Why Managing Your Personal Brand?
It’s important to note that personal brand management is not solely for the celebrities or the tycoons; it is for the common man. Lee Hobby says in a world where people are not only consumers but also competitors, one has to carve a niche. However, this is easier e said than done. A large number of people have a hard time in grasping the concept of personal branding as well as leveraging on it. Therefore, let me begin the definition of personal branding by answering the question: It can be referred to as the promotion of the self and one’s career as a brand.
Think about it: PR and managing one’s image can relate to the fact that each person has a personal brand, without him or her understanding this. This is in a simple manner illustrated by, say, making a search on Google using a name of your choice. What comes up? Your current social accounts, articles you’ve written, perhaps even a personal blog, if you have one. Altogether, all these ones compose your personal brand. What distinguishes people is how this brand is handled. Some actually calculate how to do it, being very strategic, while others simply hope for the best.
Why personal brand management is important for several reasons? First, it assists you in keeping a good image in the social media. In today’s world search for a job it may be as vital to have a well-constructed face, or more precisely an Office face. For instance, if you are in a process of searching for a new job, prospects employers will probably look for you online. As much as they are concerned with your water groom suitability, they are also interested in your personality and deportment. What will they find? If you have not worked on your personal brand at all they might get hold of some unfavorable or even damaging information about you or some outdated data which might put you off for a job.
Second, a good brand identity means the person will secure more offers as people will be aware of who this individual is, and might be more inclined to work with him or her. For freelancers, business people and employees in corporations, your brand assists you in meeting and interacting with people within your field. They can result in cooperation, partnership and even getting a job offer within a certain company. For example, a properly optimized LinkedIn account with the detailed list of skills and achievements as well as the sharing of useful insights can become a magnet for new employers and business partners. This visibility is very beneficial especially when the competition is tight in the market.
Also, developing a personal brand contributes to the enhancement and preservation of individuals’ reputations within their specific sectors. It makes you unique from other persons, assists in your positioning, and makes you gain respect from others. This is especially a need for people who are self-employed or those working in the creative economy where your persona is your brand. It has become more customary for companies to not only focus on an individual’s professional qualifications but also seek to know how the employee has built his or her personal brand because the company wishes to retain an employee with similar set standards as its own.
When it is done orderly, personal branding also helps produce better conversions as well as sales if the individuals in question own a business. Brand awareness and familiarity therefore builds the confidence of people in patronizing the products or services of a firm. For example, a popular individual with their own loyal audience can promote products to the target consumers, thus boosting its sales. This is because people believe in recommendations made by these people.
Consequently, the idea of managing your brand is not limited to presenting a positive image; instead, it is about utilizing identity and reputation to foster the accomplishment of the individual’s objectives and desires. As a result, it is a process of creating the story that seems to be in harmony with the persona and the desired destination.
Top Lapses in Handling Personal Brands
That is clear that personal branding has definite advantages, however the process of its formation is not free from diverse risks. It is important and indeed not an easy task, to maintain a personal brand. It is not as simple as having accounts on social networks, now and then writing blog posts, or occasionally sending the rates for the services offered to potential clients. It requires commitment, continuity, and the presentation of a united front. It is necessary to shed light on some of the key pitfalls possible and how to avoid them.
1. Denial of Your Personal Brand
A major mistake that many executives make is failing to realize that they already have a personal brand. Though ‘Don’t have a ‘brand’ if you can help it’ may seem to be more a rule than an advice to follow for most people, it still remains a fact that a brand is built day in day out, online or offline. Failing to do so is as good as refusing to accept one’s shadow, yet such an entity has its being regardless of one’s perception or acknowledgment. Yet, this kind of unawareness can be deleterious particularly where the role that is being played is formal and its occupant is expected to have extensive knowledge of the legal system as well as excellent interpersonal skills.…
Now you are a fresh graduate, who is in search of his or her first job. You have done your curriculum vitae glistening and forwarded it to different firms. However, most are in the standard as listed below; qualifications and experience section. In today’s world, a simple application with a CV is not enough; the HR departments search for the candidates online. That’s why they’d like to see if you match the company’s values, if you conduct yourself professionally on social media, and if there are any issues. What do they encounter when typing your name in the search engine?
If you have not taken the time to manage your personal brand, then they will see the pictures they probably don’t want you to see from college, opinions they probably do not agree with from a few years ago, or even an old, inactive LinkedIn profile. Worse still, they might not find anything, which might be a pointer to low interest in your field. This is why it is possible to speak about the necessity to manage your brand actively. Clean your social media profiles starting with that. Limit the connection between your personal life and your social media profiles. For instance, if your FB account contains pictures and messages of your everyday life, change the visibility of the account and create a business account in which you share posts and articles related to the industry.
One other factor of which you should be concerned is the fact that you have an online persona. Considering this, let me know of other internet nodes where you have an active presence apart from the social media. Is there an old blog of yours, to which you’ve posted for the last time a few years ago? Refuse to write anything new or, essentially, remove what has been created. Have you ever operated any accounts on forums or any specialised websites? Ensure that your interactions there depict your newer professional character.
In other words, the recognition of your UA or personal brand is the first vital step towards controlling your image. It is a concept of regaining the sense of identity and managing the ways the narrative is constructed.
2. Starting Without a Strategy
This is another mistake that most people make; that is, they engage in personal branding without adequate planning. The field of marketing underlines that a strategy is essential in achieving success and it applies this concept to personal branding. When no planning has been done, it becomes almost impossible for anyone to execute any action strategically and for any given action to yield the expected results, the work that has been done is usually random and unproductive. This is why you require a framework that charts a path on how to undertaker actions and how results can be assessed.
The following are basic steps that come with strategy formulation; First of all, it is crucial to indentify oneself or the organization’s position and its aims. That takes a little of self-searching. What should we consider your strengths and what do you consider an area of your weakness? Where do you see yourself in the next five years? For instance, if you are a graphic designer, do you want to be reputable for special style or kind of design? Or are you looking to change the faces of your team or want to demonstrate your adaptability? Thus, your strategy should be in line with your objectives.
Secondly, understand your context Evaluate your frame. Where are you positioned in the market with your brand today? Perform a gap analysis (strength, weakness, opportunity, threat analysis) to improve the understanding of the current status. For instance, your strength could be portfolio of your work while your weakness could be minimal use of social media. This might include ‘’opportunities such as the increasing customer base for design services’’ while threats might comprise of ‘’high levels of competition in your field.’’
According to these, the following specific goals should be developed: These could be getting the LinkedIn connection list you have grown by 30% in six months or gaining a thousand more followers on Instagram or being featured in an industrial magazine. Your objectives should therefore be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound abbreviated as SMART.
After identifying your objectives, write down the strategies that you’ll be applying to meet those objectives. Work can be a content plan for the blogging site, updating profiles on a daily/weekly basis, active participation within the field through attending events or purchasing advertising space. Audience-oriented and in synch with your overall strategy, that is the general rule for tactics you should be following.
Strategy also have an added advantage of avoiding inconsistency in the moves and actions of an entity. For instance, if you are marketing yourself as fashion specialist in sustainable wear, then all your posts, whether a blog post, a tweet or update, should have this theme. This creates a level of familiarity and credibility; the two qualities that can never go wrong when forming a personal branding.
3. Lacking Authenticity
Honesty comes as a popular concept in personal branding, and for a good reason, it is. Authenticity is often defined as only one aspect of a business and marketing strategy – staying close to the self, and this principle is regarded as vital for the creation of an effective personal brand. However, it is sad that many people chase the glamor and attempt to act like someone or portray something that they feel others would like. What is even more regrettable is that this approach is quite falsified and rather disturbing.
In essence, personal branding is the procedural way of marketing yourself and what makes you distinct. This could be your view, approach, events, or even character. For instance, if some of your business operate in the field of writing, then what defines you is your voice. When you trying to make into some stereotype, you are against losing all the peculiarities that make you unique.
Thus, instead of doing it, pay attention to the unique aspects of your personality. Which are your organizational values? What matters to you most, what do you believe in as an individual, as a bourgeois? So, it is crucial to ensure that the values you hold dear should be reflected in your brand’s mission and the information that you communicate to the public. For instance, if one of the values is transparency then guarantee that the communication course followed is transparent. If there is a hobby you cherish, involve that into your business.Share on: LinkedIn 12.
Understanding the audience is also important. Recognise their requirements and their choices, and the backaches and headaches they undergo. In relation to these aspects, it is advisable to adapt content accordingly. Nevertheless, do not forget that in any case, the focus should be on the audience, but do not attempt to become “all friendly” for everybody. It is unfeasible and should not be done as it weakens the already created brand image. On the other hand, concentrate on your specialized area of operation and the clients, customers or targeted consumers.
One of the critical facets of authenticity is that you need to be real about your deficits as well. For example, when giving an opinion in a new field or a job you have recently joined, it is acceptable to say, ‘I am still discovering’. These could make you appear to be more genuine and therefore, trustworthy. The consumers want to work with companies they can trust, and this is possible is the company relates to them in a genuine manner.
Therefore, personal branding can be said to be about integrity since it involves people being genuine in the message which they pass across. It’s about establishing product identity that accommodates what you would like to portray, rather than what the society expects from you.
The first major blunder of personal branding is lack of identity or too vague identification of identity. Your personal identity here is what makes you stand out in your specialty. It’s your value proposition which is commonly referred to as the unique selling proposition (USP). Thus, if you have no identity, you are rather becoming ‘invisible,’ and there is no reason why people should bother with you.
Hence, to develop the personal identity, you have to identify specific skills and how they place you in a competitive niche. This entails having to evaluate yourself and your work then compare with that of your counterparts or even your teachers or clients. In what area do people tell you that you are proficient in ? Who do they turn to for? This can be very helpful to get an honest and detailed idea of the subject’s skills and potentials.
After realizing the strength, ensure that the message portraying the strength is well disseminated by your online pages. This entails your social media pages, website, blog, among other platforms that you might be using. For instance, if you are a digital marketer conversant with SEO, ensure to incorporate the skill in summary sections of platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, and individual Blogs.
Your personal identity should also bear the admission of long term goals and objectives. For instance, if your niche is to write about digital marketing as a specialist, then it should appear in your content. Offer findings, statistics, reported experiences that portray the availability of your knowledge. League(s) to trade organization(s) to which the firm belongs and contribute articles to relevant trade publications as well as deliver papers at professional forums should be involved. All these actions are in a way that sustains and builds up your credentials and places you at the helm of the field.
It is also pertinent that you do not contradict yourself as doing this will dilute your argument. Within write-ups such as your social media posts and website, the identity you project should be consistent from the style of language you use to other aspects of the website’s design. Being consistent keeps customers familiar with the brand and having faith in the service that the brand has to offer. Your content must also be easily recognizable by people to make them associate it with you as soon as they find it.
Therefore, the definition of one’s identity lies in knowing and being able to portray what sets a person apart. It is about finding and claiming one’s position in the respective field and being different for the right causes.
5. Deleting Negative Feedback
Another subtlety that person must face while dealing with own brand is coping with criticism. This media type gives direct access to customers, which means that one has to work with backlash and hate comments. One misunderstanding is that such negative messages have to be erased to ensure the person’s image is not tarnished. However, this can backfire.
Especially negative comments, which, if deleted, could make you look as though you are hiding something or are afraid of negative comments. It can also increase the level of conflict, which means viewers will respond with further negative comments or retaliation. It is advisable not to delete the negative feedback, rather this should be taken as a chance to show your efficiency and problem solving skills.
If there is any negativity in the message, do not get defensive but rather should reply in a passive aggressive manner. Admit to the problem and, if befitting, say sorry. For instance, if a client bothers the contractor concerning the delay in project completion, the contractor has to say sorry for the inconvenience and elaborate on what measures the contractor is taking to see that the project does not get delayed again. This shows that you are willing to change and want value to be given to feedback from any of your subordinates you come across.
Most of the time negative feedback can also be considered as negative encounter but on the positive side you can learn to make this as an advantage. For instance, if someone offered a negative reaction to your work, this person might be grateful for pointing that out and continue to describe how or why it was done that way. It also fulfills the criticism to some extent and allows you demonstrating your competence at the same time.
Another thing that should be encased is the difference between criticism and trolling. Thus, though well-meant critique may be helpful in one sense, trolling in another sense is designed to elicit a response and can thus be dismissed. Nevertheless, this does not mean that there should be no courtesy at all in such cases; all that is called for is courtesy that shall respect professional conduct. Do not get yourself defensive or rant over the situation.
Therefore, learning how to deal with negative comments is a vital step towards successfully protecting your personal brand. It remains a chance of proving your professionalism and also offer a chance for your critics to turn into fans.
6. Neglecting Networking
Networking has always been a critical concept in personal branding. The objective of the study and work is not only in possessing knowledge, but in the contacts as well. Acquaintances within your sphere of operation can lead you to new ways of doing business, partnerships and fresh ideas. However, many people consciously disregard this aspect and their main goal is to increase their visibility on the Internet.
Network marketing is social marketing, both online and offline. When in the Internet, social networks like LinkedIn are indispensable when searching for people in your industry. Like and comment posts on the groups, share knowledge content regarding the issue. Such steps can assist you in establishing contacts of like-minded people which can be further partners.
Offline, it is important to go through events targeting the industry, conferences, and workshops. Such events allow professionals to meet the people and share ideas concerning certain business issues directly. For example, approaching a speaker of the conference and asking for an interview is possible to create contacts. However, do not neglect carrying cards; they are still useful for an exchange of a contact or a logo in a case of a cynical.
Networking is not solely about how they can help you but more about how you can help them. Give assistance, extend emails, or referral. It means that the goals of building a reputation of a helpful and generous person can definitely help in the process of creating a proper personal brand.
However, networking needs to be understood that it can bring good results even with the unknown people. Meeting people in passing at a conference could get you a job offer, partnership, or an invitation to give a speech. Thus, affectionate receptivity should remain the premier goal and be the most apparent and easily recognizable quality.
To sum up the discussion, it can be concluded that networking is closely connected with managing a personal brand. This being in that it is about establishing social connections that have the potential of positively affecting an individual socially and career wise. It is also about belonging to society, which entails participating in it and supporting it in return.
7. Lack of Audience Engagement
The interaction with the audience is a core aspect in developing a personal brand. Having occasions where you can talk to your followers is a plus through platforms such as the social media. But the challenge that most people face is that they treat social media platforms as mere bill boards, where they only post their contents to be seen by the masses.
People engagement is reciprocal in that it cannot be offered to the community one sided and without any expectations from the same community. It’s equally important not to just share posts and then hope for the audience engagement. What is required is interaction with them. Come back to comments, ask questions, and foster debates. That not only brings people in but also aid in the process of creating brand loyalty that will get people to associate with your brand.
For instance, if you’ve shared an article on LinkedIn, should not just end there. Reply to posts, be it positive feedback or negative, and show appreciation where it is due or explain yourself. This not only demonstrates to viewers that the opinion of their’ valued but also helps gain insight into what they may be interested in or have on their mind.
Similarly, if it is a blog, it is necessary to establish interaction with the reader. Engage and make remarks that will create openness and desirability to be productive in various community forums. Another way is that with the help of e-mail newsletters you can maintain constant contact and share information with your audience.
Identifying and interacting with your audience makes the relationship even more solid and people tend to remain loyal. It proves that you’re not only concerned with the self- advertisement but also the connection with the target customer. Such an engagement can encourage a better community that will in turn support your personal brand – which is ardent.
Therefore, audience engagement is much more than enhancing specified quantifiable key performance indicators of your social media platforms. It is about turning the audience into a community creating fans out of them. It is a method of conveying a message to the target audience to signify to them that they are important to you and you wish to hear from them.
8. Ignoring Metrics
Metrics are always an important component of the strategy mentioned, including personal branding. They indicate to you how far along you are on the journey, what factors have made the journey easier or more difficult, and what the next steps might be. But, unfortunately, many neglect this aspect and pay attention only on content generation and an interaction with an audience.
Naturally, if one ignores metrics, he or she might be completely clueless as to how well their strategies are working. At the very core of this problem, you’re left impaired and unaware of the direction you should be steering your strategy towards. For example, to build an audience of Instagram followers, one has to identify what kind of posts attract the most interaction. Without this information though, you are just guessing.
To avoid this, it is recommended that you check your metrics from time to time. On the particular level, it will depend on the goals that you incorporate; Every organization will have unique KPIs. For instance, using the traffic goal, one ought to track features such as the number of views made and the traffic bounce rates. If you are concentrating on social media, then monitor elements such as likes, shares, comments, and number of followers.
It also assists in enabling the identification of clients’ tendencies and patterns in their behavior. For example, if you learn that videos receive traffic better than blogging, then you may plan to create more videos. Likewise, you can predict that some topics receive higher interest; therefore, you can direct your efforts into those areas.
It is also good to have certain standards and aims that will be followed or attained concerning your metrics. This assists in ascertaining your progress and therefore helps keep you encouraged. For instance, if your goal is getting twenty percent of your followers on Linked in in the next 3 months and you are not getting it, track back and make the necessary improvement.
Hence, metrics can be regarded as rather a useful instrument in the process of personal branding. It paves ways of understanding the audience’s interactions, monitor your achievements, and direct the plan. This is especially because neglecting them is a sign that one was not busy trying to get the best out of a process.
It is your brand for yourself, but remember that the client’s needs have to be your highest priority. This is even the case with freelancers, consultants, and other business people out there in the world. It important that your brand does not only show who you are but also what your clients want.
, it is also understood that client demographics are just the starting point and cannot make up the entire story. You have to identify what causes their suffering, what they want and what they like. Such information helps in developing your content, product, or service to correspond to their needs.
For instance, if the subject of the description is a freelance graphic designer, the client’s needs will include factors such as their industry, target market, and preferred styles. This enables one to come up with visually appealing designs that also pass the intended message of the client.
Your personal brand also must show your clients’ dedication. This refers to punctuality, work ethic and the ability to keep everyone informed of progress and upcoming plans. For instance, if you are a writer, ensure that you improve on time management, communication, and works produced. The problem is that such qualities are as much a part of your unique professional profile as your competencies.
Also, reinforcing the humanity aspect of the Company gives better chances to establish loyal relations with clients. Some things are better done in groups, so tell us your experiences, difficulties and achievements. This not only raises your chances of being understood, but also trusted, and followed.
In conclusion, it is hereby asserted that emphasizing on the client is key to the development of a good personal brand. It is actually identifying the client’s wants and proactively catering for them, thus creating a mutually beneficial partnership, to clarify the concept of selling. Your clients determine how your brand is perceived thus they should be a priority.
10. Using the Wrong Channels
In the process of personal branding the selection of the communication channels is also important task. Not all platforms are equal and being on improper ones will only weaken your brand , and your efforts are pointless. A lot of people fail under the misconception that more coverage is always better and will somehow produce better results.
However, it is more efficient to concentrate on the platforms where your target population is most lively. That is, if you are a business person who needs to share ideas and establish business connections, the site such as LinkedIn is a necessity. They are used in business and sometimes used to find employment and connect with like-minded individuals and managers. However, if you are a life style blogger or an artist then Instagram may be more suitable given the fact that it is a visibility based site and has a young audience.
To understand this, one has to find out where the intended consumers of the product are most likely to spend time on the Internet. This means as to know about their choice, activities and the kind of post that they use frequently. For instance, if the audience is composed of the millennials and these are fashion enthusiasts, then it would be more effective to use Instagram and Pinterest in comparison with LinkedIn.
On the discovered suitable social media, adjust your content in order to match the specific social media. People in different platforms they are in have different etiquette. For instance, Instagram is more of a visual platform and less of a formal nature compared to LinkedIn which more supporting content and has more of a professional aspect to it. Appreciating these subtleties can guide in making content that would be engrossing to the viewers, as well as catering with the platforms’ character.
It is also necessary to ensure that any communication is as consistent across all modes as it is possible to be. Your brand voice, the things you want to communicate and the way they are visually represented should be consistent. These features are useful for arriving at about the same conclusion, thus contributing to the establishment of brand familiarity and credibility. For instance, if you are specialized in a certain category of photos, make sure that this specialization is totaled on your website and the social media accounts addends as well.
Therefore, it can be concluded that the choice of channels is one of the most critical components of personal branding. No, it is about being intentional in engaging in an activity and strategically doing it. The idea is to concentrate on the channels your audience uses and adjust their feed to the channels they favor, and be regular. This approach helps to achieve maximum impact of the efforts and their compliance with the objectives of the brand.
Conclusion
Personal branding is a never ending and self-evolving process. This means it entails implementing plans, being precise, and having good insights about the self and others. Non-acceptance of typical mistakes such as ignoring the existence of the brand, being devoid of any approach, and lack of interaction with the audience can therefore go a long way to improve a person as well as their profession.
You need to be aware that your person brand is more than digital self-identity; it is everything you represent, professionally, personally, and in the future. It is the process of crafting a storyline popularly known as the message with an aim of achieving organizational objectives and appealing to the target consumers. Regardless of the status of an individual – an entrepreneur, a freelancer or any other professional, the proper way of handling your personality with simple and clear-sighted understanding will lead you to a number of opportunities.
Recall that brand persona refers to your reputation. It’s what people will picture when they hear your name. First, ensure that the thing you create is something that will portray your better self to the society, is useful to other people and stands out from the others in the market. Therefore, by concentrating on authenticity, audience engagement, and channel management, it is possible to create a personal brand that would not only be unique but also effective for the builder.
