Personal branding is highly important for business owners.
It is what makes you stick out from the crowd, and make an impression on your consumers.
Your personal branding is what persuades people to engage with your business, therefore enhancing business success.
In this article, we are going to discuss exactly what personal branding is, how to create your own personal brand, and how you can build on it.
Understanding Personal Branding
Personal branding is the process of defining who you are and promoting what you stand for as an individual in your business.
It is an amalgamation of the values, skills and experiences that make you different from others.
Personal brands are built around you personally, whereas business brands are built around the identity you create for your business.
The Benefits of Personal Branding
By developing a personal brand as a business owner, you’re giving yourself a competitive edge.
When people think of someone with your particular skills and expertise, they will think of you first.
It also builds trust and credibility, since there is a person at the front of the brand with clear values and skills.
Personal branding will also enhance your online presence, as it allows you to have complete creative control of your online image and gives you an opportunity to provide your consumers with the transparency they long for.
Due to both of these factors, you are able to build a community on your social platforms, which will further improve the success of your business.
When people see your character and that you are an expert in your field, they are more likely to do business with you.
Identifying Your Unique Value Proposition
To begin building your personal brand, assess your skills, expertise, and passions.
Clearly identify what you are good at, what areas you excel in and therefore that you can provide top quality products/services in, and what you are passionate about.
This will allow you to highlight what makes you different from your competitors, and it will improve your job satisfaction because you will be doing work that you are confident in and find fulfilling.
In order to complete your proposition, define your target audience and research their needs.
This will help you become even more appealing to your target demographic since you and your business are seeking to meet their needs.
Crafting Your Personal Brand
Here are a couple of simple steps on how to craft your unique personal brand…
Defining your brand identity - Choose a brand name, brand colours and an (optional) tagline. - Create a brand story – talk about yourself, why you are doing what you do, what inspired you to start your business and what you can bring to the table.
Ensuring brand consistency - Make sure that your brand name and colours are the same across all channels – including your website and social media profiles. This will reduce confusion for your consumers and make your brand easily identifiable.
Designing a visually appealing brand - When it comes to choosing your brand colour, choose something that fits the theme of the business. Remember that simplicity isn’t always a bad thing, just make sure that it reflects your personality. - When it comes to choosing your fonts (for social media content or words in your logo etc), it is also important to make sure this suits the brand. For example, if your brand was aimed at young children, you would make the font and colours bright and exciting. You wouldn’t use an intricate, hard-to-read font as it wouldn’t appeal to children.
Building an Online Presence
Here is a step-by-step guide to building an online presence for your brand.
Step 1 – Creating a professional website. Make a website that is clean, user-friendly, and showcases everything you’d want potential consumers to see. If you have any certifications or achievements, definitely include these on your website. You’d also want to include pictures, reviews/testimonials, and further contact details.
Step 2
– Utilising social media. The first step to utilising social media for your business is to choose which social platforms are the most relevant for your business.
For example, if you were a consultant, you’d probably want to have a presence on LinkedIn since it is a platform for businesspeople.
If you did arts or crafts, you may want to be on Tiktok, since this is a great platform for short but intriguing videos and tutorials.
It is better to have a consistent, regular presence on 1 or 2 platforms rather than try to be on all of them.
Quality over quantity always, especially when it comes to your brand’s online presence.
Remember that engaging with potential consumers and similar businesses is so important on social media, as this will help you to build connections and it will increase visibility for your brand.
Step 3 – Implementing a marketing strategy. To really boost the potential of your business’s online presence, come up with a marketing strategy that works for you. Assess what you want to achieve, how much time you have for marketing, and who you would like to reach. From identifying this, it will be easier to make marketing-related decisions, such as if you want to have a blog on your website to showcase and share your knowledge, or if you want to send out a weekly newsletter to keep your consumers in the loop with your business.
Networking and Collaboration
Networking is one of the most effective ways to reach potential consumers.
Not only does it help you to make business connections, but it can also help to enhance your credibility, promote your brand, and widen your reach with your target audience.
There are many different ways to network, such as by attending industry events, joining networking groups or doing workshops.
Although the idea of putting yourself out there like that may sound daunting, particularly for introverts, the rewards it can have for your business and your own self-confidence are incredibly worth it.
If speaking in front of a large group of people or attending in-person events does not suit you or your brand though, don’t worry, there are other ways of networking and collaborating.
Connect with other businesses in your field online, over messaging or Zoom calls.
By finding a business/business owner that you want to support and that would support you back, a whole wealth of opportunities can appear. You could work on joint projects together, promote each other’s brands, host digital events together or just bounce creative ideas off of each other. All of these things will boost your personal brand, creating possibilities and success you may not have even imagined before.
Consistency And Authenticity
As we have mentioned above, consistency is an important part of boosting your personal brand.
This is another reminder to be consistent with your branding and your visuals, as this will increase your chance of brand recognition.
Authenticity is equally as important because if you can be authentic and honest in the things you say, your consumers will do some marketing for you through word-of-mouth.
It also helps you to make stronger connections, both with your consumers and other business people, as it isn’t difficult to tell if someone is being genuine or not.
The transparency that consistency and authenticity allow will continuously boost your credibility and trust, which we know by now will further promote and develop your personal brand.
Monitoring And Adapting Your Personal Brand
To monitor your personal brand, ask for feedback from your consumers and any other people you do business with.
The suggestions that they put forward to you will give you something to work on, and once you have implemented them you know you will be meeting your consumer needs since you have taken into account what they asked for/said.
From the feedback you receive, you will then have the knowledge you need to adapt your brand.
Always value the feedback you receive, and rather than take things to heart that may be difficult to hear, try to make them constructive for you.
To adapt your personal brand, keep an eye on any changes in your industry, as you can then adjust your brand positioning accordingly and stay up to date with trends.
You should also analyse how your social media content is performing, and you can then adjust your strategy if necessary to improve your engagement.
Recap
To amplify your business with a strong personal brand, you should…
o Understand personal branding and its benefits.
o Identify your unique value proposition.
o Craft your own personal brand.
o Build an online presence.
o Network and collaborate.
o Be consistent and authentic.
o Monitor and adapt your brand when necessary.
We hope you have found this article useful and we wish you the best of luck with your brand-building journey. Remember, if you need any support with your business, book a free consultation with us today to find out how we can assist you.
Comments