The Age of Personal Branding - A Guide

Personal Branding - The means by which people remember you…

A broad definition - after all someone might remember you from a spot on your face 😉 - but perhaps a longer version might be: how you use words and imagery to communicate who you are; to help you be recognised and remembered in order to stand out; how you make people FEEL.

With social media, authenticity is coming increasingly to the forefront. People want to work with people that they like and trust and therefore they engage more with the individual than with the company that they own or even work for.

They say that it takes 7 interactions or touch-points before someone will buy from you and that asking them to do business before that time could well lose you that client, which is why its important that all of your content aligns with your values and continues to build your personal brand in the mind of your audience.

For example, here is a checklist of how words, photos and videos can be used in such a way to build up and align with your brand:

Logo

Name of your company

Strapline

Your mission, vision and values

Colours & style

Content on your website and social media pages

Content in digital posts

Business cards and other hard copy

Speaking engagement announcements and presentations

Email content and signatures

Blogs

Letters

And many more

To be a personal branding wizard, ideally you'll have a media pack which defines the words and imagery for all these things, something which you constantly review and refine but which remains constant and consistent so that the brand has time to grow and be remembered in your client's minds.

Personal branding should be checked to make sure it delivers in the following areas:

Is it memorable (helps if it's not too complicated)?

Is it attractive and professional? You want to turn people on not off

Does it communicate what you do?

Does it communicate who you are - are you giving people an insight into you?

And having said all that, off I go to review and refresh mine 🙂 Do you have your personal branding defined and documented?