Personal Branding Tips That Make You Successful

Though you've heard of personal branding, are you thinking seriously of boosting your personal or professional branding but wonder whether it is for you or not?

Have you ever wondered how today's influencers started from just ordinary beginnings like where you are, to become the amazing influencers that they are today, in their respective fields?

Do you think that your ‘ordinary self’ can tweak and implement the same social media marketing strategies that celebrities are now using, to brand and catapult yourself to a killer success?

However, whether you want to brand yourself as a global social media super-influencer like Michelle Obama, Issa Rae, the incredibly famous Kim Kardashian West, or the Lagos online superstars realomosexy, and toolzo, you can become whatever brand that you work effectively to become.

So in this article, you will learn personal branding tips that would make you feel good about yourself.

You will also learn what personal or professional branding is, what it comprises, and the benefits of personal branding.

Then we'll learn how to create your brand.

Let’s get started!   

What Is Personal Branding?

For branding, what you promote is your unique personal skills, experience, and personality that you want the world to see.

In other words, your brand is the telling of your life story done by you. It is a showcase of your conduct, behavior, spoken and unspoken words, and attitudes.

Your branding differentiates you from the rest of the world.

Look:

You have your brand whether you want one or not.

So long as people have an opinion of you, favorable or not, that opinion of you is your brand.

Personal branding or professional branding is simply the habit of ordinary individuals marketing themselves and their careers professionally.

By being aware and letting the world know of your distinct talents, you can easily search out growth opportunities as well as connect with your worth in the marketplace.

Additionally, it makes it easy for you to explore lateral moves that add to your skill sets.

Moreover, being familiar with your brand provides you with a benchmark that ensures that your career decisions are well thought out and in line with your long-term goals.

How You Achieve Personal Branding Success

Successful personal branding starts with writing down clearly what you intend to achieve and how you intend to get there.

As you describe how to achieve your branding goals, highlight your awesome inborn talents and unique skills.

Your successful branding is a reflection of your core values.

Benefits Of Personal Or Professional Branding

A solid personal brand is a powerful magnet that pulls in clients, employment offers, and all-around opportunities.

Your powerful and attractive brand defines you as the only solution to your audiences' pain points.

In other words, you showcase yourself as far better than your competitors. Moreover, your target audience sees you as the only choice for their unique needs.

Personal Branding Helps You Know Your 'Why'

The German philosopher Frederick Nietzsche said, ‘He who has a why can endure any how.’

Knowing your why is an important first step in figuring out how to achieve the goals that excite you.

It also helps you to move from just surviving to creating a life that you enjoy living. Your WHY guides you toward fulfillment in your work and life.

It is only when you discover your ‘why’ that you find the courage to take the risks needed to get ahead. It also helps you to stay laser-focused and motivated.

Knowing your WHY and staying laser-focused and motivated, helps you move to an entirely new, more challenging, and more rewarding direction when faced with personal problems.

And the benefit of knowing and showcasing your authentic self is that:

You Benefit From Personal Branding Because People Trust You More

Your authentic personal brand explains to your target audience the “why” you do what you do. So they understand what motivates and drives you.

The more your audience knows and trusts you, the more likely they are to work with you.

Since your motives are genuine and clear, this builds trust. Most people feel more comfortable with a person so that they can predict what he would do.

When your target audience knows the source of your work energy, they feel great about putting you in charge of their pain points

Personal Branding Helps You Build Connections

Your branding helps you build connections. Crafting a trusted interpersonal interaction can help you gain traction and credibility.

Use networking branding strategies to generate new contacts and strengthen current ones for the good of your career or business.

One great way to build solid connections is to maintain an active LinkedIn presence.

LinkedIn was built for professionals and being active on this social media platform provides opportunities to connect with leaders and similar brands and businesses.

Building connections go beyond the digital world. Building a trusted personal reputation helps to get more exposure leading to speaking events.

With connected speaking events, you generate leads.

Personal Branding Creates A Higher Perceived Value

As you build your brand, your target audience begins to see you from an emotional level, as a brand and not as a job title.

Because of your perceived value, your audience connects more deeply with your brand.

As a result, this increases your value to them and makes it simply easy for you to charge more for your services or products.

Further, being active in your niche through the creation of original, helpful, useful, and engaging content establishes you as an expert.

The beauty of this strategy is that you get insane demand for your products or services, making it possible for you to work less and make more.

Personal Branding Helps You Become The Purple Cow Of Your Niche

Being outstandingly different from your competition is a good thing.

It is a competitive edge that recommends you as the best in your niche.

Personal branding helps you become the purple cow of your niche.

And when that happens, potential employers and customers look at you differently from the pack.

Having said that:

As you spend time building your brand consistently and passionately, your value continues to trump your competition.

And by being the purple cow of your niche, your target audience is easily convinced that you provide the best solution to their pain points.

As an expert, you are the “go-to” person in your niche. Your effective personal branding creates enthusiasm for your skillset, products, or services.

And that buzz brings in tons of references, amazing referrals, incredible job offers, and testimonials.

Personal Branding Helps You Attract Ideal Opportunities

Having a brand that is totally authentic and deeply rooted in your WHY, attracts and arrests the attention of like-minded people.

Your prospective employers or customers will connect passionately with you because they know why you do what you do, not just what you do.

On the other hand, your brand will be unattractive to those that don’t fit with your life’s purpose.

That means that you won’t get offers that don't fit with your mission in life. Happily, you’ll get more fulfilling offers that connect with the “why”.

One of the most important benefits of personal branding is that without working any harder, you attract more career options.

How To Create A Personal Brand

When you mention to most people that you, "want to build a personal brand," the first thing they probably think about is social media vanity numbers.

They look at metrics like the number of Twitter followers, Instagram connections, the number of Facebook Likes, and the number of blog subscribers.

You see, those are very poor or vanity metrics for measuring or building a meaningful personal brand.

A well-built personal brand means that you provide so much value in one (or multiple) niche(s) that people begin to associate your name with the idea of what it means to be successful in that industry.

In other words, you become a thought leader and authority, the influencer in your chosen niche.

From well-known celebrities to annoying co-workers who boast about themselves nonstop in the breakroom, they all have one thing in common.

They promote themselves massively and ruthlessly through a personal website, social media channels, and an on-the-go personal pitch.

However, personal branding is not necessarily about self-promotion and being everywhere.

It helps you define who you are and the type of person you want to be going forward.

And if you’re an entrepreneur, a well-defined and established personal brand can also help in building your leadership style.

Further, your brand also establishes how you want to be known inside and outside your workplace.

Building a personal brand takes a lot of work.

Here are practical steps you can take right now in other to build a successful personal brand.

#1: What Are You Good At, And How Do You Want To Make A Living?

I don't know about you, but I am incredibly bad at convincing myself to do things that I don't enjoy doing.

It is part of the reason why I am horrible at doing a lot of things.The first step in building your professional brand is acknowledging what you enjoy doing.

After you’ve made your self-examination and you know exactly what you love doing, then, commit to being consistently great at that thing as possible as you can.

This has nothing to do with being competitive, but with being true to yourself that whatever you love doing. There are billions of other hungry people who love your passion too.

Not only that, but they are eager and ready to take your enviable brand position, should you start slacking.

In other to make the self-examination that would help you identify what you are good at, let's consider these main areas:

#2: What Are Your Core Values?

Your core values define who you are and what’s important to you as a person.

Flawlessly, your values determine where and how you spend your time, energy, and resources.

They unconsciously nudge and direct you to act and react the way that you do every day.

That is why when you choose a career or job that rejects the true core values you feel frustrated, bored, and unhappy.

Self-deception is the biggest scam of all.

Therefore, by truthfully and candidly understanding what makes you tick, you can have a clear vision of what direction to take.

This realistic understanding of your core values empowers you to make decisions that align with your personal goals.

It should be noted that personal core values are different from personal goals.

Values, are about how you consciously choose to show up in relationships, at work, and in the way you navigate your inner landscape.

Your core values define who you are and your personal goals help you define what you want.

Make a plan and work your plan by taking the first step, tweaking and repeating these branding strategies until you start seeing results.

Commit to your values daily and you never reach a final destination. Your values are a lifelong practice.

#3: Identify Your Talents

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Dictionary.com defines talent as: “a special natural ability or aptitude: a talent for drawing.”

So talents are simply those things that we do naturally and effortlessly.

If you understand and identify those tasks that you can perform, you will be highly qualified to connect to awesome jobs and careers that can add value and professional fulfillment to your life.

#4: Identify Your Skills And Transferable Knowledge

Each one of us has certain skills and talents that make us unique like a snowflake from any other human.

That's why you need to find out what your skills and transferable knowledge are.

After reading about talents in the previous paragraphs, perhaps you’re asking ‘is there a difference between talent and skill?’
Oh yes.

Though we often use talent and skill interchangeably, they are different from one another.

We already established that talents are inborn abilities that make it effortless to do certain things.

On the other hand, skill is acquired knowledge. You develop it after you have put time and effort into it.

It doesn't come cheap.

You have to be interested in the skill in other to acquire it, the efforts need to be voluntary, systematic, and sustained.

Since it takes time, effort, and resources to acquire the skills you have, you can appreciate why it is important to acknowledge the skills you have gained throughout your career!

Are your skills transferable to another job? What is so unique about your skills?

The answer to both questions makes up your professional edge.

#5: What Are Your Accomplishments?

The bedrock of your branding rests on authenticity. You will need to be able to tap into your genuine, humble, and personal human qualities.

This insight helps you understand how your identity, personality, and character come from your authentic self and accomplishments.

Interestingly, people are more interested in your accomplishments than they are in your marketing.

They are interested in knowing the value you bring to the table now, based on your past performance.

Your accomplishments are the foundation on which your branding sits.

In other words, it is not possible to build a strong personal brand without any accomplishments.

The beauty of having impressive accomplishments is that it helps you grow your brand through word-of-mouth, client referrals, and media mentions.

All done without any active promotion on your part.

That can only happen when other people know about those accomplishments in the first place.

For instance, through referrals from clients.

Setting Your Personal Branding Goals

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Where do you want to be in the short term? What kind of lifestyle do you see yourself in 5, 10, or 20 years from now?

Successful goal setting starts by setting small targets, accomplishing them, and then progressing to bigger targets while acquiring new skills.

By setting short, medium, and long-term goals you can ensure your professional brand consistency.

And then, consider these questions:

What do you need and want to achieve in life?

What will success mean to you in the near and distant future?

For this exercise, you can write down as many answers as you would like.

Those answers are your goals.

If you’re honest, you would readily discover that most of your goals are not connected to wealth but rather to happiness.

You are not done yet.

After you’ve put your goals in writing, it is time to examine yourself to find out realistically, how to achieve them.

• What are your personal and professional training and experience?

• What are your key strengths?

• What are your key weaknesses?

• Why makes you unique? What qualifications make you stand out and different?
  

Who makes you happy?

#2: Find Your Social Media Platform(s)

One of the biggest mistakes that most people make right out the gate is that they rush into building a website for themselves.

And if that doesn't work out, they spend a lot of time figuring out how they are going to brand themselves.

None of all that is important. Not yet.

The important thing to do at this stage is that you start owning your craft, and providing awesome value to people in the public space.

Your branding starts from there. 

To get started, find a social media platform that suits your interest, and start creating the most amazing content you possibly can.

Are you into fashion and beauty? Promote your stunning content massively on Instagram.

Are you a Chef?

Go ahead and make foodie videos on Instagram.

An incredible motivational speaker?

Use the Facebook video for promotion.

Are you a digital marketing specialist?

Why are you not on LinkedIn?

#3: Connect And Collaborate

After you’ve created your profile page on your relevant social media channel or channels, the next step is to deliberately connect with people that would help you achieve the goals you set out in the first place.

Don’t just connect with people because you want tons of connections to brag about.

An effective way to build as meaningful relationships as you can is to connect with other thought leaders in your niche.

As you do this consistently and methodically, this will open many doors for you and also help you grow your social following.

With time, you will start to collaborate with other people who create relevant, helpful, useful, and engaging content.

Into fitness? Work out at the gym, video it, and post it on YouTube.

Is gaming fun? Go ahead and play with a friend.

After you do, video and post funny clips on Snapchat and @tag each other in the text on the screen. 

Create content together and post to each other’s audiences. In a symbiotic relationship, everyone wins and everyone grows.

Importantly, you make some amazing connections and friends through meaningful connections and collaborations.

#4: Build Your Website And Email List

After you have highly remarkable followers on your social media channels, you are ready to build your website and start your email list.

Most people start with hosted platforms like BlogSpot, Squarespace, Wix, or WordPress.

As a brand, your website is your digital storefront. Therefore, it should provide the ultimate user experience and value to your audience.

You attract and arrest their attention on social media, then you drive them to your website where you saved the best for them.

Those that are serious and savvy about their branding use a paid customized domain name. It helps establish your blog as a professional brand.

Since it is your owned digital real estate, you can also put your nice logo, favicon, and banner to boost your branding efforts.

The winning offer is free specialized content in exchange for their email.

They give you permission to email them for the gift of a download, a trial code to a program, etc.

You send them something that provides them value and gives you the ability to give them even more value over the long term.

#5: Launch Your Products

The whole goal of building a Personal or Professional Brand is to avoid the hellish route of being an affiliate and helping someone else make real money.

When you launch your brand of products and services, you make money and more importantly you gain credibility as an influencer.

In today's digital world, business cards are your eBooks, podcasts, courses, products, and services that speak on your behalf and your knowledge.

The amazing thing about these products or services that speak for you is that they open doors to other thought leaders in your niche.

Not only in your industry, but also in related industries. The result is that you continue building your social followings, collaborating, and engaging with new influencers and their audiences.

Why You Need To Brand Yourself

There are several reasons why understanding and building your brand, regardless of your profession, can add tremendous value to your life.

A well-defined personal brand allows you to:

• Identify how you want to be known and showcase it.

• Examine and understand your key strengths and weaknesses.

• Be the purple cow of your niche.

• Build your organic "tribe" (others who share the same values).

• Show your human side with meaningful interactions with your audience.

• Establish credibility.

• Show your value through your actions.
  

• Convey your message and values.

  Whether you’ve convinced yourself of the importance of personal branding, it is important to understand that everyone has a personal brand, whether you want one or not.
  

It is defined by everything you do, from what you wear to how you compose emails to how you conduct yourself on the phone.

If you are not taking control and managing your brand, others are doing it for you.

Conclusion

From this article, you would conclude with me that your branding is really important for your job search or career success.

It is highly significant to note that your success in personal branding is dependent on your being your authentic self.

It works seamlessly if you can back up your brand with real accomplishments that prove what you're capable of.

That is why your professional branding should be based on real-life examples of how you have delivered in specific situations.

This evidence of your skills and knowledge makes your brand more credible.

The importance of marketing yourself, whether as an entrepreneur or as a valuable member of the workforce, is becoming abundantly clear.

Building a personal brand is an investment in yourself and your future.

Do you want to get started with a personal or company branding strategy that rocks?

Our outsourced social media agency would love to hear from you. Let’s roll!

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