a product – e.g. Sellotape and Blu-Tack. It is how a company differentiates their product from their competitors. Equally, in a professional world, it can be profitable for your success to stand out from other people doing the same thing as you. In an age where people want to do business with people, no corporations, it is a powerful tool.
“Your personal brand is the synthesis of all the expectations, images, and perceptions it creates in the minds of others when they hear your name” (Rampersad, 2008)
What is a brand?
A brand is a mix of your reputation, the trust people have in your business and execution from the business. The term ‘Branding’ comes from the Proto-Germanic term brandr, which originally described the identifying marks burnt into the skin of livestock, slaves and criminals.
Branding is everything that contributes to your customers’ opinions and feelings about your company. It is built on word of mouth based on performance and trying to create a perception through advertising. This “image” a business aim to create for their brand is called it is brand identity. A customer’s perception is their brand image, it is everything a potential customer associates with a business and it defines their overall opinion. A strong brand is important because it “increases customers' trust of invisible products while helping them to better understand and visualise what they are buying." Any other feature that identifies one seller’s good or service as distinct from those of other sellers.
“We are immersed in a branded world from the day we are born to the day we die” (Beverland 2018)
How can a person be a brand?
Everyone you meet either has an opinion of you or will form one quickly. Whether you are a student, and an athlete, an executive or entrepreneur. Everyone is a unique individual and will have a unique brand. It is a key element of who we are. Even if you think you are “not a brand”, people have an opinion of you, and this is your personal brand.
“Your brand is a perception or emotion, maintained by somebody other than you, that describes the total experience of having a relationship with you." (Peter, 1997)
A personal brand aims to create an emotional response from people towards you when they see your content online or meet you in real life. Your personality, the narrative you create, your habits, opinions and values… all of these make up a personal brand. Some people can leverage their personal brand for great profit - see the Kardashians as an example of someone who is paid to endorses brands and products through their influence.
The concept of a personal brand links back to Tom Peters in 1997 who said “As of this moment, you’re going to think of yourself differently! . . . You do not belong to any company for life, and your chief affiliation is not to any function. You are not defined by your job title and you are not confined by your job description. Starting today, you are a brand.” The idea was that we should be perceived as more than just a set of tools for an employer.
Why personal branding become so important?
As general distrust with corporations has grown over the years, so people prefer to do business with people rather than the company itself. Someone will do business with you because they like and trust you. This human connection drives customer loyalty beyond any relationship with a company.
Career-focused individuals can see a great advantage by putting a focus on growing their personal brand. It gives them a point of difference for job prospects, client prospects, pitching ideas if they are an entrepreneur, politicians… You need a distinctiveness about you to make you memorable from your competition. The same way branded products can differentiate themselves from other commodities.
Building your personal brand
There can be variation in how professionals use social media. Some people use more of their company brand in their content and others focus on their own personal achievements and career. Some people promote other peoples’ personal brands.
Individuals develop their brand as an ongoing process. But it is possible to “create” or ‘re-create” one’s brand according to how you want to be perceived. It can be difficult to manage a personal brand, as it is built on your words and actions. Often, one might want to reinvent their persona if they have had a public embarrassment for example. How authentic the audience perceives this is important to the success of a rebrand.
Like a business, individuals can illustrate a brand identity as part of their marketing strategy, to nurture a certain image in consumers' minds. This all the elements that make up a brand and its marketing for example colour, design, and logo. It is also the personality of a brand, the tone of voice in your copy. For an individual, it is your personality, the way you think, the way you speak, the way you look…
A personal brand is easier will evolve – it is not sporadic big pushes, but an ongoing, consistent small effort. For example, as you work your way up the corporate ladder, your personal brand will evolve with your position. Personal branding as a process - personal brands formulated throughout a person’s development. Since everyone starts with characteristics that create an impression on others, personal brand must be developed or modified.
As you grow older, your values change, and you have new experiences. You gain new skills and learn more about what you are not good at and do not like to do. Your intended audience and marketplace also influence who your target audience is. One key thing is you are consistent and authentic to who you really are. The essence of who you are does not change. Forget that “fake it until you make it” phrase, it is hard to do that in this digital age.
Defining your message and what problem you solve
Your personal branding strategy needs to consider, what problem do you solve? You need to make that message as defined as possible. What is your elevator pitch that you can sell/explain what you do to somebody in one or two simple sentences? What your purpose is and illustrate why it is important you provide a solution. Think pf it like that this is what you were put on this planet to do. What is your mission?
Define a certain problem in your marketing and offer snippets of expertise which provides credibility that you can provide this solution. What makes you special? What can you do better than anybody else?
"Be genuine. It will make it much easier to manage your personal brand on a daily basis"
Pillars of a personal brand
There are four main pillars to growing a personal brand: Authenticity, Focus, Consistency and telling your story. The next section discusses how these four aspects help create a unique and inviting personal brand that engages people.
Authenticity
Authenticity is another word for genuine, real, true. If you are truly genuine, then you will have a unique personal brand. If people find you authentic, they will trust you. If people trust you, they will do business with you. If you are an expert in your craft, communicate this by providing value in your marketing content. Give away this expert advice for free. ‘Givers gain’ in social media and collaboration builds a culture of trust.
“If personal branding is developed at only a superficial level, for example by basing it simply on ego, spin or piggybacking off the work of others, then it will not be enduring.” (Harris & Rae, 2011) Over a period, successful individuals gain a reputation based on their expertise and ‘connectedness’ that makes them attractive to customers. Doing something solely for profit considered inherently inauthentic (why consumers often perceive brands as inauthentic).
Why is authenticity so important to people?
We search for meaning through consumption – our desire for authentic brands is about our desire to be authentic. Consumers immerse themselves in what they believe to be authentic experiences, to reinforces our desired sense of self. This process is called self-authentication, which revitalises self-meaning and enhances our wellbeing.
Focus
Decide what your key message is and stick to it. Find your niche and target it. Keeping your message focused for your target demographic will make it that much easier to both create content around your personal brand. Moreover, the narrower and more focused your brand is, the easier it is for people to remember who you are.
Once your message is defined to target the customers you want, you choose how you want to communicate with these people. Consider what your strengths are. If you are not comfortable on video, then you do not have to do it. If you are a great copywriter, then make a name for yourself through blogging. Lastly, how can you monetise your personal brand? What are you trying to achieve with your recognition?
Consistency
Consistency breed results. Similarly, to a narrow focus, it is easier to stand out for something if you are consistently creating content around that topic. I become well known as the “Hamilton guy” on LinkedIn, because I consistently posted content about Hamilton. It was just stuff I had taken from the news, but it was the only one doing it and I was consistent. Have something unique that you consistently do. Something that people will associate with you. It could be a slogan, a jingle at the end of videos, a hashtag at the end of posts… there is plenty of ways to create your brand. People will fall in love with it and you will have fans you do not even know exist.
Tell your story
A brand story can connect with its intended audience in an instant. It is the "WHY" behind what you are doing. "HOW" you provide expertise. Your brand story should make the reader feel like you understand their problem, and that you could potentially solve it. It helps your audience feel like they know you, even if just a little. This establishes trust, builds rapport and establishes your credibility.
Your story should be a central theme across your marketing copy.
A brand story should:
🤗 Embrace your personality
🖌️ Illustrate your values
💥 Capture attention
🔗 Connect with the reader
🚢 Take the reader on a journey
🤣 Be emotive
🦸 Use characters such as a hero and a villain
👋 Help people get to know you
🗣 Tell why your credible
📖 Reflect on the lessons you’ve learnt
🤔 Justify why your brand exists
🧮 Explain the problem you solve
✅ Have a call to action
🖼️ Be framed to be easy to follow & understand
🗓️ Be consistent across your marketing.
Growing your brand online
Growing your brand on social media can take a huge amount of time and effort (or money) which might not necessarily lead to any financial gain. But then at the other end of the spectrum, you have influencers who have become very wealthy from their personal brand on social media platforms such as Instagram. But other platforms are not so easy to monetise and should be used in a way to drive more traffic to your website and make sales through social media instead of being paid to endorse products like influencers.
The digital world provides the ability to interact with anyone, anywhere, in any part of the world. Tools like social media allow us to broadcast ourselves to a limitless audience for little or no cost in some cases. That is amazing to think how far we have come in 25 years where the media agencies previously had so much power and was the gatekeeper to this kind of exposure. So much opportunity. Traditional barriers to entry eroded, where people such as Royalty or Sports stars would have this “personal brand”, now anybody can have a personal brand.
People prefer to work with someone they know than a stranger, so the idea is, you want to become the person associated with that industry that they remember. Ongoing time and effort are required to build your online presence.
Tools to enhance your brand
The aim of building your brand online is to establish yourself as well-connected, knowledgeable, approachable and a giving personality. Network with like-minded people. LinkedIn is the perfect platform to grow your professional personal brand, and further your career. It is becoming an expectation for professionals to be active on the platform. Recruiters are expecting a complete LinkedIn profile these days, and if you are actively growing your personal brand on the platform, you will stand out from someone who is not.
Similarly, to have a profile active on LinkedIn, it is also just as important to delete any embarrassing photos on Facebook or elsewhere on the internet that may be harmful and damage your professional reputation.
Thanks for reading. I hope that you enjoyed this week’s blog on Personal Branding.
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