Personal Branding: A Brand New You.
May 18th, 2009 : posted by mattI'm finding the subject of personal branding of great interest lately. Especially being a design freelancer.
But what is personal branding? Well, what is a brand?! Generally speaking, a brand is the way people associate with, or feel about a product or service. Branding is the act of manipulating that association or feeling to differentiate said product or service from it's competition. So, personal branding is manipulating the way people associate or feel about you. Reading that back, it sounds much more evil than it is!
Think of it this way. If you're going to a job interview, you'll clean your shoes, comb your hair, wear your Sunday best. You want the interviewer to have a good impression of you. Well, in the world of business, and especially online, there's a myriad of ways to 'clean your shoes'.
With the likes of twitter, facebook, youtube, flickr and a vast number of other social networking sites, there are now more than ever, new ways to reach your audience or customers.
However, these sites are doing more than opening up new avenues of communication, they're changing the communication itself. The smart people, such as winelibrary tv and personal branding expert Gary Vaynerchuck, are realising that the game is changing from presentation, to conversation.
But which sites are the best to use if you want to promote your special self online? Simple answer: all of them.
May 18th, 2009 at 8:00 pm
Good thoughts on this – I really focused on personal branding to help position myself for a new job…. and I got it!
May 19th, 2009 at 8:51 pm
Personal branding is so crucial, as it is the beginning of the entire job search or career development process. We, with our experience, skills, expertise and leadership styles, are all products and our employers are our customers. But just like with products, why we pick some products over other similar products? We pick them for their brands, their differentiating essence.
Write down 5-10 words (adjectives or nouns) that represent you, your strengths, your unique qualities and/or your differentiators. Then have your coworkers, family, friends etc. do the same thing, and find out where these overlap. This will show you where your perceptions meet others’ perceptions and this is a great place to start. I also recommend taking the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) personality assessment to identify your unique personality type and google the type to find out more information on how you best function in teams, at work, in relationships etc. This will really help you establish your personal brand.
Pick one word from all of this that best represents you and make this your one-word brand. The beauty about the one-word brand is that it is really easy to follow up with a personal brand pitch filled with more information and adjectives supporting it. The one-word is also more memorable to employers and anyone else you present it to.
Make sure to translate your personal brand consistently across all of your channels, including your resume, your cover letter, your emails, your online profiles and social networks, your interviews etc.
May 19th, 2009 at 9:25 pm
Thanks for the comments Chris. Great stuff!
Matt