Personal Brand: What It Is and How to Build It

Personal brand is your public image, or how others perceive you. It is based on your values, beliefs, and skills. It is used to promote businesses, services, products, or even yourself as a professional. Below, we'll delve into what a personal brand is and why it's important.

Example of a strong personal brand

Why You Need a Personal Brand

Developing a personal brand is crucial not only for businesses; it is also extremely beneficial for freelancers, marketers, photographers, and others.

Here's why it's hard to get by without a personal brand nowadays:

It connects you with the right audience, helps build close relationships, and earns trust.
Only with a personal brand will you become a major player in your field.
It is beneficial for your business — more people will learn about it, and you increase sales.
You showcase your skills to clients, employers, and potential partners.
If you have a strong personal brand, you will be recommended not only by your clients.
This way, you expand your professional influence, build connections, and find like-minded individuals.
A strong personal brand automatically addresses objections or questions from potential clients.
Most people prefer companies whose leaders or owners often share information on social media.

Nowadays, creating a personal brand is one of the prerequisites for successful promotion on social media. If people cannot find you online, no one will know about your skills or experience. So, if you are looking for investors, partners, and clients, having a personal brand plays a key role.

Components of a Personal Brand

Your professional image encompasses various important elements that collectively shape how society perceives you. Let's take a closer look at these aspects:

1. Your values. Focus on what inspires you and your core beliefs. Instead of sharing all values at once, strategically choose those that align with your goals.

2. Your life experience. Use your life story as a powerful marketing tool to convey beliefs and professional qualities. By sharing personal experiences, you will create a connection with potential clients.

3. Your skills. Emphasize the value of your knowledge and abilities. Showcasing expertise in a specific field strengthens customer loyalty.

4. Your uniqueness. Your personal brand should not only reflect beliefs and knowledge but also highlight what sets you apart from competitors. Clearly define your unique qualities.

5. Your self-promotion. Active and consistent self-promotion online is crucial for creating awareness around your personal brand. People need to know about you to talk about you.

6. Your appearance. Consider not only your appearance and clothing but also your behavior, charisma, and communication style. These factors influence the overall perception of your personal brand. Pay attention to how you present yourself in various aspects of your professional life.

When to and When NOT to Build a Personal Brand Online

While personal branding is popular, in some cases it won't help or could even harm. It's not worth relying on it just because others do. A personal brand doesn't appear out of nowhere; it requires achievements, presentation skills, time, and a significant budget for promotion.

You DON'T need a personal brand if:

You don't have many professional successes or have no plans for major career changes.
You're not willing to dedicate too much time to it.
You don't fully understand why you need a personal brand (or if you need one at all).
You lack experience in building a personal brand and have no desire to invest resources in learning.
You tend to make impulsive statements.

Elon Musk had to apologize for his harsh remarks about one of his employees

You need a personal brand if:

You are knowledgeable in your field and ready to demonstrate it.
You understand that building a personal brand takes time, possibly more than two years.
You have clear goals.
You know what you need to learn and improve.
You can politely and reasonably explain your thoughts. Plus, you always fact-check before saying anything.

Creating a Personal Brand

Creating a personal brand requires more than just regular posting on social media. Start by developing a strategy based on your unique qualities and experiences. Let's break down step by step how to create your brand.

Step One: Ask Yourself Questions

To understand your worldview and values, reflect on what motivates you each morning, what you're proud of, how you help others, what tasks inspire you, and how you want to change the world. Gather opinions from those around you to gain a fresh perspective on yourself.

Step Two: Understand Why You Need a Personal Brand

Whether it's finding your dream job, advancing your career, or attracting clients or investors for your business, having a clear goal directs your efforts in the right direction.

Step Three: Study Your Target Audience

Identify the values and preferences of your target audience. Adapt your content to align with their interests and meet their needs. This step is crucial for shaping the aspects of your personal brand that you emphasize: values, tone of voice, and more. Define who your personal brand's target audience is and try to understand what they want and what problems they're trying to solve.

Step Four: Emphasize Your Uniqueness

Highlight the professional qualities and experiences that set you apart. Instead of talking about how creative you are, tell in detail how this quality has led to exceptional results in projects under your leadership. Focus on a specific niche in your field to stand out.

Step Five: Create a Plan

Use your goal, audience, strengths, and uniqueness to create a promotion plan. Choose several platforms and determine what content you will post. Understand how promotion works: for example, optimizing your website, posting articles on third-party resources, and collaborating with other experts. Decide how much you are willing to pay for promotion.

Step Six: Work on Your Brand Regularly

Periodically review both the plan itself and its foundation — what you believe in, your goals, your format, your motivation. If anything changes, the personal brand strategy will require adjustments.

Where to Promote Your Personal Brand

In order to get recognized, spread your content around. Use the same username and style on all platforms so people remember you easily.

Social media and messengers, such as Telegram channels, provide an opportunity to create a dedicated community interested in tracking your progress. It's important to find a balance between informational and personal content: the former demonstrates your expertise, while the latter reveals you as a person. There's no need to delve into everyday life if you don't enjoy it; instead, share insights into your work and intriguing aspects that shape your typical day.

Stephen King's Twitter account

Think of your website as a platform to display your resume, portfolio, and blog, as well as to provide links to your social media profiles. Optimizing the website for search engines ensures its visibility in top search results for your name and relevant topics, positively impacting traffic and online presence.

Gordon Ramsay’s website

Emails are a personalized channel for delivering valuable content to your target audience. While a blog or website introduces newcomers to what you do, email messages contribute to turning these individuals into loyal followers.

Podcasts, with their audio format, create an intimate communication experience. Similar to newsletters, podcasts foster deeper interaction with your target audience. Whether hosting your own podcast or participating as a guest, this channel offers a unique way to stay connected.

Video hosting platforms are among the most effective methods for promoting a personal brand. Most marketers believe that videos increase visibility. Maintain a consistent style for your videos and create playlists on specific topics.

What You Can't Do Without in Personal Branding

Without integrity: Strive to maintain a consistent tone across all social media platforms or channels. There's no need to only share your professional successes on Telegram and your personal life on Facebook. Keep the same image everywhere.

Without sincerity: Let your personal brand reflect what you truly believe in. Don't try to appear as someone you're not. It's unlikely you'll be able to pretend in the real world.

Without openness: Be prepared to talk about yourself, your experience, your life. If you want to build a strong personal brand, you have to show people what you can do and what you know.

Conclusion

A personal brand is your image, strategically crafted to achieve career goals, including attracting clients and receiving favorable job offers. A personal brand develops through distribution of diverse and valuable content on platforms like websites, social media, messengers, podcasts, videos, and email newsletters. In addition to content creation, active participation in professional communities, forums, and events is important, where you can share your experience and opinions.

The development of branding is impossible without maintaining consistency and authenticity in your communication. This includes not only visual elements but also your writing style, tone of voice, and choice of topics for discussion.