Building a personal brand means that you want people to know your name, who you are, what you stand for, and why, while also promoting a product, service, or information to that audience. You may be a life coach, an online business manager, or even sell a physical product or line of products, it doesn’t matter if you realize that you are the brand and stick to what you want the brand to represent.
Know Your Values and Priorities
When you are developing your personal brand, you want people to understand who you are from day one. Don’t worry about whether your values will turn off certain people. You just want to attract an audience that values you as a personal brand, and who needs the information you provide.
Know Your Audience
It’s important to know who your audience is so that you can promote yourself in a way that appeals to them. For example, if you have lost 200 pounds via weight-loss surgery and you want to promote yourself as an expert about weight-loss surgery in some way (such as how to get through it, how to stay motivated, and so forth), who is the audience that wants this information?
Choose the Main Platform to Grow
Once you understand who you are, who your audience is, and what they need, you can choose the right platform to use to grow your personal brand. For some, it may be Instagram, for others YouTube, for others still it may be their blog or Facebook. It doesn’t matter as long as your audience is there and you devote yourself to providing regular, valuable, and relevant content.
Build a Website as Your Hub or Store Front
Remember that no matter which platform you want to use as your main one, to reach your audience you still need a website that is the home base for where you are starting to disseminate the information. So if you choose YouTube, you will want to put your show on your website too with a blog post as a best practice.
Know Your Strengths and Weaknesses
You have both strengths and weaknesses. It’s important to know what they are so that you leverage your strengths and do something about your weaknesses. For example, if you aren’t that good at something, maybe you can outsource it to someone who is so that you can focus on what you are good at.
Write a Book
A really great way to get noticed as a personal brand is to become an author. Write about what you know in terms of how it can help someone. It can be your own story, case studies, or something else – if it demonstrates who you are, your expertise, and how it will help others, you’re going to do great. You can self-publish this book and probably should if you want to control your own branding.
Share Your Ideas and Knowledge Consistently and Regularly
Once you start producing content for your audience, be sure to make sure all the information is consistent with your ideas and brand. Plus, ensure that you publish something on a regular basis – whether it’s via blog, podcast, YouTube or all of the above.
Be Who You Are
You need to know your own values, why you appeal to people, who you appeal to, and how you’re going to describe yourself and show who you are. What is special about you; what can you do and how is it different from others? The more you can demonstrate that, the better. But, don’t try to be fake. Be who you are, warts and all. Some of it may turn away some of the people who would otherwise use your product. But, by being who you really are and only attracting the audience you want to deal with from day one, you can always be yourself.
Building a personal brand can be very powerful. You know some people who are famous who have built personal brands. They are often politicians, actors, authors, and life coaches. But, there are also people who have personal brands who sell physical products – such as Martha Stewart, for example. The important thing is to know who you are, who you want to attract, and what you will promote to them that stands for what you believe in.