12 Steps to Building A Fabulous Personal Brand

Building a personal brand is something that you work on on different levels. It genuinely begins with knowing yourself better and knowing what you stand for. You then need to understand what you want to communicate to your target audience.

A personal brand is a vision and when you speak about your brand, it should always become about your message.

Here are 12 Steps to consider while building a fabulous personal brand:

1: Determine your unique value proposition

Stop. Take a minute and spend some time thinking about what makes you different. Think about your strengths, your passions, and your goals. Know who you are -most importantly, who you are not.

2: Find out how others see you

Ask trusted colleagues, co-workers, and friends for 3-5 adjectives they would use to describe you. Ask specifically: In which areas do they view you as “irreplaceable?” What are you good at? What are your strengths? Use these adjectives in your marketing copy.

3: Identify your goals

Where would you like to be in 30 days ? One year? Five years? Defining your goals helps you craft a message that helps you reach your goals.

4: Identify your target audience

Just like coffee-deals site knows that their target audience is coffee drinkers, you need to understand who will be receiving your message. This will help you master your message and to deliver it in the right places.

5: Reevaluate your priorities

As an independent business owner, woman, spouse, mother…you’re probably used to putting yourself last. While you still want to be loyal to your clients, colleagues and family, please remember to be loyal to yourself, first.

6: Pay attention to the details

Everything you do contributes to your personal brand. Once you’ve defined your brand, make sure that the way you dress, your body language, how you interact with others, the emails you write are all consistent with your brand message.

7: Update your resume

Go through your resume to determine if it resonates with your brand and that it accurately defines who you are, and is in alignment with both your short and long-term goals.

8: Become a social networker

If you haven’t already done so, set up accounts on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and ask those in your target audience to follow and subscribe to your pages. Make sure you update on a regular basis. Make sure your updates resonates your message.

9: Build your own website

That’s right. Your website should be about you. It should highlight your professional accomplishments, your skill set and your knowledge, what you stand for, and your value. Make it about you, not your company or clients.

10: Blog

Blogging makes it easier than ever to promote yourself to your target audience. Make the commitment to posting 1-3 times a week on topics that your audience will find interesting and educational. These posts should highlight your skills and experience.

11: Get published

Write the book. Let me write that again: Write a book! Also, contribute to industry publications and update the content on your site. Being published is a great way to promote yourself as an expert in your field.

12: Pound the Pavement and Go Offline

Make sure that you are promoting your brand in person as well as you are online. Join and participate in industry groups, give talks at conferences, or lead a project that showcases your unique talents.

 

Self-promotion is an extremely important part of building your brand (if no one knows of your accomplishments or the company you work for, then how are they going to do business with you?), the biggest factor that separates you personal branding from shameless self-promotion is value.