Creating an Authentic Personal Brand in 6 Steps
Your personal brand is how you present yourself to the world, It’s the sum total of everything you do and say, both online and offline.
That means your social media presence, your website, your networking, and your ability to communicate effectively.
“Your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room.” Jeff Bezos
Developing a strong personal brand requires an understanding of who you are, what you stand for, and how you want to be perceived.
Sounds complicated, but it doesn’t have to be. Here are 7 steps to creating a killer personal brand!
1. Define your values and mission
You should start by identifying what matters most to you. What drives you and your core values? What do you want to accomplish long term or in life? These answers will help you to form a mission statement that’s true to you and reflective of your aspirations.
2. Look at your strengths and weaknesses and be honest!
- Your Skills
- Your Experience
- Areas for improvement.
Don’t hold back! Identifying your strengths will help you focus on your unique talents. Recognising your weaknesses will help you work on them or niche further into a particular area better suited to your skills and personality.
3. Identify your audience
Determine who your target audience is:
- What kind of message do you want to convey to them?
- What do they care about?
- What problems you can solve for them?
3. Research your competitors
Analyse others in your industry or field and identify what sets you apart. You want to differentiate yourself from others while still staying true to your core values.
You can use the SWOT analysis method to give this some structure: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.
4. Develop a unique value proposition (UVP)
Your personal brand should have a unique value proposition. This is a statement that summarises what you offer and why it is valuable. It should be authentic, relevant, concise and appealing to the audience that you identified in step 2.
5. Create a consistent message and visual identity
Your personal brand should have a consistent message and visual identity that represents who you are and what you stand for. This includes elements like a logo, colour scheme, font, and tone of voice.
6. Communicate Communicate Communicate!
There’s no point in doing all this work on your brand if you don’t all your new amazing assts.
Use social media, websites, and other online and offline platforms to get your brand out there and start creating a positive reputation.
Network with others in your industry, attend events, and look for opportunities to show others your talent and worth.
Wrap up
Working out your personal brand takes time, introspection, and self-awareness.
But you don’t need to wait till your next yoga retreat to get started!
Spend 30 minutes mapping out the basics now and start to create a powerful and authentic brand that represents who you are, identifies what sets you apart from your competition and helps you to achieve your goals.
We promise you, a few well spent minutes now will save you hours upon hours of ineffective marketing in the future.
Sammer Affridi is the Owner of Hero Shot Photography.
A headshot and personal branding photographer in Australia
