Everyone knows what a brand is and why it’s good for large businesses, but why would you want to build your own personal brand? Whether you are self-employed or working for someone, whether you are a freelancer or a business owner, you can benefit from having your own personal brand. It reflects what you really are about and allows you to build a social platform and a network. In more practical terms, it shows your abilities, increases your chances of positive exposure and allows you to market your skills or business.
The first thing that a prospective employer or a potential customer do nowadays is look you up online. Often, the chances of you getting that job interview or that offer depend on what they find about you on the Internet. By building your personal brand, you can show the best of yourself and present yourself as a professional with unique and trustworthy skills. You want to be in control of the impression other people have of you.
You don’t need to be self-employed in order to start building a personal brand. You can do it in your spare time and not necessarily stick to things that reflect your organization or your boss’ ideas. Rather, you can create your own unique presence.
What can you do to succeed? Let’s take a look at some tools that are at your disposal.
• Networking in real-life
While the bulk of what you do might be online, building your own brand means you have to interact with people and make networks with them in person. Meeting people can help you make useful connections and show them your best side in person. That impression is going to be supported by an online presence, but that does not replace real-life networking yet.
• Social media presence and your website
The social media gives you an unprecedented way of reaching out to others. You can choose the social media sites that adjust better to your needs. In general, it’s better to have several online profiles, although it’s likely that you will be focused on keeping two-three regularly updated.
You might choose to have your own website and promote yourself through social media. In general, these tools can be adapted to your needs. LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and other websites can be used to great effect to create a presence. It is important to post regularly and to make it a habit, but it is also very important to offer quality content that is engaging for your audience. While constancy is important, in general, quality matters more than quantity. It’s better to have a single thought-out post daily than to post several times a day without much substance.
You might consider what sort of content you want to post; however, it’s a good idea to have photos and videos in order to engage your audience, to draw their attention and to make the content easier to share. While articles, posts and tweets are great content, it’s a good idea to complement them with visual content as well.
In general, social media offers many possibilities. In order to build a good presence, you need to focus on several profiles that will be updated more or less regularly.
• Other Internet resources
Most people stick to real-life networking and to social media, as well as to their own websites. However, this doesn’t mean that there is nothing else to be done. There are different strategies that can help you separate your personal brand from other people’s. The solution is to do thing and use resources that few people have tried. This speaks of your creativity and innovation.
One example is to sell and share your knowledge and expertise, as well as to be able to reach out many people. You can do this by using sites like www.tutorsloop.net, which allows you to create recorded sessions that you can sell and to hold live sessions which allow you a direct contact with your audience. This shows your skills in actions and it allows you to demonstrate your initiative by starting new projects and by applying what you know and sharing it with others.
