Being A Young Professional In A Personal Branding World

"...And we live in a fame-driven world. So for commerce—fame is important."

— Shep Gordon, on episode #255 of The Tim Ferriss Show.

Foreword

Personal branding is certainly one of the buzzwords of 2017. Building a personal brand today isn’t only reserved for entrepreneurs such as Gary Vaynerchuk and Grant Cardone; any professional can create content around their area(s) of expertise to further their career. Whether that is getting a job after graduating college, getting a more senior position within your team, finding investors for your small business, or simply meeting new people—creating content can help you accelerate the process of achieving these goals. The following is an explanation of why you should consider creating content for your personal brand and how to get started.

Social media allows all of us to become media companies

What’s the first thing that comes to a person’s mind when they think about you? Do people think about your kindness? The ideas you present in conversation? Your work ethic? Regardless of what comes to mind, there are ways to use social media and content to influence what people associate with you.

Anyone who has an active social media profile has content associated with their personal brand now. It's based on the simple principle that we all produce content based on our daily experiences. Whether it's a status update about how mass transit has failed you for the millionth time, a picture of that glorious hamburger you had for lunch, or a selfie with your cat—we are creating content around our lives every day. The frequency of this content is dependent on the habits of each individual—we all have control over what we share. The most important question to consider now is, "How often are you creating content that will promote your professional development?"

"Can one utilize content and social media to propel themselves forward in their career?"

In an article published by the New York Times titled, “Keeping Up, on Camera, Is No Longer Just for the Kardashians,” Jennifer Miller writes about how personal branding is beginning to proliferate through society at scale. More and more, business owners are documenting their lives to create opportunities using reality show/documentary-style content. The entrepreneurs mentioned in the article explain that their content isn't mainly used for self-promotion, but to help their audience in an altruistic manner. They are trying to catch the everyday moments within their work that can potentially help other people. With that said, you too can create content based on your professional experiences to help and grow your potential audience.

You don’t need a team of people recording your every moment and you can do it without spending any money. The quality of our phone’s cameras has gone up substantially in the past five years, you can publish any written piece on Medium and LinkedIn, and if you purchase a cheap lavalier microphone for your phone—you can start a podcast with a small investment. If you have a computer and/or mobile phone, you can create content yourself—the main challenge is just finding the time to start and having a strategic view of how you want to be perceived.

Why you should consider creating content for your personal brand

One immediate benefit that I have personally seen from building my personal brand is that networking has become much easier. Content allows you to network with other people with much less friction. Content makes for a great conversation starter. A “Hello” coupled with your content as the subject of conversation is much more effective than a “Hello” with little to no context. There’s no leverage in the former.

Andrew Chen, an online tech blogger and Growth lead at UBER, recently published a Tweet Storm in which he mentions that, “Writing is the most scalable professional networking activity - stay home, don't go to events/conferences, and just put ideas down.” The fastest way to grow your professional network is to create content that allows your contacts to come to you (saving you money and time attending networking events). This is a perfect example of why you should consider creating content for your personal brand.

Related: There Are No Longer Six Degrees of Separation: Contacting Anyone Who's Online

Creating content isn't easy, however, it is feasible and can be enjoyable. The very first consideration one should make when thinking about how to make content for their personal brand is to set realistic expectations. Your audience is being bombarded with content every second they are using their phones and computers. Getting at least one reader, listener, or viewer a week should be a decent starting point for anyone who begins the endeavor of creating content. You won’t get a 100,000 listeners/readers/viewers in a year, let alone two. The main goal of creating content is to have the person consuming it, reach out to you and start a conversation.

In an article by Kevin Kelly (best selling author who covers topics in science and technology) titled “1,000 True Fans,” he covers how to mentally position yourself to tackle the endeavor of creating an audience with your content. I suggest reading it to learn how reasonable and attainable it is to acquire 1,000 people who actively consume your work, even if it revolves around your personal brand and why all you really need is 1,000 people to get closer to the business opportunities you seek to achieve.

In taking your personal goals into consideration, you may not even need that big of an audience to achieve what you want. If all you’re looking for, as an example, then creating content is definitely a means to get there. The content you create will help your resume stand out.

In the article, Kevin writes:

“Whatever your interests as a creator are, your 1,000 true fans are one click from you. As far as I can tell there is nothing — no product, no idea, no desire — without a fan base on the internet. Every thing made, or thought of, can interest at least one person in a million — it’s a low bar. Yet if even only one out of million people were interested, that’s potentially 7,000 people on the planet. That means that any 1-in-a-million appeal can find 1,000 true fans. The trick is to practically find those fans, or more accurately, to have them find you.”

This just goes to show that creating content does pay dividends over time. There will always be a niche community online that will gravitate to your content. But, you will never know that said community exists until you start creating. Below is how you can begin your personal branding content journey and distribute that content in practical ways.

What you can share & how to start

When you first begin producing content focused on your personal brand, here are the first 5 steps you can to take to make the process of starting as easy as possible:

1. Think about what are the core topics you will speak about. Mine revolve around personal branding tips for recent college graduates and business experiences that young professionals should take into account as they begin their careers. Again, content is easy to make. You just have to keep in mind that content (regardless of format) is based on the documentation and/or commentary on what you know or what you are currently learning.
2. Which format will you use on a consistent basis? You only have three options: written, audio, and video. Focus on your strengths and more importantly, the format that allows you to have the most fun. If you aren’t enjoying yourself when you create content, you won’t be able to do this in the long-term.
3. Consistency is more important than quality. Quality is subjective; you shouldn’t be the ultimate judge of the work you produce—your audience should be. I often believe an article to be sub par only to realize later, through the feedback from my audience, that my presentation on the subject matter at hand just so happened to be exceptional and informative.
4. Find the places where your target audience has conversations. Facebook and LinkedIn groups are a great and inexpensive way for you to start getting a foothold in the communities you want to penetrate. As a general rule of thumb, make sure you are commenting and engaging with other community member’s content before distributing your own (do this for at least the first month for each new group you join).
5. Start collaborating with other content creators in your field. Once you have a decent handle on a production schedule, effective distribution strategy, and you are engaging with your growing audience, working with others is another strategy you can utilize. I have personally just begun this step this year. As a writer, my goal is to do as many guest blog posts as humanly possible. However, if you’re running a podcast or business vlog, consider reaching out to as many creators as possible to be a guest on their show.

"What’s the ultimate goal of any piece of content you make? Creating a conversation that would not occur otherwise."

There are many benefits to building your personal brand using content outside of exposure and having a competitive advantage over other job applicants (as one example). Creating content also allows you to solidify and validate what you think you know. This, in and of itself, wasn’t something I became aware of until after my first year of writing online. As I continue to create content based mainly on what I’m learning, I find that I’m absorbing the concepts that I encounter at an accelerated pace. So at the very least, if you feel as if creating content for attention and growing an audience isn’t for you, create content just so you can learn more about the concepts you believe you have a grasp on. Just know that at the end of the day, whether you’re creating your content for self-promotion, learning more about the concepts you are leveraging during your day to day, or a mixture of both—the key is to have something unique to say. This only occurs when you create content on a consistent basis—which doesn’t happen overnight.

Related: How To Repurpose Your Old College Essays For Content

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