These days, your personal brand may be the single most valuable career asset you will ever possess. Granted, your future employers and associates will still like to check your biography and go through other traditional research steps. But, the present-day labor market is very fast-paced and volatile. If you don’t build a credible personal brand and establish some sort of market clout, you are running a danger of ending up overlooked.
But, what steps should you take to actually build that strong personal brand and get people knocking at your doors instead of constantly running after others?
Well, the business world has by this point pretty much nailed the process of branding down to a point. All you need to do is to adjust these strategies for personal purposes. Let us take a look at how to do that.
Master the social media game
Social media has become or go-to-platform for promotion, exchanging opinions, and building up your status as an influencer. So, it seems appropriate to start your branding efforts here. And even though LinkedIn should make the backbone of your strategy, you should make a presence on other platforms like Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook as well. Furthermore, you should research the types of content, posting frequency, and the addressing tone you should use to get the optimal following. And if you invest a couple of bucks into social media marketing you will start building a very strong following in no time.
Make your personal website easy to navigate
Social media platforms will make a useful outlet where you will publish your content and reach out to new people. But, all these profiles should lead back to your website where you will get an opportunity to display your portfolio, present your credentials, and back up your online brand. However, in order to meet these goals, your website needs to feature a responsive design, be easily accessible from mobile devices, and offer multiple contact forms and channels to visitors. The website should also put a very strong emphasis on your personal qualities, soft skills, fields of expertise, and lifestyle you prefer.
Choose a catchy domain name
Your personal brand will live and die on your personal qualities. But, as we will see in the following sections, you should make your website attractive to accidental visitors and engage them afterward. The first step in this process comes in creating an appealing website name and domain that will spark curiosity and invite people to click. Fortunately, the options for choosing a catchy personal website domain are more than abundant so you will have plenty of room to play with an extension like .me and create something truly unique. The content of your website will do the rest of the engagement’s heavy lifting.
Create and publish unique content
We really can’t stress enough the importance of this strategy. First, creating content will keep your social media profiles fueled and fresh. Second, blog posts, infographics, and similar types of content do a great job of inviting people who are not yet interested in establishing a professional relationship with you but show a general interest in your field of work. Third, valuable content sets the foundations for building an incredibly effective backlink strategy that will lead countless new visitors to your website. Finally, creating content allows you to express creativity and demonstrate your professional expertise.
Keep the brand consistent
This is yet another thing we can pick up from major brands like Apple. If you are buying an Apple device you will see Apple’s brand qualities sprinkled throughout every step of the customer’s journey – the visual identity, brand qualities, and brand mission statement remain consistent from your first visit to the website up until the user experience you get while using the devices. Your branding strategy should use similar guidelines and keep the visitors’ experience consistent no matter which outlet they use. Managing expectations and showcasing qualities you can deliver make a critical part of this process.
Network, network, network…
Last but not least, we would like to remind you that the business world is built on personal relationships so all the strategies we have mentioned above can only benefit you if you put more effort into networking. The options for expanding your list of professional acquaintances are practically endless but some of the most effective strategies include the likes of joining a chat group, attending seminars and workshops, posting on sites like Twitter and Reddit, guest-blogging, and inviting influencers to post on your website. The peer recommendation always carried a certain weight and, in that regard, personal branding is not any different.
Well, there you have it – the six ways to emulate corporate branding strategies and build your personal brand from scratch. The present-day business world is very competitive and fast-paced so people who are not able to demonstrate their value from the get-go often lag behind their peers even despite their talent and unique skills. Doing a conscious effort to build your personal brand can do a lot of groundwork in making future employers and associates familiar with your qualities even before they get in touch with you. The tips we gave you should definitely push you in the right direction.
