Why Personal Branding Matters

No matter who you are, where you work or what you do, you have a personal brand.  Your brand is how others perceive you.  Like a business brand, a personal brand requires purposeful branding and marketing to earn awareness, credibility and referrals.  Investing in your personal branding helps ensure that you are perceived the way you want to be.
 
Personal branding is not just for people in the public eye or that are in the market for a new job.  While a personal brand can be what sends a recruiter your way, it’s also what can help you grow your business, get better reviews and achieve bonus goals.
 
Personal branding is more than appearances.
Just as a business brand is more than a name, logo and design, the same concept is true for a personal brand.   While your visual identity may be an essential component of your personal branding, it’s meaningless without an executed strategy that connects you to others in a meaningful way.  Many people that have a personal branding strategy may market it via LinkedIn and on resumes, but fail to actually deliver it.
 
Your personal branding strategy should define and consistently deliver all the points below:
 

• A personal mission that clearly defines what you professionally offer and what differentiates you from others in your field. 
• The benefits/features that you offer to those that do business with you.  For example, does your knowledge and expertise give your customers the information they need to make the right buying decisions?  Or, perhaps, does your easy-going demeanor make it more enjoyable for customers (or co-workers) to work with you?
• Personal attributes that define you. As an example, I have a friend that is never late and usually a few minutes early to every meeting he attends.  He expects the same from his clients.  This standard has become a part of his personal branding.

 
Strong personal branding requires consistency.  Inconsistent delivery of your personal mission, features/benefits or attributes will frequently result in a loss of credibility.  So, when defining your personal brand standards, be sure that you consistently deliver them.  This practice is what helps you gain personal brand advocates.  
 
Marketing your Personal Brand helps build awareness.
Marketing your personal branding helps increase awareness of all that you have to offer so that more people want to do business with you.  This, of course, can help improve your sales, performance and ratings. 
 
How and where you market depends on your goals.  Utilizing LinkedIn and other social channels is an excellent way to gain exposure.  Even if you’re not trying to gain more connections or followers, you should still ensure your social profiles represent your personal brand well. 
 
Tips for Marketing your Personal Brand on LinkedIn and Twitter:

• Ensure that your profile image matches your personal branding. LinkedIn is for professional networking, so it’s best to display an appropriate and professional headshot that corresponds with your profession.  Save the family portraits for your personal social channels such as Facebook.

 

• Consider adding a custom cover photo.  Your cover photo can be used to reiterate your personal brand promise.  The recommended cover photo size for LinkedIn is 1400 x 425 pixels with a maximum file size of 4 MB.  The recommended header photo for Twitter is 1500 x 500 pixels.

 

• Ensure that your bios are kept updated.  Include relevant information and write in the same style as your personal brand.

 Tips for Networking:
I recently met someone that gave some good networking advice.  He believed that everyone should have five categories of networks. These categories are intelligence, innovation, revenue, industry and influence.  The goal for building your networks should be to build relationships with people that fall within these categories.  Essentially, having these quality network relationships is more important than the quantity of connections.
Invest in 5 Categories of Connections:

1. Intelligence:  People that will provide you with new knowledge so that you can continue to grow and do better at what you do.
2.  Innovation:  Those that share new ideas that you can apply to what you do.
3. Revenue:  People that have the potential to bring you more revenue opportunities – these could be potential clients or business partners.
4.  Industry:  Those within your industry that you can collaborate with to learn trends and best practices.
5. Influence:  People that have the power and/or connections to help you take your goals to the next level and then achieve them.

 
While building and maintaining your networks of relationships, remember to be a giver as well a receiver.  Provide value back within your groups so that your personal brand is also looked at as a thought leader and expert, giving you more credibility.
 
Personal branding is an investment worth making.  Those committed to their personal branding are the ones that reap the rewards of loyal co-workers, staff and clients.
 
Contact Break Ice Marketing for help creating a social media cover/header photo for your personal brand.  Mention this article and receive a custom social graphic for only $75.