Creating a Personal Brand

Whether we’re just starting out in our career, looking to make a switch, or working our way up in our industry, curating a personal brand is always beneficial. In today’s world, our reputation often precedes us - headhunters offer us jobs based on our LinkedIn profiles, hiring managers Google us before an interview, and the content we produce or the impression we make on someone can be the thing that lands us our next big opportunity.?

Because of the nature of the internet, most of us will have some sort of personal brand already, whether we’ve put much thought into it or not. If we have a social media presence, a blog, or even just a business card, all of these will form part of our brand. And if it isn’t saying what we want it to be, it could actually be working against us - which makes it all the more important to think about. Having a strategy in place to make sure what we’re putting out is consistent with what we want to achieve can have a huge positive impact.?

“Personal brand” is one of those buzzwords that gets thrown around a lot, but what does it actually mean? And what are some concrete steps we can take to communicate a brand in a way that benefits us and our careers? This is one of the topics I’ll be discussing with Jessica Chen during my first Mindset Matters live interview on LinkedIn (you can sign up here).

Establish a clear vision and story?

The first step in building your brand is deciding exactly what you want to communicate about yourself and how you want to come across.?

→ Assess who you are and what you have to offer. Write out a list of each of your skills, passions, personality characteristics, strengths, and credentials, as well as your core values and beliefs. These are the things you will build your personal brand around. Don’t consider yet which aspects are relevant to the brand you want to create or the future you want to achieve, just get everything down to reflect upon later. A good tip is to ask people who you’ve worked with in the past for a more objective perspective.

→ Get clear on your goal. Understanding why you want to build a personal brand and how you’d like it to benefit you will make it easier to figure out what aspects to focus on. What do you want to accomplish? Are you trying to become more prolific in your industry, move into a different field, or attract more clients to your business, for example? Always having your purpose in mind will help make sure everything you do is aligned with your goals.

→ Craft a personal brand message. Consider what you want to be known for and what skills and characteristics you’d like to be associated with on a professional level. Then create an elevator pitch, or a unique value proposition - this is a short statement that communicates who you are, what you bring to the table, and if relevant where you’re aiming to go. This is where you can look through the list you put together at the start and pull out the things that you believe are most important to your future goal. Are you particularly good at one thing within your industry or is it your breadth of expertise that you want to highlight above all else? Perhaps it’s the experience of working with you that you’d like to communicate the most, such as your strong leadership skills or your ability to collaborate with diverse teams.?

This step can also help highlight which areas you might need to improve, so that you can take steps to get there - remember, your personal brand will constantly evolve as you grow.

→ Define your audience. Think about who you want to reach with your personal brand. This will depend on your goal - it could be potential clients, people in your industry, or hiring managers for example. Knowing this will influence how you best communicate your message and, crucially, where. Knowing who you’re talking to will make it easier to set yourself apart in the right way.

Showcase your expertise and perspective

Once you have a well-defined personal brand and know what story you want to tell about yourself, it’s time to put it out into the world.

→ Curate your online presence. Who you are online is usually the first version of you people will see, so you should make sure it’s representative and is supporting the message you want to be communicating. Based on your goal and your audience, consider which channels are most important for you. LinkedIn is an obvious choice for many professionals, but Twitter, Instagram, TikTok and even Facebook might be relevant depending on your line of work. A personal website is another way to establish your personal brand and highlight your work visually, while a blog or publishing platform like Medium is great for thought leadership.?

→ Share relevant content. The next step is curating content to showcase your expertise and drum up interest in your personal brand. This should serve to flesh out who you are and show that you know your stuff, and will increase your visibility with the right people. If you’re working on anything interesting in your current role that you can share externally, do so at every opportunity. If you’re not currently getting paid to do what you want to be doing, try to carve out time regularly to work on side projects that can demonstrate your competence in that area. Another tip is to engage with influencers in your field and connect with the people you want to be speaking to by sharing or commenting on their content.

Keep in mind that if you have a LinkedIn page or other social media accounts that are outdated or not considered, they may still be contributing to your personal brand without you intending them to. The key thing is to ensure that your online presence is cohesive and tells a story that aligns with your personal brand message. If you have any social media accounts that you want to keep strictly personal, make sure your settings reflect that.

→ Don’t forget how you are offline. Although much of our professional life now happens online, at the end of the day it’s usually still personal connections that matter the most. Your personal brand is also defined by how you interact with others, how you carry yourself, and the work you produce. Your reputation and how people in your desired field speak of you make a huge difference - so take every opportunity to work with others, volunteer to help on projects, and exhibit your skills, to show that everything you are communicating about yourself is true.

Your branding tips

What are your tips for creating a strong personal brand?

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