The Truth About Personal Branding

In a world driven by social media, your personal brand is more important than ever. Who you are, your digital footprint, your credibility can be the difference between attracting the right people and deterring potential relationships. As a person in the PR and Media space I am in constant contact with people looking to build a personal brand. The first question that is always asked to me is “Where do I start?”. The answer to that question is simple. What do you want people to know about you? Why the sudden interest in even working on your personal brand? These are the questions I rebuttal with in these conversations. As a personal brand you want to get your story out to the masses, but this cannot happen until you have actually done some work. If you have not put in any work than building a personal brand is pointless. You want to prove proof of concept, you want to prove why you are better than the next and what makes you different.

Someone’s decision to buy from you or do business with you can all be based on what your personal brand looks like. If I see two business consultants who I am interested in working with but one of them was featured in Google as one of the “Top Business Consultants” and one doesn’t even have an Instagram page, its obvious which consultant I am going to go with.

You must treat your personal branding like your resume without actually speaking directly with a consumer. If you are someone who can be Googled, found online doing the work and proving you are a true authority in your niche than you are much more likely to have more success than a person who doesn’t have anything. The saying “All press, is good press”, is so true because when building a personal brand press can always be leveraged to create more.

So what will people find out about you? What does your personal brand look like? Have you Googled your name to see what comes up? These are all questions you should ask yourself. Once you find the answers to those questions you want to add to them.

If you are looking for a few ways to building your personal brand, here are some tips. Create your own website and make a blog. Your blog can simply be you giving advice to people about what you do. Get on some podcasts. Podcasts are a perfect opportunity to share your story and your value with other peoples platforms in hopes that they will follow you on your journey. Guest posting. You can guest post on other peoples sites to share your knowledge and value. Those are just some examples, but there are plenty more.

So before you get started working on your personal brand, understand where your starting point is. Understand the message you want to put out to the world. Define your story and your journey. Lastly, just be yourself. There is no one else out here like you, your are different. Now just show the world.