Five ways to enhance your personal brand
In the business world today, it is no longer enough to be defined by professional attire, a robust handshake, and an impressive educational background.
To really get ahead, you now need a personal brand. The good news is, thanks to social media, professional networks, blogging and YouTube channels, it is now easier than ever for anyone to develop one. However, how do you go about creating a persona that gets you noticed and recognised as a mover and shaker in your field?
Here are five of the best ways you can enhance your personal brand.
Why is having a personal brand important?
Having a personal brand in business is very important because it enables you to convey your professional capabilities to potential new customers or employers and also your whole self.
Crucially, developing a professional brand enables you to build credibility and convey your expertise. It also provides you with the opportunity to develop trust among others within your industry, widen your network across the globe and even increase your earning potential.
While you might not be able to build a brand as high-profile as Sir Richard Branson or Warren Buffet, it is vital to ensure you come across as professional and successful.
Ultimately, personal branding is about how we define ourselves and what we believe in within the business sphere. It is also about how we want others to perceive ourselves and our capabilities.
Five ways to enhance your brand
Now that you understand why personal branding is important in the business world, how do you go about building one?
Here are five elements to consider.
1) Develop a signature look
It doesn’t matter what industry you work in. When building your brand it is crucial to look the part.
No doubt, everyone wants to be viewed as a rock star, so you should take steps to create a profile that gets you viewed as one. This doesn’t mean donning leather pants and shaking your hips like Pat Benatar did back in the 1980s. However, how you dress might be seen as important by others.
So, splash out on that Reiss power suit, shop Maison Louis Marie at Maplestore for a nice scent, and get yourself a pair of statement Alexander McQueen to create your new signature look.
2) Define your niche and expertise
Looking the part is one thing, but if you don’t define your niche and showcase your expertise, your personal brand will not gain traction.
Think about what you want to become known for and brand yourself as an expert in that particular field.
For instance, if you want to be known as an authority in Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), it is important to build your personal brand around this specific skill set and not as a generic marketeer.
The most successful personal brands tend to be those in which you don’t position yourself as a jenny-of-all-trades but rather as a master of one.
3) Establish an online presence
The best way to build an outstanding personal brand is to establish as wide an online presence as possible, and several components are involved in this.
Perhaps the first thing you should do is launch a blog featuring your full name as the domain name, e.g. janesmith.com. The benefit of doing this is that you pretty much guarantee you own the first few results for searches on your name on Google, Bing, and Yahoo (assuming there isn’t already someone famous who shares your name) from potential customers, colleagues, and other industry professionals.
You will also be able to instantly develop credibility in your field through the industry content you publish, which should also appear in the search results.
If you run your own business, this should be a separate site from your company’s one. You should also set up social media profiles for Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, and, if appropriate, Pinterest and TikTok.
4) Become active on LinkedIn
LinkedIn has over 1 billion members in more than 200 territories and countries around the world, which is a huge pool of people to whom you can expose your brand.
It is crucial that you develop a robust LinkedIn presence. This is arguably the best way to build your personal brand with a community of business professionals.
There are several ways you can do this, including connecting with others, creating and sharing outstanding content, running polls, commenting on other posts and utilising hashtags.
The key is to do this regularly, as it will eventually have a snowball effect.
5) Guest speaking
Another important way to build your personal brand is to offer yourself for guest speaking roles at conferences, exhibitions or even events you run.
By doing this, you not only get an excellent opportunity to display your level of knowledge and experience to others but also to network with industry professionals face-to-face.
