You’re determined, hard working, crushing your goals, and passionate in what you do. Without noticing it, you’re already building your personal brand. It’s time to take it to the next level – to digital.
Your personal brand is the key to unlocking your goals, in both your personal and professional lives. It’s a representation of your skills, knowledge, personality, hobbies, passions, ideas, and how people remember you.
Building a memorable personal brand can help you achieve your goals: Being viewed as a thought-leader, shining in your workplace, increasing your network, and can help you turn your passions into livelihoods.
But how can building a personal brand help in your career? We’ve put together this list to help you out.
Top Tips for Building Your Personal Brand
Create a unique online presence
Half of the current population is in social media, so when we talk about being visible — it also means being different and making sure to stand out. As said before, you have a personal brand in your career already whether you know it or not – but you need to make sure everyone else is aware of your knowledge and accomplishments.
Create your own website and make sure you tell your own story combined with interesting content that appeals to your audience.
Break the mold and create a web destination to call your own. Something that combines what you’re reading, thinking and sharing – all in one place.
- Choose the topic that you want to be recognized for
- Write your own stories about your personal experiences or comment on articles to share your opinion with your audience
- Share more about who you are and what you stand for in all your online platforms
Level Up Your Social Media Presence
Make sure that you have a social presence and that you keep it active.
Consistency is key to generating engagement and growing your followers. Post regularly. Make it part of your daily or weekly routine.
According to Emarketer, 90.4% of Millennials, 77.5% of Generation X, and 48.2% of Baby Boomers are active social media users. Choose your niche, share your insights and bold opinions, and do it often.
LinkedIn is the natural channel for professionals, but depending on your topic, choose your channel. Regardless, the key to engagement is to show the real you – honest, natural, transparent, human.
Leveling up your social media presence and building connections with your network will help you achieve thought-leader status and help you achieve your goals.
Perfect your Content Mix
As expert Marketer and CEO of TopRank, Lee Odden, says: “Content isn’t King, it’s Kingdom”. You need to share valuable information with your audience — and content is the way to achieve that. First, get to know your audience, and as your career progresses, you will see what makes them tick.
Original content is key to being a thought-leader, and curating third-party content is important to show you have a finger on the pulse of the market.
The point is that your audience is being nourished with truly helpful and interesting content that helps to strike conversations and debates about your career path and your industry.
Visual Branding
Aesthetics is becoming more important when it comes to showing who you are online, so give thought first about how you want your personal brand to be perceived – expert and serious, humorous and open? Is your objective more about you or more about a topic?
Your profile photo, cover images, color palette and visual content can all help to reinforce your brand. Especially when using image-focused channels like Instagram, you want to make sure your aesthetic is on point, consistent and visually stunning! Here are some instagram visual themes to get you started.
Build Your Own Website
Create a destination to call your own, complete with your bio, interest, contact info, and the content you create and share. A website will help people find you in search, and is a place they can subscribe to by email. A place you can link to in your social bios, email signature and business cards.
Don’t have a website? You can use solutions like Milkshake app.
Share Your Knowledge Through Written or Video Content
We’ve already talked about the importance of content in your personal branding arsenal. But, these days, it’s key to emphasize the power of written and video content. And they can be easy to produce.
- Write down your thoughts, tips, and experiences
- Record yourself telling a story or sharing your unique skills
- Answer questions or information related to your career
For some writing inspo, we recommend you check out Ann Handley’s blog, she’s a digital marketer and a WSJ best-selling author.
When it comes to video content – there’s no need for professional help (nowadays, you can even get a nice ring light from Amazon to make your lighting more professional) — the most important thing is being authentic and natural.
Now’s a good opportunity to share your passion through video content – as basically all social channels have launched the possibility to record and share live updates.
Extra tip: Make sure you use all the content you create and reshare it in different platforms to see how it performs and how many people you reach.
Join and Participate in Facebook or LinkedIn Groups
Joining career, skill or industry focused groups are another way to grow your presence online and connect with others.
If we do a roundup of all the points above, joining private groups that are specifically related to your specialty, and putting the points we’ve mentioned into practice could really be beneficial for livening your online presence –bringing you closer to other important thought leaders in your industry.
Let’s say you want to get more into design or show off your design skills with others. Then a good example about joining private groups is what Canva users are doing.
In this group, users show what they’ve been able to accomplish in the platform, as well as learn from peers about tips and tricks they can apply themselves.
Here’s one of the posts one of their community members posted:
Aside from putting yourself out there, you’re also open to feedback, improvement and a sense of community.
Note: There are groups for every skill or career available, you just have to head over to your LinkedIn or Facebook search and type in your industry.
Find online speaking opportunities
We touched on getting the possibility to be part of speaking engagements about your career. And the truth is that you have to be proactive in finding these opportunities. If you’ve followed some of the recommendations we’ve laid out on this post – you should have some pedigree to show why you would be a good fit for a speaking event about your career or specialty.
Reach out to organizations and offer talking about an interesting topic. Having a brief of the topic, a way to show that you’re knowledgeable in the area and video to let them see how engaging you are speaking is just a step in the right direction.
Be True To Your Personal Brand
Last, but definitely not least, keep your eye on the prize but don’t forget to be authentic. Your goal is to stand out in your career, to go one step further in what you do and to connect with others while doing so. Make sure you stay true to your story and your values as you grow your follower-base, your thought-leadership and you go up the ladder in your career.