5 Steps to Building Your Personal Brand

What does your personal brand say about you? Perhaps you’ve never thought about it before, but we make statements about ourselves through everything we do. From our physical appearance, through to the way we present ourselves on social media.

Building an easily recognisable brand with clear values is the number one way to sell products and services, so why should it be any different when it comes to selling ourselves?

If you’re job hunting, seeking a promotion, marketing your professional services or even leading an organisation, then you need to think about the image you put forward. Follow these 5 steps to build a strong personal brand and learn how you can benefit from your brand equity.

1. Define what you stand for

What do you want people to think when they hear your name? Intelligent, motivated, trustworthy, stylish, funny, an expert in a particular field? What are your passions? What are your ambitions? What makes you, you? Take time to carefully consider these questions before you go any further.

The first step to building your personal brand is identifying your niche and deciding exactly how you wish to be perceived.

Let’s take, for example, a freelance beauty therapist. She would probably want to be perceived as very well groomed, reliable, competent, honest, friendly and caring. She might also want to be known for expertise in certain treatments, such as Shellac manicures or eyelash extension. Maybe she wants to become the leading beauty therapist in a particular town or area.

Making a list of her own ‘key words’ will help her develop her image and be much more strategic and joined up in the way she communicates across the web and in person.

Related: 5 Ways to build a strong brand

2. Claim your domain

When it comes to personal branding, using one’s own name is important. This means branding your business with your own name, for example Beauty by Judy Jones or simply Judy Jones (if it’s available). Consider using your middle initial or middle name to differentiate.

Find something unique and secure a domain name for your personal website or blog. Also secure your twitter handle and Google+ profile (this will appear when someone Google’s you). By using Namechk.com or Knowem.com, you’ll be able to see where you can claim your brand name on almost all the social networks.

3. Give yourself a distinctive look

Building a brand is all about recognition, therefore your website, blog, social profiles, business cards and marketing materials should all have a consistent look and feel.

Select a font, or font family, to use across all of your collateral, as well as one or two key colours.

You can also carry this over into your own personal appearance – Steve Jobs didn’t wear black turtle necks because he couldn’t be bothered to go shopping; it was all part of his image.

Your personal style is extremely important for standing out from the crowd. That doesn’t mean you have to wear something crazy, simply develop a signature look that conveys the image you wish to project i.e. confident businesswoman or trendy hipster.

Be sure to sport your signature look for all business meetings/networking opportunities, and in all of your avatar photos.

4. Create your personal branding toolkit

Your personal branding toolkit consists of:

Business cards
Portfolio
Testimonials
Website/blog
Email address
Social media profiles
Professional headshots

Business cards: For your business card it’s necessary to boil down what you stand for into just a few words that express clearly what you do, who you do it to and how you benefit people. For example, our beauty therapist might simply say ‘Surrey Mobile Beauty Expert’.

Include your preferred contact information, social profiles and logo, if you have one. Be sure to invest in quality cards because this also speaks volumes about you.

Portfolio & testimonials: Whatever it is you do, you need to demonstrate how well you do it. That’s easy for our beautician, who can publish a gallery of before and after photos to her website, if she has them. If not, it’s time to start asking clients if she may photograph them at each opportunity. This will also allow her to collect testimonials.

If your work is more intangible, i.e. you’re an accountant, think about getting some case studies together illustrating the work you have carried out, with input from your clients.

Website/blog: Having a personal website for yourself is one of the best ways to rank for your name on the search engines. It doesn’t need to be complex; it can be a simple one-page site, but make sure it appears professional, in line with your brand look and feel and contains all the necessary information. This might include a brief bio, photo, C.V. and links to your social platforms.

A blog is an excellent way to build your image because you can write on your chosen topics to establish your expertise. However, a neglected blog does not create a good impression, so don’t start one unless you are committed to regularly updating it.

Email address: Your email address is a significant part of your toolkit and should not be overlooked – it will be used over all social networks and poses a great opportunity for your brand.

If you’re not using email through your website host, opt for Gmail because of its integration with Google, G+, GTalk, YouTube and others. For your address, the ideal format is firstname.lastname@gmail.com.

Social media profiles: Establish your personal brand presence on the leading social platforms, including LinkedIn, G+, Facebook and Twitter. Complete your professional information, use a high quality headshot and tailor your profile with a bespoke ‘on brand’ look where possible.

Think very carefully about what you post to your profiles (i.e. no drunken photos or rants!) and be purposeful in your messaging. Be sure to activate security controls that stop friends from tagging you in photos and statuses without your approval.

Don’t forget that any posts you make on Twitter are visible for all to see and may appear when someone Googles your name. Also, any comments you make on YouTube videos appear on your G+ profile, so don’t be caught out!

Professional headshots: It’s well worth investing in some professional photographs. Look for a recommended photographer and then spend some time chatting through your personal brand and the image that you wish to convey.

An experienced photographer should be able to subtly communicate this through your photographs, without them looking cheesy.

5. Start communicating your brand

Now you’ve built yourself an image, it’s time to become your own PR person and start shouting about it! Sadly it’s not a case of ‘build it and they will come’. You need to be active online, creating original content and sharing the content of others that share your brand values.

Try writing some thought leadership pieces for LinkedIn’s Pulse publishing platform. Start building a small ‘fan base’ for your writing, and lean on existing contacts to share your content.

Attend networking events, ask for introductions, put yourself forward for media opportunities and as a speaker at events. Even better, hold your own events. Organising a talk, demonstration or workshop is an excellent way to get noticed, get known and spread your message.

Conclusion

Establishing brand ‘me’ can help you gain a better understanding of who you are, what you stand for, and what you’re striving for.

Not only does this enable you to see the wood for the trees when trying to navigate your career path, it also helps other people to see your potential.