What's in Your Branding Stack? Top Tips From 8 Pros

You’ve heard the phrase, “you already have a personal brand.” Your personal brand is expressed by how you show up in the world and workplace (from the inside out). It is also defined by how others perceive you (from the outside in).

So, if you are the designer of your ideas, thought leadership, and contribution, “what’s in your branding stack?”

Wait, what? You may not have heard this phrase before.

What is a personal branding stack?

Definition: A personal branding stack is a combination of tech tools, platforms, and practices used to design, build, and manage your personal brand. Making full use of your branding stack elements enables you to become known and to attract the attention of those who matter most: your market, hiring managers, recruiters, coworkers, decision makers, and key influencers in the workplace.

Steve Martin’s pithy quote “Be so good they can’t ignore you” is an example of a smart strategy contained in your branding stack. The wisdom of his phrase illuminates a “stand out” command. In branding terms, if you are different from the rest, and visible, you are memorable. When the time comes for employers, partners, and clients to choose someone with your unique and notable qualities, you will rise to the top. You will be chosen above all others.

To kick off the discussion, following is a personal branding strategy developed during the research phase for my book, Activate Your Agile Career .

?Personal Brand Principle

Uncover your distinguishing characteristics and brand values. Package your portfolio of skills; be consistent in how you communicate and present yourself to the human workplace. When making a decision, pose the question: Is this in alignment with your brand values? Spread the story-driven message in real life and across your digital networks. Be bold and dare to be different.

Ask the Experts

To better understand how to shape your personal brand, I posed the question, “What are elements of your branding stack?” to thought leaders: branding consultants, marketing innovators, LinkedIn optimizers, resume creators, and career strategists.

Similar to the unique footprint of your personal brand, every branding stack is unique to you. The purpose of this roundup is to reinforce what is working in your current approach and to give you new ideas for your skillset and toolset.

Companies like AirBnB, Google, and Spotify make their software stack of tools and services visible to the world. Making this information freely available encourages the entire ecosystem to grow.

Now is your time to take notes, learn from 8 thought leaders, and build and nurture a personal branding stack. Notice how each of these branding experts has used their profile description in an innovative way! Key words and creative branding phrases lead the way.

1 LinkedIn Elevates Your Personal Brand

Gregg Burkhalter Personal Branding Coach | LinkedIn Training | Speaker | Corporate Presentations | Virtual & In-Person Sessions | Brandstorming? | Mentor | Known as "The LinkedIn Guy"

Hashtags

Hashtags tend to be overused or underutilized on LinkedIn. Not only do hashtags impact the content you see on your newsfeed and the exposure of your posts, they also create an opportunity for you to leap out of your LinkedIn network into the big LinkedIn ocean (and make a larger splash). You do this by commenting on hashtag-generated posts you see on your LinkedIn homepage newsfeed or by searching a particular hashtag and commenting on one of the articles on the newsfeed on this hashtag page.

Podcasts

If you are near the beginning of your personal branding journey, starting your own podcast might not be the wisest intro into the podcast community. A lot of time and effort goes into doing a podcast and even more when trying to get exposure for it. What might be better is to start out being a guest on another person’s podcast. Two tips:

• ?Never be the first guest on anyone’s podcast
• Try to be a guest on a podcast where the host’s brand is equal to or bigger than yours.

Share Button on LinkedIn

The number one mistake I see people make on LinkedIn when it comes to creating exposure for their personal brand is “sharing” articles they see on their newsfeed instead of “liking” or “commenting”. If you like or comment, your network sees the article and the original poster’s name, photo, etc. The poster’s network will be able to see your name, face, etc.?BUT, when you push the share button, the other person’s network does not see anything about you and when your network sees the post you shared, all the likes and comments on the original post disappear.

LinkedIn Commenting

One of the fastest ways to grow your personal brand initially is not by posting content. It’s by becoming an active, supportive member of the LinkedIn community by commenting on quality posts on your newsfeed (or under a hashtag). Be strategic and identify people whose brand is already well established and whose thought leadership you admire and start interacting occasionally with these people. This will give you much larger brand exposure than anything you can do with the same amount of effort.

2 A Layered Approach Consistent Across Every Touch Point

LoRen ?? gReiFf Skyrocket Your Next 3 Career Moves | Fueled By Access To 80-85% of Unposted Jobs | Excuse Exterminator | Forever Bee Gees Fan

Loren uses a consistent branding element in her branding stack, offering her emoji of the rocket, rather than bullet points in her summary. The details reinforces her company, Portfolio Rocket!

?LinkedIn

??? My branded (Rocket logo) is prominent in my banner.

?? It also shows in my experience areas for my company.?This does require setting up a LI company page for it to show on my personal profile page.

?? I urge Jobseekers to do the same if they're not working at a company with a branded logo to avoid the generic grey skyscrapers - which I believe sends a message that the company (independent contractor or not) lacks credibility.?

?? For LI content, use your branded hashtag. This can reinforce your brand and build followers. When hashtags are used in the search bar LinkedIn will pull all posts aligned to it.?Used this on your resume to quickly point decision makers to your content.?

Content Marketing and Platforms

?? When creating sliders or document posts, all branded elements including colors, logo, and fonts should be included for sake of continuity and recognizability.?

?? Logo and signatures: I use a few paid upgrades on Wisestamp for my email signature to include a branded look & feel -- and opt into the upgrade on Streamyard to have my logo included when I host my LinkedIn Lives.?

??A few other freebies worth mentioning -- LinkedIn Newsletters, blog (mine is newly added to my site to drive SEO) and YouTube.

??? Developing a YouTube channel is a great idea -- as is a podcast with the knowing that it's a long game!

Branding Opportunities are Everywhere

?? I am big of other brand stack elements like postcards, gifts -- like socks and luggage tags and stickers. Yes -- not everyone goes this brand stack crazy and you can adjust accordingly!?

3 What’s the Payoff?

David Brier Google’s #1 Rebranding Expert | Slayer of the Mundane | Liberator of Awesome | Advisor to CEOs | Author of Amazon’s Branding Bestseller “BRAND INTERVENTION” responsible for $6B in sales | Keynote Speaker

David’s value bombs are legendary in the space of branding and rebranding. Like anything that he writes, you will be rewarded by rereading his advice. His company is called Rising Above the Noise; you will find out how he does that.

One item in "my stack" includes what I call "the payoff" — in other words, I KNOW there are tons of others providing "their content" which makes for a noisy world.

So, I always look at what I am offering and seek to NOT just be one more voice in the sea of noise. But instead to add another narrative and insight that empowers the reader.

Without that barometer, I would simply be peeing in the wind, and nobody wins with that option. ALWAYS PROVIDE A PAYOFF.

4 Job Seeker Gold

Erica Reckamp You won't BELIEVE what they'll say when they see your new Executive Resume & LinkedIn Profile | Find the Job Search Strategy that works for YOU | 2Book: jobsearchlikeapro.com | 2Shop: jobsearchjourney.com

Brand Your Keywords

From a resume/LinkedIn content perspective, use JobScan or ResyMatch to run raw content through the system. If reports come out with on-theme keywords, you’re probably in good shape in terms of keeping the narrative aligned with your brand. If not, you have some work to do!

Opening your resume with a target title and including a keyword bank can solidify your brand. Consider adding subtle shading to reinforce brand colors, while remaining ATS friendly.

Brand Your Online Footprint

Potential partners and hiring authorities will search for additional social proof beyond LinkedIn to find out more about you and what you bring to the table. Creating your own online portfolio or website can elevate your standing significantly.

Wix and WordPress are free and easy sites that can quickly improve search results. Make sure the web content and themes reinforce your brand messaging, including color schemes, photos, video excerpts, and more.

5 Mind Your Content and Give it Wings

A N D Y F O O T E Reassuringly expensive LinkedIn Content Strategist

Andy offers his ideas on the platform that he has studied, optimized, and shared will all who are interested in LinkedIn. It’s his business.

?LinkedIn Content Marketing

Stand-out content. ?

The job seeker certainly needs to understand how to find key decision-makers but when it comes to influencing these life-changers, there's no better way I know than standing out from the crowd by creating content so good that you're hard to ignore.

And it doesn't necessarily have to be a post or article. Adding a thoughtful/insightful/hilarious comment to a hiring manager/future employer's post is a great way to get on their radar. The goal is for them to remember you when you follow/connect.

Oh - and people get to vote on your comment game, the more likes you get for your comment, the more visibility you get. It's a beautiful thing!

6 The Age of Influence

Neal ?? Schaffer Author, The Age of Influence | Fractional CMO | Digital / Social Media / Influencer Marketing Virtual Keynote Speaker & Consultant | University Educator

Tech Tool

The #1 tech tool for personal branding HAS to be Canva. There is a visual aspect to personal branding that you need to implement throughout digital and social media, and Canva is the easiest to use out of all of the branding tools that exist.

?Branding Platform

As a branding platform, a podcast is probably the easy way to display your personal brand in action and give you the ability to network with and interview other thought leaders in your space by inviting them to be a guest on your podcast.

7 Branding for Job Seekers and Job Keepers

Heather Bennett Qualified Board Candidate | Marketing Strategist | Bestselling Author | Personal Brand Coach | Creating effective marketing strategies & authentic personal brands.

Branding Tools on Schedule

One of the tools I rely on is a scheduler for social media.?Schedulers mean consistency and consistency is the key to growing your brand, followers and business.?There are so many options available so take the time to research a few to find a good match for your needs.?Hubspot, Buffer, Loomly, Post Planner, Meet Edgar are a few to consider.

A branding tool that can dramatically improve your personal brand is Calendly.?By having a professional, user-friendly way to book your time, you can be better prepared for meetings and remain top of mind and accessible to your ideal customers. stakeholders and future employers.?

Asking for Help: Coaches and Mentors

Employers and leaders in companies are aware of the changing dynamics in loyalty among employees and employers. Loyalty is built on trust. And trust is built on knowing and liking someone.

It is much easier to know and like someone that is supportive of you in your career. That is why having a good career coach when you are job hunting is so important. In the same way, having a mentor within your industry and even within your organization can be incredibly powerful for developing and communicating your personal brand.?

I advise both job seekers and job keepers to seek out mentors within your industry and/or organization to have much needed conversations about who you are as a professional, what your experiences and online presence are saying and advice on continuous learning and leadership development.?A personal brand needs to be worked on to remain relevant and useful.?

8 From the Consummate Curator of Job Search Strategy

Hannah Morgan Job Search Strategist | Speaker & Trainer ?? Showing job seekers ways to proactively uncover new opportunities and get discovered!

Branded Content

Video is easier than ever and a powerful way to convey your brand. But don’t worry, you don’t necessarily need to be on camera! Share your video on every social media platform.

Favorite Free Tech Tools:

• Canva
• Loom

Branding Platform

Host videos on YouTube, one of the most powerful search engines. This makes your content likely to show up in search results. (Title it well and use appropriate keywords in the description).

Branding Tactics

Show samples of your work. Either use Loom to capture your screen and talk about your process (like a tutorial) or use music to showcase screengrabs, photos or images.

Here are some ideas of work you could highlight:

• Photos or video of you attending or speaking at an event
• Testimonials
• Presentation slide deck
• Report or executive summary
• Outline of your research
• Process diagram or flowchart
• A mindmap
• Gantt chart, data visualization, org chart

Build Your Stack

How have you stocked up in your branding stack?

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Contact me:?[email protected]

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