Personal Brand: Steps to Developing a Distinct and Impactful Identity

If you position, package, and promote your personal brand using the right channels and content that speaks to the unique problem you solve, you will have more opportunities to attract your ideal client, generate leads, find the right employees, and even find potential investors.

With so many professionals now operating in the online world, it might be more difficult for individuals to distinguish themselves from quirky personal brands in the crowded digital media industry.

Here's the issue, opportunities abound! However, if you don't have social proof to back up your knowledge and skills, your ideal customer could go with the next greatest thing they see online.

10 Ways to Jump Start Your Personal Brand

1. Fully Update Your Social Media Accounts

Decide which social media accounts you'll focus on and remove other platforms you don't use anymore. Then, make sure all of your information is correct and accurate for the networks you'll be utilizing. This will assist you in directing and growing traffic to the networks where you and your work will be featured.

Doing this can get rid of any suspicious content from the past that can be damaging to your professional image.

2. Identify Your Area of Expertise

Everyone's an expert at something, whether it's creating and distributing outstanding content or knowing all there is to know about your favorite TV show.

Is it time for you to broaden your horizons? Consider the material you've written that has gotten the most attention from your fans. Is it possible to reproduce this with other comparable material or reuse anything to gain interaction again? The more original and entertaining material you publish about your area of expertise, the more your followers will see you as a thought leader in your sector.

3. Make Posting Easy with Social Media Apps

Remembering forgotten passwords, a hectic day job, content development, and maintaining an online presence may take time. However, many social networking applications are available to make life easier.

Sprout, Buffer, and Hootsuite connect to your social media accounts and allow you to cross-post and plan content across several platforms. It is no longer necessary to log in to various personal brand websites. These apps are compatible with the most prominent social networks, including Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.

4. Regularly Share Content

The more you posted in the early days of social media, the more engagement you might generate. Over-posting, on the other hand, causes fatigue and frustration. You want to maintain open channels of contact with your audience. However, you also don't want to appear desperate by oversharing. For most people, blogging 3-4 times a week is the sweet spot.

It's completely acceptable if you don't post on some days. Determine the most important social media metrics to focus on, analyze the data linked with your postings, and develop a successful pattern. If you're having problems finding content to share and want to learn more about what's trending, utilize hashtags on social media or news aggregator sites like Feedly.

5. Import Your Contacts

You might be surprised at how many individuals you already know on your social media networks. On the other hand, there might be dozens, if not hundreds, of people with whom you have yet to connect. To find out how many connections you're missing, import your email contacts from Gmail or Outlook, or contacts from your phonebook, into your social networks. A fixed amount of contacts may be imported for free on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.

6. Keep Social Posts Positive and Engaging

Your objective is to build a compelling personal brand online, but you must ensure that it matches who you are. So, while you now understand some of the things you should be doing on social media, do you also understand what you should avoid doing to maintain a favorable social image?

Consider your interactions and material to be a portfolio of your work and a reflection of your professional demeanor and general personality. Reposting other people's stuff is a good idea, but it's not the only thing you should be doing. To demonstrate industry experience, you should also contribute material you've created.

Creating interesting content necessitates a new perspective on the updates you send to your followers. Don't be scared to brag about your accomplishments or provide interesting details from your personal life (e.g., travel and hobbies are suitable). After all, social media is primarily about people.

If you're worried about not being able to express yourself fully, try having two sets of social media accounts. One for private usage (say anything you want) and one for personal use (say whatever you want), in which your responses and shares are heavily calculated. Use your professional profiles to make new contacts and pursue new employment prospects while keeping your personal pages private to close friends and family. Also, if you want to talk about your job on social media, make sure you understand your company's social media policies beforehand.

7. Find and Join Groups

Facebook and LinkedIn are two of the most popular social media platforms. Both provide countless possibilities to join organizations devoted to specific businesses or themes. To identify groups related to your unique field of expertise, utilize the search box on each network. Then you'll be able to share your knowledge and establish your personal brand's authority.

Keep in mind that industry groups are likely to be congested with rivals. So smaller, topic-based groups may be more effective in reaching your target audience.

Joining Social Media Groups Can:

• Challenge and motivate you
• Push you to achieve your goals
• Keep you accountable
• Generate ideas for your marketing
• Help you receive feedback
• Increase/grow your confidence
• Expand your skills
• Test your knowledge
• Develop your leadership skills
• Help you help others
• Help you make friends
• Allow you to discover new opportunities

Once you've joined your favorite social media groups, don't be scared to participate in discussions and contribute your unique perspective. It might be tough to remember that social media is all about that!

Don't be hesitant to strike up a conversation. You will not receive any of the above perks if you merely join a group and do not engage. Furthermore, demonstrating your responsiveness will aid in the development of a well-defined personal brand in broader communities.

8. Keep Your Brand Voice, Image, and Tone Consistent

You've undoubtedly already realized how vital it is to be true to your identity. A well-known strategist would surely lose many followers if they quickly and dramatically switched parties. To be remembered and trustworthy, you must also be consistent with your ideas and how you portray them. Finding the tone of voice that works best for your business may take some trial and error. However, there are personal branding tips you can use to find the perfect match for you. It's not as simple as declaring, "I want to be funny," since you'll need to expand on your thoughts to support your strategy.

Following your brand guidelines can help you keep people's impressions under control. If one of your profiles appears with material or visuals that don't fit your brand's voice, you risk damaging an otherwise faultless reputation.

9. Study Influencers

Connect with influencers and personal branding inspiration. Partnering with top personal branding examples is a terrific method to get your company noticed, but it takes time. Before influencers regard you as an authority, you must invest time in building connections with them.

LinkedIn and other top influencer marketing platforms are excellent places to locate and interact with other professionals in your field. Once you've identified the key influencers in your region, examine their networks, posting patterns, and content to see where you can improve. Take note of how their followers react to what they share, and learn from their personal branding strategy and execution of best practices.

10. Build Your Brand by Taking a Social Media and Marketing Course

Understanding the foundations is the greatest method to establish a solid personal brand on social media. Learn how to perform social research to understand your audience better. Determine which content formats will work best for you, and develop a personal branding strategy, no matter how little, to help you get where you want to go.

You'll also need to know the ins and outs of each social media network and what you can do to promote your brand. With a little experience, you'll soon figure out which channel is the most effective and how to gauge performance. Choose a social media and marketing course that fits your career and personal life to start.

Consistent Personal Branding Themes You'll See

Personal branding trends vary every year due to new technology or global ideals, and 2023 will be no exception. Executives from the Forbes Business Council estimates that the most recent personal branding trends include a rise in human-based content and a drive toward simplicity, as well as how to take advantage of them.

Sharing A Public Persona

It's important to exhibit oneself as a complete person. For some, it may reveal a great deal about their personal lives. Others may have a better understanding of who they are as professionals. Even with someone they have never met, individuals will be yearning for a deeper connection. It doesn't matter how a person defines their "whole public image," transparency, sincerity, and vulnerability will be crucial. - Sanja Licina, QuestionPro

Leveraging Personal Content

Make your face visible. Showing up on social media gives company owners a free platform to develop trust and differentiate their brands. Selfies, videos, and photographs of oneself in context help you stand out. Showing up and talking about the results your company produces, for example, establishes credibility and confidence. When business owners do this regularly, they establish a more distinct brand. -Libby Rothschild, Libby Rothschild

Educating Through Storytelling

More companies will teach through condensed storytelling, reducing their work to a single core skill and then demonstrating hidden lessons from that specialty for the audience's education or pleasure. It might be a novel topic or a novel approach to a topic that is already overcrowded. Only a few years ago, organizations were brands. Now, every one of us may develop a distinct brand that can be monetized both online and offline. - Tej Brahmbhatt, Watchtower Capital

Moving Toward Minimalism

The new branding trend for 2023 will be "less is more." To achieve a minimalist style, brands are now going towards minimalism, employing a set of basic forms, plain typography, empty spaces, and restricted color palettes. They want their items to speak for themselves; thus, they don't want to complicate things with designs. Therefore, the greatest strategy to ensure that your product is focused is to use minimal aesthetic design. - Sanket Shah, InVideo Innovation Pte Ltd.

Being More Accessible

Nothing beats receiving a reaction from someone in a position of power. As CEO, I make it a point to communicate with our customers frequently. They have the finest understanding of my company and whether or not our brand is reaching their expectations. Make yourself available to the people who matter the most. The finest input comes from individuals who have first-hand experience, not from the C-suite. - Cindy Diffenderfer, Orion Haus Homes and Hotels Inc

Representing Yourself Consistently to Others

Consistency is my personal branding focus for 2023. Be consistent in all you do, whether engaging in online forums, answering calls, or giving presentations. Customers and prospects will know what to anticipate if you represent yourself consistently in terms of brand image and have a constant public presence in terms of the regularity with social media postings, blogs, or email newsletters. That's reassuring. - Valerie Hayman Sklar, Corporate Specialties LLC

Strengthening Virtual Relationships

Virtual connections have advanced to a new level in the past two years. To grow your personal brand in 2023, it will be critical to establish and maintain interactions online and across numerous platforms. - Ty Allen, SocialClimb

Conclusion

It's safe to say that personal branding isn't going away anytime soon. The only difference is that it is now accessible to everybody around the globe with a simple internet search. When you position, package, and promote your personal brand using the right channels and content that speaks to the unique problem you solve, you'll have more opportunities to attract your ideal client, generate leads, find the right employees, and even find potential investors as more entrepreneurs and decision-makers embrace the online space.

Want to learn how to build your personal brand on social media? Talk to one of our growth specialists at gardenpatch today!

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