Personal Branding

Personal branding is the conscious and intentional effort to create and influence public perception of an individual by positioning them as an authority in their industry, elevating their credibility, and differentiating themselves from others, to ultimately advance their career, increase their circle of influence, and have a larger impact in the area of expertise.

Personal branding is a process which involves finding your uniqueness, building a reputation on the things you want to be known for, and then allowing yourself to be known for them. This should enable you to build a personality that conveys a message and that can be provide career growth, credibility and add value to yourself.

In the modern digital age, employers are increasingly using social media tools to vet applicants before offering them the conventional interviews. More often we find insights of visitors to our profiles such as LinkedIn who will unknowingly be carrying out background checks. If your personal brand is spot on, you obvious find yourself getting to the next stage of interviews while in most unfortunate cases, people fail to make it without being aware that there were these checks happening in the background.

Celebrities are now building a brand for themselves over the various platforms especially on social media platform. It is becoming the new norm to have a celebrity having pages on the different platforms to enhance their personal brand. However, personal branding is not just limited to celebrities but if done correctly can have a lasting impact on the professional and personal perception of individuals. As professional, you are encouraged to create a personal brand, build it over time and use it to enhance business and personal growth. It is particularly important to build consistency in who you portray so that the is impact on the target audience.

Lastly to be successful with personal branding it is of paramount importance to look at the following key issues.

·        Do a personal internal analysis. Look at yourself in the mirror and do an honest evaluation of yourself.

·        Create consistent content that portrays who you are, who you want to be in the minds of the target audience. This is strengthened by building a reputation of consistency.

·        Monitor your performance over a defined period. This you can do using the various insights on your channels. Results of engagements will also help to take corrective measures and improve going forward.

At the end of the day, ‘create a consistent experience for your target audience’

You are a Brand!