What is personal branding? Personal branding is developing your own mark that is centred on your own personal name or career. You can then use this brand to express and show the world your personality and values. The one mistake that everyone thinks is that, personal branding is only for entrepreneur or for the rich and famous. It’s not! It is for everyone. You have to be an expert on something to increase your value and worth as an individual. So how do you get started on personal branding?
The first step towards personal branding is to accept that you are a brand. Now you are able to use the same marketing strategies as corporate and product brands to build your own brand and get recognized. So how do you discover your brand? Think about what you are passionate about and what you would like to do for the rest of your life. Specify your goals, mission and personal brand statement. Your personal brand statement is what do you do and who you are and you also need to create a development plan. Have you ever been called creative by your peers or co-workers? Well that description is part of your brand.
Secondly, you need to select a niche. What is a niche? Niche is a focused, targetable portion of a market. So how do you find your niche? Get started by writing down your expertise, education, experience and what you are passionate about. Once you figured out that you had a passion for that, you need to check out your competition in the niche that you have chosen. Now write down all the ideas that you have for your particular market you have chosen. If your niche is too narrow, you may have to expand it a little. After that, start researching your clients? Who will your niche are targeted towards? Will it have a good reception? How do you reach the people? You need to research properly before starting. There’s no point choosing a niche and creating a brand centred on it when you didn’t do your research.
Now let’s create your brand. With that niche and your action plan ready in mind, it’s time to highlight your brand. In the modern age right now, there are so many ways to reach your targeted demographic. It could be through business cards, portfolio, websites, Twitter, Facebook and so much more! All of these marketing strategies are free! All it needs is your persistence!
So what are you waiting for? You’ve got the basics now. So start creating!