Your personal brand is what will set you apart from the rest of the people and businesses out there.
It’s the way you want people to see you, but it’s also the way you want to live your personal and professional life.
It’s about your personality and the mark you leave on others.
Whether you have a business or if you just want to find a job that you really enjoy and in which you can show your full potential, you have to know how to differentiate yourself from the rest with your personal brand.
I know that it is not easy, there are many people out there who are doing things very well (but, remember, also badly) and there are many products or services similar to what you offer.
Even so, there will always be something that differentiates you from the rest and it is in that difference that you have to work to succeed with your business or get the job you really want to do.
There are several steps you should take into account before launching to promote your personal brand.
First you have to know yourself very well to know what you really want to do and how you want to contribute your grain of sand in society.
We are going to see below one by one the steps you need to take to be successful with your personal brand, but above all, to be happy with what you do.
Do you stay to see them?
So let’s go to it.
1. Draw an outline of who you are and what you want to achieve
The first thing you have to do to identify your personal brand is to know who you really are.
You have to sit down and reflect on your values, skills and passions. What you like to do and that you are great at.
To make it easier for you to gather this information and have it all in a format that helps you better understand it, there is a very practical outline for this type of exercise.
It is simply a flower. Let’s see an example.
This would be my flower. We are going to see each of the petals so that it is better understood.
transferable skills
In the center you should include those skills that you know you have and that are very important but that are transferable and more common.
My skills are languages (I speak 4 languages fluently), communication, I have always expressed myself very well and I am organized.
They are important skills, but not so special, let’s say they are more common. These skills are the foundation of our work and who we are.
Next, we will assemble the different petals of the flower.
Interests
They are those things for which you feel a special interest, what you like to talk about and what you always want to know more about. In my case it is travel, literature and marketing .
They are things that I am passionate about and that I do for pure pleasure.
Special abilities
They are those abilities that are more unique, you know that there are not so many people who have them and they distinguish you in some way from the people around you.
In my case, one of them is telling stories, I’ve always been very good at it.
I also have a broad general culture since I read a lot and have a good enough memory to remember what I read.
And the initiative, I have always been the first to suggest and encourage others to do things.
These are more special skills, those that set you apart from the people around you.
I’m not saying that there isn’t anyone else with these skills, but there probably aren’t that many people with that specific combination of skills.
Working conditions
There are people who like to go to an office because they don’t like to work alone or because they need a routine.
However, there are other people who prefer more freedom and autonomy and the possibility of being able to work from different places. I belong to the latter category.
In this petal you must include what your ideal working conditions are and the environments in which you are most productive.
Values and objectives
Here you have to think very well what your values are.
These are very important when creating your personal brand. If what you do is not in line with your values, you will not be happy with your job or with your business and you will probably end up leaving it.
Sit down and reflect on what is important in your life, what makes you happy.
For example, for you the most important thing may be your family, so you will have to organize your work life in such a way that it does not eat up your day too much and thus be able to spend time with your loved ones.
Or maybe your career is very important to you and you want to go far and be able to create a business that provides you with a luxurious lifestyle, so you have to spend a lot of time working and taking care of your personal contacts.
Perhaps what matters most to you are genuine relationships and not so much power and you want to improve the world by contributing your grain of sand, then you will focus on creating a business that helps companies that work for the environment or with people in need. .
Maybe you don’t want to work for companies that pollute or aren’t in line with what’s important to you.
Your goals will be in line with these values.
For example, I want to be one of the best copywriters in the world and I want to help small entrepreneurs and professionals to succeed with their businesses.
I don’t want a handful of big multinationals controlling the market, so I do my bit by helping small businesses succeed.
your favorite people
It is very important to surround yourself with people who inspire us, but also with people we want to help.
You have to be clear about what kind of people are the ones who bring out the best in you and with whom you collaborate best to be able to do great things.
Be that memorable person who always goes above and beyond to help others or to deliver perfect work. In this way you will stand out from the rest and people will remember you.
consistency and authenticity
Before moving on to the next section, I want to talk to you about two things that are also very important when establishing your personal brand.
Being consistent with your values and actions is what will give you authenticity in front of others and what will differentiate your personal brand from all the others.
You want to be someone that people can count on and for that you have to be consistent . This means committing to work routines and sticking to them all the time no matter what.
It means being consistent with how long it takes you to respond to emails and phone calls.
Also with your blog, posting regularly.
And the same goes for social media.
Being consistent with the type of content you post, the tone of your posts, and the posting schedule you maintain are things people look at when evaluating your brand.
Make consistency part of your personal brand and practice it diligently.
Whether you’re looking for a better job or attracting new clients, consistency will pay off.
Now that we know who we are and the goals we want to achieve, we move on to the next step.
2. Define your target audience
What you offer and the type of person you are will interest a certain type of people, not everyone. You have to be very clear about who these people are.
Study your audience and address them with your message .
If you help your audience achieve their goals, they will help you achieve yours.
For example, if you have an SEO business and help companies improve their online positioning , they will help you by paying your fees and recommending you to others.
At first it can be a bit difficult to know exactly who your target audience is.
It will take some time to get to know the type of audience that is interested in what you offer, however, this is essential to be able to target the people that you will be able to help and who will in turn help you.
The main thing here is to understand the motivations of your target audience, what concerns or interests them .
With this you can better design the content of your blog, podcast or marketing emails in order to attract the attention of the right audience.
Resources to know your target audience
There are several ways to define your audience. Time and experience will play a key role since the longer you have been offering your product or service, the better you will get to know your customers.
But if you’re just starting out and don’t have many clients yet, you need to do some research beforehand. For this you have several resources.
Social networks are also a very valuable source of information about your potential customers.
Read everything that people post, comments, questions in groups of topics related to your activity, surveys, etc.
By doing Google searches with keywords related to your activity, you will be able to find those posts or sales pages that have the greatest reach and analyze why this is the case and what you can offer differently or improved.
Once you know who your ideal client is, everything you do has to be designed for him. Every time you create content on your blog and on the networks, think about whether that person is going to be interested.
If you think it isn’t, move on to something else. It’s about reaching out to that person by helping them with valuable information or ideas for their life and/or business.
3. Partner with Influencers
It is normal, if you are starting to create your brand, nobody knows you apart from your friends and family who try to support you by sharing your content on the networks.
But you have to reach more people.
And how can you reach many more people?
Building a relationship with so-called influencers in your area.
Influencer is a word that has become fashionable in the last two years and that is because businesses have realized that they have a lot of power.
An influencer is a person who is known in a certain sector and has a large number of followers on the networks.
There is also another word to describe them, which is Authority , that is, a person who has a certain authority in a certain field.
Since these people are known within your field, having a relationship with them can be very beneficial for you, since they are able to precisely influence your target client when choosing you.
Like any good relationship, this one is also built little by little , you cannot suddenly arrive and ask an influencer to recommend your product or service just like that.
But if you build a relationship of trust and mutual benefit, you will have more opportunities for that person to recommend you.
One way to do this is for example by writing a guest post on your blog .
Since that blog has more traffic than yours, that post will make you known to more people.
You can also help an influencer in some way with some difficulty that they have, they may need a translation or you give them a hand with some technical obstacle that they have and that you can solve for them.
There is always something you can do to help him and thus gain his trust.
That person will thank you by helping you make yourself known and recommending you to their circle.
It’s about give and take.
Of course there is the option to pay, some influencers , especially in the fashion sector, charge for recommending products or services. This is already something that depends on your budget and your values.
4. Build your offline and online assets
In personal branding terms, assets are the things you own that will communicate your brand message to your target audience.
Assets are things like your website, your blog, your Twitter username, and your LinkedIn profile, for example.
Offline assets are things like business cards and traditional brochures that you send out.
Let’s go by parts.
Web page
Check if the domain with your name is available. If it is not, try to make a different combination but one that you identify with and that is easy to remember.
Many people doubt whether it is better to go public with their own name or with a brand name.
That depends a lot on what you sell, if what you sell is an activity that you carry out yourself, it is convenient to choose your own name since you are selling your personal brand, that is, what you do differently from others.
Blog
Your content strategy should be clear: address the questions and solve the problems that your target reader has.
To know what doubts and problems you have, you must investigate thoroughly, as we mentioned in the second section.
Read comments in Facebook groups, questions on Quora (the question and answer site) and comments on other blogs related to your activity.
Write quality content and find your voice.
Your voice is nothing more than your way of seeing things, do not try to copy literally what others with more experience than you say or do, but you should give your opinion and go further to offer a new perspective without limiting yourself to repeating concepts.
This way you will get people interested in what you have to say.
Social networks
I think there is no need to convince you of the enormous power that social networks have when it comes to attracting the public and making your personal brand known.
You have to use them often and choose the routes according to your personal brand.
The most popular are Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn and Twitter.