What is personal branding?
Personal branding is a well-known and important term in the world of marketing. It could be said that it consists of achieving a position through a brand strategy of an individual person, instead of a company or product. The idea is to make the public fully understand who that person is and what they offer. Be careful, that does not mean that the person in question is considered a product or a brand itself, quite the contrary. A personal brand is the representation of that person’s soul, with their thoughts and values, but adapted to the communication environment. It is important that the personal brand is built from honesty, since, otherwise, it would end up collapsing.
Having this definition of personal brand, we can understand what is said that everyone has their own personal brand, but not everyone exposes it to the same level. The personal brand is that unique “way of doing” of each one, which makes you different from the rest. In relation to this statement, there is a more “emotional” definition of what personal branding is that says that…
...the personal brand is the mark we leave on others
Ecequiel Barricart, creative director and writer of YouMedia, affirms in his book You are God that personal brand management must begin in the left hemisphere of the brain, that is, the creative and emotional one. Because? Because if the personal brand tries to manage the footprint that is left to others, this brand cannot be square or watertight, quite the opposite. This brand has to be different from everything else and appeal to what really impacts people: emotions. That is why every personal brand must have a hidden purpose.
The personal brand is closely linked to the marketing environment and the market, which is why it must also adapt to current times. It makes sense, therefore, that today personal branding has to also focus on the digital environment. There are several platforms made especially for managing personal branding, such as professional social networks like LinkedIn, so it is necessary to take advantage of them. The idea of the personal brand in the digital world tries to adapt the essence of the offline brand online, either by creating content, interacting in a special way or carrying out another series of actions that aim to position itself.
5 steps to create a personal brand
As in any communication strategy, several external and internal aspects must be taken into account. In this case, as it is a brand made especially for a specific person, with specific needs, it must be more personalized than a traditional brand plan.
That is why we have designed a short template on what steps to take to create a successful personal brand.
Find the purpose
As we have said before, personal brands must start from the base of the purpose. If a personal brand is made from the desire to achieve fame or increase income and nothing else, it will not come to fruition. Each person must search within himself for what he wants to do to improve the world, his world. Ecequiel Barricart himself creates the term positive purposes, which are those that are created to improve something in society. These are the ones that have the longest journey, especially today that consumers are more social and conscientious people.
Get to know each other in depth
Previously it has been commented that the personal brand must appear from the emotional environment of the people, but it must also have a part of reasoning. Experts in personal branding affirm that 70% of the personal brand must be emotional and the remaining 30% rational. Each person must analyze himself and find what emotional and rational attributes are what differentiate him from others.
Find the target audience
If you already know what you want to contribute to the world and with what personal attributes you will do it, it remains to be seen who you will impact. A person whose purpose is to promote creativity in the little ones will not impact (or at least at first) people who have never been interested in these topics. That is why it is necessary to know who you want to impact by looking for groups and people with similar concerns.
Get visibility in digital media
Once the target that we are going to impact is also known, all that remains is to decide in which media to act. As we mentioned earlier, there are different digital platforms made especially for personal brand management, such as social networks. At this point, the use of creativity is very important because, as McLuhan said, the medium is the message and, sometimes, the way we communicate says more than the message itself.
Especially in creating your digital personal brand, it’s important to set up a plan the same way you would with a traditional brand. For example, the conceptualization of branding, the use of storytelling or even the creation of your own design. The most successful personal brands, strange as it may seem, have their own logo and corporate identity.
From there everything should roll. The management of accounts in social networks (community management) and the design of the personal web must be the order of the day in all personal brands.
Even the way to contact potential leads and followers of a personal brand must follow the same dynamics as if it were a traditional company. Marketing strategies such as content creation or email marketing are very effective and recommended in managing a personal brand.
Some of the most popular means that you can use to give yourself visibility and work on your personal brand are the following:
Through a website or blog
Web pages or blogs allow us to position ourselves in a niche, more specifically in the market niche that interests us the most based on our field. These niches can range from digital marketing professionals to rock climbing hobbyists. To position ourselves in these niches, it will be interesting to write articles and generate content around the different themes and keywords.
Through events or activities related to your field of work
Taking into account the health circumstances that have substantially restricted face-to-face events, it is more important than ever to be present at online events where many professionals from different sectors are present. They take advantage of events such as conferences, courses or classes at universities or business schools to make their presence clear and share their knowledge.
Addressing a large audience through social networks
Depending on our objectives, we can spread our personal brand through one social network or another. There are social networks that are directly focused on the professional world, such as LinkedIn, while there are others that are open to a more “generalist” or “less specialized” audience, such as Instagram. As in the marketing strategies of companies or brands, using different networks and betting on omnichannel can be the key for our message to reach a broader audience.
Regardless of the channel that we finally decide to use, we must feed it with valuable content, which is related to our work or academic field and which may be of interest to the user. A combination of various channels (for example, blog and social networks) will be the most effective method to enhance our personal brand.
Generating valuable content will be what makes our audience begin to consider us as a reliable source of information, giving us credibility and revaluing our personal brand.
Start to leave a mark
If all the previous steps have already been completed, the objectives to be achieved are clear, the person knows himself, has seen how to differentiate himself and knows how to communicate, all that remains is to start leaving his mark. It is important to emphasize again that a fundamental factor to be successful is to be yourself. The best way to communicate is to be natural, without forcing things but with a clear strategy. It’s all about taking advantage of personal attributes and doing it in a unique and effective way.
Do you want to start working on your personal brand and don't know where to start?
At Década Studio we are aware of the importance of working on a personal brand when it comes to achieving more visibility within a specific professional environment, which is why we work on marketing strategies at the company level but also at the personal level. We want to encourage you to start working on your personal brand so that your messages can reach a wider audience.
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