Now more than ever, having an impressionable and well developed personal brand that you present to others, specifically on social and on your website, is more important than ever. People have begun to like the idea of working with individuals for specific projects they want done rather than work with a big corporation, or simply it’s become more cost effective. Especially since 84% of millennials don’t like traditional advertising, nor do they trust it. 

Regardless, if you’re thinking about becoming a one man brand or already have one, we’re going to dive into how to develop and get started with your personal brand. 

Let’s define what the “personal brand” is. If you’ve ever had a conversation with someone and they say “that’s very on-brand for you” then you already know what it is. In the non-business world, your brand is everything that makes up who you are- however, in the biz world, it’s more than just “who you are.” It’s what you do, how you do it, the values you stand for, and what you associate yourself with. Everything from the services offered to the logo you use and the tone in your messaging- that is your brand. It’s your story and more. So how do we create one that is unique to you, and memorable at the same time? 

 

How to start.

First, you need to start with figuring out your niche. What is it that you do so well, and how do you expand on it? Is it helping people create a fitness and diet regime, or creating branding and web design for others (this may or may not be me), or business coaching for small business owners? Whatever it is, make it concrete and easy to understand. 

To help with that, here are some questions you should be asking yourself: 

• The vision of your brand: What do you want your brand to accomplish/be known for? What do you specialize in or want to do specifically? What makes you different from your competitors?
• The mission of your brand: Why do you want to build a personal brand? Who are you marketing to? Who do you want to help, and why? 
• Your messaging of your brand: What is the one thing you want your audience to take away from your messaging every time they encounter it? If your brand was a person and gave advice, what would be the one thing that it tells your audience?
• The personality of your brand: What about your personality and lifestyle can you integrate into your brand to make it more human and personable? What colors, fonts, tone, graphics do you use? Are you more like the friendly neighbor next door or are you looking to be professional? 

 

Telling your story. 

Once the foundation of your brand and what you can bring to the table is outlined and perfected, you should then start to focus on how you’re going to market yourself and your brand. More than just marketing the services and products you offer, this is about telling the story that goes along with it- aka you. This should involve your USP (unique selling proposition), or “I-Help” statement and whatever makes you genuine.

There are so many elements to storytelling in marketing when promoting your brand. Just like any essay or article you’ve ever written, it needs a beginning, middle and an end. It needs a hero (and that hero isn’t YOU!), which is the consumer.

People love stories, and there is so much emotional connection that happens when stories are being told. Think of it less as your brand needing to tell a story, and more of using your brand to tell a story. Connections made will increase your following and trustworthiness, and lead to the growth of your brand.  

So when telling this story, you’re going to need to figure out the best channels to do so. Your first and biggest one should be creating a website, because it establishes credibility with your consumer and communicates that you are a real business.

Second, because ecommerce is increasing every year– that’s right. It just keeps going up. You can even create a website that is free before you buy a domain (*hint: something you should definitely save for is your own domain, because they can come at a pretty penny). 

Your second focus should be at developing and fleshing out your social channels and deciding which ones are the best fit for you. As a general rule of thumb, while Facebook is still the number one social platform that is used, most popular is Instagram because it’s purely visual. Having both is a good idea, but don’t forget that you will need to maintain every social channel you have, so take into consideration the time you will have to spend on each one.

We also love suggesting Pinterest, because essentially what Pinterest acts like is an unfiltered search engine for inspiration for absolutely everyone. ANY brand can pop up when you search for something, which is why we find it beneficial. 

Additionally, if you have the means, don’t stop at just social media platforms. Email marketing is a very valuable asset to have, and having a great looking email that pops out in your consumers inbox can translate to sales, site visits, and more. Podcasting is also a great way to add a marketing channel and diversify your brand. Remember when we were talking about telling a brand story? This is a great way to communicate that, while also addressing topics that are beneficial to your target audience, appeal to them, etc. 

 

Let’s talk audience & content. 

Oh boy. This may be our favorite, if you can’t tell. Once you’ve figured out your branding foundation, and your marketing channels, you’ll next want to focus on two things: who is your target audience, and how do you create content that appeals to them as well as sticks to your branding? 

The type of content you produce and publish is directly correlated to who your target audience is. Do your research first on who your target audience is, and start to think about questions that can help you define them, such as: 

• What age group do my products/services appeal to? 
• Is there a geographical location that I aspire to appeal to?
• And more, which we have tucked in this handy-dandy workbook for you here.

These are only a handful of general questions that can help you expand on your target audience, but don’t forget that the internet is full of tools to help you do more research on this as well.  

Now that you’ve got that out of the way, it’s content time. It comes as a no brainer that as a personal brand, you are most definitely the face of your brand. So having professional pictures taken of you in the style of your brand is influential in how people view you- especially on Instagram. This is just one type of content you will have in your arsenal to post about and schedule into your other posts. However, pictures of yourself shouldn’t be everything your target audience and potential consumers see.

There’s two major types of content out there: visual and non-visual.

Your visual content are things such as pictures, videos, text graphics, informational image graphics, etc. These should all be consistent in tone (if there is text), brand colors, brand fonts, brand image editing (i.e. if you use specific lightroom layouts that match the hues of your brand).

Your non-visual content is anything else, such as podcast episodes, blogs written, link posts, etc. Between those two you have infinite options of content to create or choose from. Once you’ve chosen, you need to create a schedule for how often you’re going to publish content- and if you’re a new personal brand, you’ll want to be posting almost daily to build up reach and become prominent.

Your main concern here should be making sure that everything is consistent with your brand messaging and design.  Remember: you’re using your brand to tell a story, and no one likes a story with holes in it. 

Speaking of design, here’s a quick fact for you: according to this study, 94% of the time someone’s first impression is based on design, and it only takes 50 milliseconds for that split-second decision to get made.

While this applies to your website, we encourage you to keep this in mind when designing a content strategy for your instagram, because how your instagram looks will directly affect someone’s first impression of you, and your brand.

 

Making yourself known. 

The last part of building your personal brand is getting out there. Network as much as you possibly can to meet new people and make beneficial connections. Facebook is a great place for this because there are so many networking groups you can join that will allow you access to networking events and a plethora of contacts you can reach out to for pitching, advice, or even just to chat. Here are a few things you can do to get yourself out there:

• Be a guest or a co-writer on a blog 
• Be a guest speaker on someone’s podcast episode 
• Collaborate on social media in the form of a giveaway, webinar, etc. 
• Hand over business cards at networking events
• Engage with other profiles on Instagram and LinkedIn

It’s also a great idea to seek out a mentor or a coach of some sort with expertise in the industry you’re in because at the end of the day, you don’t have to do everything on your own! “I need someone older and wiser” can apply to you as well as it does in the Sound of Music – just saying. 

Also, building a flourishing personal brand isn’t something that you can do overnight. This blog is hopefully just a stepping stone for you. Persistence is key, and understand that you have to have some failures before you can have successes. Don’t give up! And remember, we can help you in the process of building that personal brand you envisioned – and have a BRAND GOOD TIME (pun intended) doing it.