Building Personal Brand
Discover What Sets You Apart
What is Personal Brand?
Your personal brand is the sum of your strengths, passions, and attributes and represents the value you bring to your target audience. It is how others perceive your skills, talents, and qualifications. Your brand is unique to you and is a vital part of your reputation in the workplace. Individuals who truly understand their brand have an edge in managing their careers because they recognize how to set themselves apart from the competition.
It is not number of followers, connections, or likes. It is what people say about you when you’re not in the room. What do you want to be known as?
Why is Personal Branding Important?
Much of success in life both personally and professionally depends on persuading others to recognize your value: applying for jobs, asking for promotions, positioning yourself for a leadership role, etc. In a world where attention spans are shorter and shorter, the need to make an initial, quick, and accurate impression is increasingly critical. Your expertise, experience, and achievements are unique to you. They are what makes you influential, recognizable, and competitive by showcasing your advantages and strengths.
On This Page
Benefits of Personal Branding
Opportunities
By standing out in a crowd you are more memorable, and people will reach out to you when they need someone with your skills and expertise.
Build Trust
When people feel that they know who you are they are more likely to trust you and feel they have some sort of relationship with you. They know what to expect from you and that you are an authority in your chosen field.
Stand Out
Clearly articulate your value and how you are different from the next person.
Online Screening
Creating your personal brand both on and offline helps to ensure that what they see, read, and hear is what you want them to see, read, and hear.
Steps to Building Your Personal Brand
Connector: Cares about bringing people together and creating communities.
Selective: Creates content that targets specific groups of people.
Careerist: Focuses on reaching their achievements, leveling up, and showing their expertise.
Altruist: Committed to helping others, running foundations or charities and supporting people in need.
Sharer: Focuses on individuality, sharing tried-and-true tips and insights with their audience.
Boomerang: Shares unexpected, controversial, and provocative information that leads to discussions.
Explore how it connects to your mission, vision, and values.
Personal Value Proposition Template
- For (a particular target person or group of people)
- I will make a difference by offering (unique, memorable, and meaningful value you want to provide)
- Among all (other people vying to make that difference, whom you would like to both fit in with and stand out from)
- Because of (the skill sets, personality traits, habits and tendencies, prior experiences, social capital, cultural capital, and credentials that will allow you to credibly deliver them)
Think about what others know about you: their associations with you, and the stories they know and tell about you.
List words and phrases that you think capture you are – be specific and detailed.
Reflect: Does your self-assessment line up with what you want your brand identity to be? Ask your “truth tellers” how they would describe you.
What are the meaningful stories that lead to your descriptive words?
Think about the ties when you have felt most authentic – when you stood out from others and how it helped you succeed in something.
People can form opinions of you in all types of conversations (casual interactions, at parties, in job interviews).
Advertise yourself in every conversation – When dealing with people you don’t know, this is your opportunity to change or form your story.
Owned Media: Social media, dating profiles, websites, speeches, articles, etc.
Earned Media: Mentions in public press, recommendations, ratings, likes, referrals, introductions, etc.
Paid Media: Increasing your exposure by paying others to help you – signing on with an agent, buying ads, paying influencers to market you, etc.
Gatekeepers: Hold the key to your success – admissions officers, judges, etc.
Influencers: People with authority to sway others – expert in your field, social media influencer, etc.
Promoters: Actively invested in your success – mentors, bosses, friends, etc.
Communities: Places where you find others with your shared mission and interest – trade groups, job boards, alumni clubs, etc.
Identify your successes, failures, strengths, and weaknesses.
How can you adjust to better convey your personal brand?
Value Proposition
Your value proposition identifies the value you bring to the talent marketplace and is woven throughout your marketing materials including paper, online, and verbal talking points. Think of three reasons why someone should hire you? Have a blend of functional, technical, and/or soft skills to showcase your value.
Resources
Elevator Pitch
Creating and practicing a personal marketing message is essential for successful networking. Being prepared with your 30-second commercial or elevator pitch can prove beneficial in networking situations. Think about it as a clean and concise introductory statement designed to convey key points to your target audience.