Personal branding
”Personal branding is the art of becoming knowable, likeable and trustable.”
John Jantsch
One of the workshops that are close to my heart is the one about Personal Brand. Ever since I worked in the PR agency, I understood how important it is to have under control this part of you presence, to invest and to audit it from time to time. That's because whether you like it or not, the personal brand exists, but ... you can leave it have a organic life (lying to yourself that you don't have / want something like that) and let things get out of your control, or you can understand it and make it part of your daily routine, in order to convey real things about yourself. Basically, putting your money (time) where your mouth is.
Whether you want to change your job, have more clients, hire some expert or just expand your network - your personal brand reaches the other person before you are able to do it. Most of the people I talk to, come to me after I was recommended (coaching, training, strategy, etc.), they searched me on Google to find out things about me even before reaching out. The first step to verify this personal brand theory is to do a Google search for your name. Do you appear on the first page of searches? If so, that's fine. What appears in those results - are the things you want to be known by the world, by people? If so - keep up the good work! If not - let's talk about the rest of the article.
Now to start from the same understanding of the concept, let's have a definition of personal brand. First of all, I would like to say that it is not the same as self-praise. Experiences, talents, stories, way of being, points of view, behavior - all these make up the BRAND. Here you can also include the way you dress. Self-praise is a collection of selfies, stories related only to your experiences, where you travel and other narcissistic things. Or to use someone famous words and the best definition I found (stolen from a very good speech) of J. Bezos - CEO Amazon
If you are still reading, the subject caught your interest or you are curious on how to grow your personal brand. Maybe you want to know where to start.
Step 1
Audit (google search)
What is there on your name, how many of them are generated by your and your activity/initiatives/projects? Is the search reflect the way you want people to know you?
Step 2
Make a clear difference between bragging and branding (see above)
Step 3
Retention of digital assets
More than 12 years have passed since Cristian China Birta (a local very well known blogger) talked in a training room about his personal brand and the digital world. A long researched follow after that training: what I wanted and where I was at that time, did I ceased on all the platform my name or my nickname? If not, I try to that then…in some cases was to late for my (common) name and I had to settle with my nicknam. Ever since then my personal brand supported my career changes, projects and invitations to be a speaker or a writer. During my time with the PR agency some things were confirmed to me and I learned even more about the power of personal brand has for leadership positions. That was the moment when I added my personal values into the personal branding: and decided what I want to see when someone searches for me on google, how much of my life I am willing to share online and where I want to be present.
Without having a clear strategy and objectives, little stress was cast over this subject, I was present natural on all the medias. However, I was building on what I already had. Time has passed, and for the past 9 years I have been extremely attentive to this part. The personal brand helped me change my job, to meet interesting people and to be invited into projects. And in February 2018 in a room of 20 people, participating at a personal brand course - my case passed with flying colors th audit of the PR consultants what were running the course. Seing all through their eyesI realised that my digital rituals means things that some people don't know or don't pay attention to, even if that is part of their personal brand. Whether or not you want to be active on Ello or TikTok, go in and make a profile with your name, so no one will show up for a while and will do strange things for your "persona". As soon as another social network appears, remember the digital asset with the nickname or call sign under which you are present in the digital area.
Step 4
Objectives
Take a paper or write down on your digital agenda the answers the following questions, as specific and detailed as possible, so that you can extend them to a plan.
Who am I (personal, professional, colours, catchphrase, logo, USP - unique selling proposition, elevator pitch)?
How do I want to position myself to others?
How do I do it? (where are you present, how often do you post and what, what types of comments you do on social media and to what kind of content you gift your reactions on daily basis, with whom do you appear in pictures at events and what types of events are there, etc?)
What do I want to be said about me when I am not in the room?
What is the message you want to convey and who are you addressing?
What is the strategy to achieve your goals and how do you measure that you have achieved them? (channels, messages, focus, SMART objectives, visuals)
Step 5
Develop content or more pompous said your brand management strategy
You know where you are and where you want to go. Now start building: identify what you have and where you need to work.
Karen Tiber Leland is the president of one of the largest marketing and branding companies in America. Together with his team, she helps leaders to develop strong business, personal or team brands. For simplicity, use the CEO Branding Matrix, which you can find below.
Based on this, she starts working with the "Man/Woman" or their team and identifies where the presence can improved or grew and what ways there are to grow it. Add on "to read" list her book and view at least one of her TEDxs.
Ok, so you are not at the CEO level, but you can be inspired by here and add new things to do on your digital activity. If you look closely at the 4 categories you will see that there is also an area for public speaking ;) like I do in Toastmasters, podcasts or volunteering. At first, develop content where you are comfortable. Facebook and LinkedIn should be at your fingertips. If you are not active on LinkedIn I recommend you to become. It is a professional network and has a fantastic growth in the past years, redo the CV according to this article and start posting. Even if in the recommended article I have talked about those who want to change their job, the recommendations also refer to those who want to have a professional profile on this network.
Step 6
Get out of your comfort zone
Once you have found the places where it is natural for you to use to increase your personal brand, get out of your comfort zone and develop other channels. In the matrix above you will find a lot of ways in which you can learn or grow something from scratch - that will bring value to those around you, to you cause you will learn a new skill, and first and foremost to your personal brand. Know that even the comments or testimonials you leave on the sites appear in a search and help you - so be careful what you write and where ;).
Step 7
Audit
Every 6 months, do another google search and see if you are on the path you want, then identify the places where you can improve and build.
Step 8
Measure
This step goes hand in hand with auditing - because it's not just about being good on Google, it's also about knowing that you bring value. Create content that informs, that engage people in conversations, connect them, maybe sell, or generate new leads for your company.
There are so many things to be said on this subject. But if you want to know more, ask me questions and as much as I can I will answer them :). What I want you to leave you with, and somehow to close the circle, your personal brand is built whether you want to or not - so you better take care of it, as you do with your health, career or personal development.
Photo by Kyle Glenn on Unsplash
