How can you use visuals to boost your speaker branding?

One key area of personal branding is to check how you want you audience to perceive you. Do you want to come up as a serious expert, an easy to reach educator, a fun inspiring leader? Play on your strengths and what is your natural style. Get inspired by people you relate with and try different possibilities. If you are not sure, a good way is to ask friends and colleagues about how you come up when at your best and see what is the common denominator between them. Of course you want it to resonate with you so you will love projecting that image.

I've experienced having a brand or logo associated with your speaking helps audiences learn quickly who you are and what you're about. I liken it to a musician in a band. Set the tone with those initial marketing touches.

Craft Your Speaker Brand: Before you dive into visuals, define your speaker brand. What's your niche, message, tone, and style? Identify strengths, unique selling points, and audience expectations. Perception Matters: Consider how you want to be seen—expert, educator, or inspiring leader. Leverage your strengths, stay true to your style, and seek inspiration. Ask friends and colleagues for insights into your best self. Authenticity Reigns: Your brand should mirror your true self. It's not just for your audience; it's your identity. Embrace your uniqueness and project an image you're proud of. Your brand is your guiding star on your speaker journey.

Colors are critical when establishing emotion into a brand. Today the societal meaning of various colors establishes a path to choose from. Google is a simple resource. However in experiencing branding its also key to have colors your team can and does support as well.

You want to choose colours that speak to your personality as a speaker. What values do you represent? What is your energy on stage? These questions can help you understand which colours would best suit your personality and help set you apart as a speaker. With that chosen, you can the choose punchy images, typography and icons that mirror your colours and help create a consistent brand for you as a speaker.

Your branding is important and the colors you choose are part of what people perceive and think of you and your brand and so reflecting positivity, credibility, and trust are a must. Choosing the right colors may seem daunting and complicated. The smart way to approach it is to research other speaker brands. The most successful speakers have already invested into the market research etc. and so while researching your colors be cognizant of what colors have been used for brands that people already resonate with and are fond of. Find colors that resonate with you on a personal level and then change them up to make it uniquely yours. Never make a carbon copy of someone else's branding colors and in the same token don't reinvent the wheel.

Your brand's colors aren't just aesthetics; they're the heartbeat of your identity. Colors are your brand's emotional voice. Explore psychology, use timeless blues and fiery reds, employ online tools like Color Hunt, find unique inspiration, and strike the balance between standing out and staying recognizable. They're about crafting an emotional connection with your audience. So, choose wisely, and let your colors weave the story of your brand!

When it comes to logos, I think the key is to keep it simple, but unique. Canva has some terrific templates you can modify even just slightly (change the font and color, move the text around), and within minutes you have a brand that is distinctly your own.

Crafting a strong visual identity for your speaker brand involves choosing fonts and icons strategically. Fonts convey personality—serif for elegance, sans-serif for modernity. Icons, meanwhile, accentuate key points and add visual interest. They're more than visuals; they're your brand's language. Every font and icon you select contributes to the symphony of your brand's message. Explore tools like Google Fonts or Font Awesome to create a compelling visual narrative that resonates with your audience and sets your brand apart from the crowd

Images and videos aren't just eye candy; they're your secret weapons to captivate, inform, and connect. They breathe life into your brand, showcasing your essence, values, and triumphs. Now, while sourcing from platforms like Unsplash or Pexels is convenient, you might find yourself trapped in a loop of déjà vu, as stock images can start feeling repetitive. To truly stand out, consider harnessing the creative prowess of AI-generated imagery. By teaching AI your unique style, you gain access to an endless well of custom visuals that speak exclusively to your brand, leaving a lasting impression without the stock-photo shuffle.

It can be time consuming to look into every single stock, photo database. Also, after a while, you start recognizing stock photos from one presentation to another. One way to avoid this is to learn to use a generated AI tool to build an imagery that will fit your brand. It might require some work to find exactly how to describe your style, but then you virtually have an infinite bucket of images you can create.

Elevating your speaker branding through visuals is a balance of consistency and creativity: 1. Visual Harmony: Weave a tapestry of colors, fonts, and icons for instant recognition. 2. Spark Creativity: Surprise with unique visuals that ignite curiosity and inspiration. 3. DIY or Design: Modern tools like PowerPoint help, but customization by a designer in your team can add a touch of expertise. Visuals are your cosmic handshake with the audience – make them memorable and influential

If you’re proficient enough, or if you have a designer in your team, do not hesitate to reach, color graphs, diagrams, and other borrowed images to fit your color palette. This goes a long way in providing consistency and boost your aura of expertise.

Use visuals which could impact your audience, not you. Anything related to their interest, preferably a common one, would be recommended. Once, during a conference where I was speaker, I changed all the images for each chapters with photos from the city where the conference took place, keeping some link with the content. During the break I was overwhelmed by appreciations of my idea. It was an ad-hoc inspiration.

As tempting as it can be to use stock images or manipulate AI generated visuals (when it comes to enhancing the know, like and trust factor) nothing beats real photos and video footage of your skills in action. Short clips and images of your coaching sessions, interviews. YouTube videos, keynotes, workshops can give your audience a better glimpse of your personal brand and what it’s like to work with you.