Marketing is a complicated maze, where you may often find yourself lost among similar looking prospects struggling to find the right opening. Branding is common when it comes to the throes of the marketing world, though it is often restricted to the company or business. Personal Branding is a realm in itself that is important to be specialised in and catered to for maximum success.
What is Personal Branding?
In simple words, it is the generation or development of brand value of a person. Through the establishment of personal branding, the business too is boosted, therefore it has two-pronged benefits. A unique combination of skill sets and qualities are attached to a person which supplements their credibility. Personal branding involves adding value to the society around you, in order to impact the world and leave one’s mark on it. This influence is not restricted to successes but also measures a person’s failures and their ability to overcome them which makes it a novel strategy of marketing. It allows more transparency and helps people connect to people with ease.
Diving deeper into this arena, let’s consider the Importance of Personal Branding:
Well, for starters, there are many! The why’s of this type of branding makes it very critical for all businesses that strive to achieve uncharted success.
- What can be a better way of marketing than having people connect with people? It enables trust, mutual understanding and consumer loyalty. Often people change their preferences with time, however, connecting with a representative of an organisation, makes them more stable, lowering the dynamism of consumer behaviour. They wish to stay with this person they admire or are fond of, helping company profits greatly.
- If you are the CEO or owner of a business, personal branding will help your brand grow, both internally and externally. Not only will the consumers be attracted to the organisation but the employees too would be more inclined to give their best. Taking part in radio shows or social media interactions of various kinds which invite the employees to have a one-on-one with the head of the company will be a significant morale booster. Your credibility and reputations will be inspired even in your own business.
- When owning a company, it may be difficult to have your views and thoughts reach the people. Hence, you can eliminate rumours and any source of negative presumptions about the brand by keeping a regular tab of the customers. Informing people about the recent developments and your business aims and goals is something which keeps them up-to-date with the help of the most trustworthy source, a representative of the company. Personal Branding is sure to help you escape the tangles of the grapevine, more than any other medium.
Now that you are well aware of what Personal branding is, here is a simple insight on How to Build a Personal Brand :
Find your Niche
Start your journey towards branding by answering these three questions; What are your talents? What are you passionate about? and What is your target market? Having laid down these things, you can make your way to the next steps with ease. Playing on your talents and understanding the target market simultaneously will help showcase one’s best qualities to a specified crowd who will respond the best when your personal branding is in play. Moreover, a passion for your business will be a great driving force that will incite the consumers towards the business resulting in gains.
Define you Message
“The art of communication is the language of leadership.” James Humes, Author.
Having a strong message to carry forward which is inspiring and creates impact is vital to the brand in the proper way. This message is to be remembered and abided by throughout to assure the trust and authenticity of the communication. Delivering content with a purpose is powerful.
Adding Value to your Audience
Instilling value to your persona and views whilst making the audience feel important and considered will help boost your personal branding. The audience wants to feel cared for, hence, adding value to their life through your products and services or a motivational attitude will be a great aid in personal branding.
Building your own community
Finding the target market and building a loyal community with them is a very powerful form of personal branding. One of the best ways to build it is by creating lead magnets in the form of Digital Products. You can always depend on this audience in case of any catastrophes. Also, building such a community can be difficult hence, the prior point of adding value will aid in this development. You can easily approach this community directly and talk about the recent innovations in business, keeping everyone in the loop and gaining their confidence. Collaborating with these community members, whether consumers or employees will also get people involved and make your brand unforgettable.
Choosing the correct Platform
Living in the digital world, social media is an indispensable platform where personal branding has to be dictated more than anywhere else. For this purpose, digital marketing firms come into play, helping you transgress these platforms. There are several factors to be considered when choosing the right kind of outlet and accordingly the ideal content to be uploaded on them for personal marketing to work. Even though it may seem quite complex, don\’t you worry, we are here to help bring alive your marketing charm
One of the most popular online markets at present, Facebook paid ads, posts and groups can be masterfully utilized when undergoing the process of personal branding. Through an impactful Facebook page and attractive advertisements, you can attract millions of people to your business which would be impossible otherwise. If the focus is a more generic target market that involves various age groups and cross-culture involvement, Facebook is the door you need to knock on.
The millennial favorite Instagram is just the place where you need to go if you have a specific crowd to be reached. The users are mostly young people ranging from ages 16-30, according to stats about 30% of the people from 18-24 are active users of the app, while about 33% of active users range from the age of 25-30. The percentage of other age groups is quite staggering, hence, a target reach can be easily established here. For instance, brands selling trendy iPhone covers or customized diaries and pencil boxes are likely to have more impact on Instagram than an eyewear brand. Moreover, Instagram hashtags help specify this growth too. Making reels and IGTV, holding live sessions, regular posting of stories and posts along with the use of guides is just what you need to master the Insta game. Personal branding using these tools consistently and in the right manner will help cater to business growth more than one can imagine.
Looking for a professional platform? Want to talk business? Well, here arrives Linkedin. Talk business with business on this forum where personal branding can work true wonders. On Linkedin with regular columns and postings even as minor as a quote or a statement, one can have an effect on people. CEO and businessmen are seen more active here than on any other platform as this forum entirely is based on the growth of businesses and employment. Profile Optimisation on this social media app will not only motivate consumer behaviour but may also lead to B2B profits.
Quora
Another very important tool to consider using is Quora. During personal branding, you can make an account on Quora and answer questions, also getting involved in affiliate marketing. For instance, if you are into retail where you sell kitchen appliances and someone asks a question about the workings of a modern flat pan, find an opening and answer that under your name which will fetch people to open your profile and thereby know about your brand. Moreover, SEO is greatly helped through Quora presence.
Groups
Making groups out of a small crowd of people on Facebook, Whatsapp or Telegram is the ideal way to reach people in a quick and easy manner. Facebook groups help engagement in one’s own community, like fashion, beauty or travel. While using telegram and whatsapp keep people informed about small details of the organisation without too much effort. By having a person from the brand informing them of its ongoings, the crowd retaliates with great confidence and support.
Youtube
Make money through business reach and Youtube. Short videos of developments and long videos to express thoughts will radiate leadership qualities. Personal branding on Youtube will earn you revenue through the social platform along with increased business growth if reached the trending scale. Here, a more general crowd traversing national boundaries can be found.
Blogs and Pinterest
All large companies, whether they may be Apple, Swiggy or Netflix have blogs. The blogs of the digital marketer Neil Patel are especially masterful as he has expertly gained success in personal branding. WordPress and Blogspot are some top blogging sites where innumerable individuals share their views and brand themselves. With the right use of SEO, these blogs target the international market.
That’s not all! Making posts, hashtags, stories or even videos to promote personal branding, should be done the right way and so here are some basic apps or websites which can be used as execution tools…
| Purpose | App / Website | App / Website | App / Website |
| Designing | Canva | Crello | |
| Stock Images | Shutterstock | iStock Images | FreePik |
| Hashtag | Flick | All Hashtag Generator | |
| Video | InVideo | InShot | |
| Link in Bio | LinkTree | Taplink | |
| Content | Research Hashtags from Instagram | Grammarly |
How to Monetise your Personal Brand
We spoke a lot about how personal branding will lead to business growth. Though this growth would not be possible until the Monetisation of Branding is understood. Here are some easy and effective ways to earn profits through Personal Branding:
Collaborate It
When promoting through social media, there will appear various opportunities where you can step up and collaborate with people and brands, leaving a greater impact through this union. Gifting the paired party in kind for this collaboration who in turn will promote you or your business and you will do the same for them, is a simple way to monetise the branding.
Ads Income O Hell No! Ads are not only about loosening your pocket but also earning thrice back if done rightly. Do not fear putting in your money into Facebook Instream Ads, Youtube Ads, Instagram Ads or Google Ads because they are sure to get the much needed traction to your personal branding if targeted properly.
Paid Promotions
Very similar to collaborations, though in promotions, money is paid to popular online figures who will talk about your business on their social media platforms with a following reaching up to millions. Contacting these bloggers and influencers personally will have you affiliated with them and will add to your popularity, thereby promoting your brand. Also, having a positive impression on these social media figures will develop lasting relations whose profits just can not be defined in numbers.
Affiliate Marketing
Foster yourself as a representative of a business by involving it with thriving and trustworthy affiliate marketing programmes like Amazon Associates. The use of Marketing Tools can also help in promoting and developing your organisation.
Client Conversations
As we all know, there is nothing like ‘word of mouth’ marketing. If you successfully pitch the products and services to the client, using the methods of personal branding, and inspire them towards your company, the client is bound to stay loyal and further your business by up-talking it with their acquaintance.
Create an Influential Marketing Funnel – Break down the customer’s journey from their awareness of your brand to the purchase of its goods or services. The use of SEO, marketing tools and well-organised planning of the staging process is vital to selling your product. Using personal branding in one stage of the funnel which suits best might have a larger impact on people. The marketing funnel will get you statistics of the customer activity as well as ease buying for the latter. Hence, the development of a productive funnel will help largely in business growth.
In a Nutshell,
Personal Branding is an excellent and indispensable form of marketing. Figures like Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, Elon Musk of Tesla, Ratan Tata of the Taj Group, and Jeff Bezos of Amazon have such prestige and value-added to their name that several consumers choose their brands due to their loyalty towards these established individuals and not just because they support the organization. They extensively use personal branding techniques and have their own blogs, live sessions, or groups where they interact with people, encouraging the crowd towards their services. This in turn has made their businesses some of the leading giants in the world. Following this example, as delegates of your brand, you should step up and utilize personal branding, inculcating it as an everyday routine, and get lasting returns, not only monetarily but also emotionally.
I\’ve used my Personal Brand to leverage the growth of my Digital Marketing Agency in Kolkata called Trumpet: Voice Your Brand and have had many happy clients. You can also check out a few testimonials in the Testimonial Section of my Website.
To help you all grow build your content for your Social Media Handles and to help you build a strong personal Branding Strategy, I have created a Free Ebook on 21 Content Bucket Ideas. You can click here to download.