Designing Your Personal Branding Strategy
Personal branding is not about what you are. You can be an engineer, designer, marketing specialist or a bodyguard, doesn’t matter, it’s never about what you are, it’s about who you are. It’s 80% of your skills, expertise, readiness to give back to the community and 20% of the show, and the better you become, the more show you will need. Sadly, if you are ignoring that 20%, it will become worse for you over time.
Here at Magnus, we know how much energy and time it takes, but we also want you to become visible. You’re the hidden gem that people are looking for. You can be the inspiration for other people who are desperately trying to become a better version of themselves or grow as a professional in an area where you are the champion
Building your personal brand takes a lot of effort, but if you are here, I guess you are on the right path.
The importance of the online presence
Your online presence is really important nowadays, as people spend a lot of time on facebook or other social media platforms than outside or at work. Personal branding has thus become one of the ways of standing out of the crowd to highlight your individual abilities or uniqueness.
I always encourage my friends to start small when it comes to branding because if you try too hard, you might fail miserably. It does not make sense to teach people how to do design if you only have 2–3 years of experience in design. Sure, you can be very talented and have the skill of teaching others, but that’s not the way you should build your personal brand.
The strategy, in short, is called “Start, and adjust as you go.”
Before starting everything, make sure you have a perfect resume. Create it nice and clean, keep in mind, that it’s a marketing document. Your goal is to capture the attention of your target audience and then make them take the steps towards you. Try to answer the question “Why are you passionate?” with your CV. I’ll get more into details regarding CVs in my next articles.
The start (Stage 1)
First things first, dig deep into your profession. If you are a recruiter, for the first 1–2 years you should focus on learning and building your social profiles. New certifications, professional photos, well-written posts that touch the relevant subject in your specialty will help you create a professional looking online presence. The rest of the time for the first years you should concentrate on doing actual work and learning.
Stage 2
You are already a great professional with a few years of work experience under your belt, you are following the trends, and you master all the tools you need to get the work done. Now you have to build stronger profiles in the online environment. Start connecting with more and more people that could be interested in hiring you, networking with you, or collaborating with you. If there are any meetups, events, annual meetings, etc. be there. This will make you more recognizable. Connect your twitter profile to all conference hashtags and send virtual hellos to your colleagues, then meet them and discuss the hottest topics.
Stage 3
A lot of people recognize you and your opinion matters. Start writing. If before that you were getting lazy with that there’s no way to postpone it now. People are interested in your opinions/approaches, and you should give them what they want and expect from you. You can start from a medium blog. The topics you choose should not be too controversial at first. You can also do a few talks for smaller audiences to gain confidence in public speaking especially if you’re shy by nature. With smaller audiences, you can talk the way you find comfortable, concentrate on the message, not on the words, or you will lose your uniqueness.
Stage 4
The show must go on: more show here. You know how to talk; you have a little experience, your profiles are shiny perfect on all social platforms, people know you by name. When someone says a “recruiter” you’re one of the first people that pop up in their head. You write regularly, and people read you. Time has come for you to focus on your overall image. Everything matters — shared content, jokes, clothes. This is the stage where you can start training people and consulting different companies.
Overbranding?
Overbranding is something very harmful, especially if we’re talking about people. You don’t want to feel like a commercial on a TV that people usually mute. You want them to come to you. You want them to come to you. Your strategy should be inbound. Otherwise, they will start hating you and will think that you’re just a perfectly wrapped box of nothing. It’s important to stay humble until you reach the last stages. It’s hard. I mean, it’s fucking hard. You start thinking that you’re different and too good for the environment you’re in. Nope! Keep your feet on the ground; that’s the message. A lot of people fail on stage 2 and try doing everything at once, and, eventually, they fail. If you do so, people will associate you with ads we all hate or spammy emails that say there is a will from some kind of a king that mentions you as their heir.
At the end of the day, we buy the chocolate for what’s inside the box, not because of the box, but…
“What’s in a box?”
“What’s in the f***** box?”
Thank you! Take a look at my other articles and follow Magnus for more!
