Share Your Personal Brand Story With The World
No matter how engaging the public finds your company’s brand, they’ll find your personal brand even more engaging. People prefer to connect with other people, and if you’re not working on your personal brand, you’re missing a huge opportunity.
Startups shouldn’t underestimate how important a personal brand is. We’ve all seen how an interesting story about the thought leader behind a brand can propel a startup to success – think Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook, Stewart Butterfield and Slack, or Elon Musk and Tesla. These brands are exciting and engaging, but a huge part of the conversation surrounding them has to do with the personalities that power them. Stories about how individuals’ passions, life stories, and talents come together to mold a company are even more compelling than corporate branding. They create interest in people and ultimately in the products and services they bring to the world.
Discovering your personal brand is not as elusive as it might seem. Personal branding is telling your story, sharing what you’re good at, and letting the world know why you do what you do. Practice telling your personal story to friends, family, and coworkers. Find the recurring themes and use them to craft a master brand story. Focus on explaining what value you add to the world and how you developed the skills and expertise to deliver it.
Show Consistency
Now that you’ve thoughtfully pulled together all the elements of your personal brand story, it’s time to share it on your website, blog, social media and speaking engagements. As you evaluate your strategy for each of these platforms, make sure that the personal brand you identified is cohesive across all of them. For example, if you’re trying to establish yourself as a thought leader on your blog, be careful that your social media contributions don’t detract from your credibility. If you’re trying to set up a website to promote your baking business, make sure that your old photography blog isn’t the first result when someone searches for you on Google.
Show Competency
You want to communicate a high level of professionalism and competence wherever you share your message. Visually, you can communicate this by using strong design elements that are consistent from channel to channel. In other words, make sure the design of your website and blog are friendly to the eye and that they’re similar enough to prevent any brand confusion. And don’t underestimate how much is communicated via your headshot – professional photography will go a long way in building your credibility. It’s also important to have an eye-catching logo to create instant brand recognition on any platform.
Show Creativity
Once you’ve got all these mediums in place, it’s time to ensure they are full of content that your audience will find super valuable. Make sure to update your blog regularly, and mix it up by including photos and videos in addition to text-based posts. Try writing guest posts for other blogs and encouraging other bloggers to write guest content for you. Your social media feeds should be full to the brim with content that demonstrates your expertise and adds value for your followers. Everything you post should pass the re-share test: If you can’t see most of your followers wanting to re-share it, then it’s time to reevaluate whether you should post it.
Now that you know what goes into building a personal brand, you might be wondering how and where to get started. It helps to be walked through the process of personal brand storytelling. For an in-depth guide to personal branding that includes a walk-me-through-it worksheet on storytelling, you’ll want to check out ONTRAPORT’s most recent guide, Leveraging your Personal Brand to Advance Your Business. This free guide includes strategies for sharing your personal brand across several channels as well as the Find Your Personal Brand worksheet.
Download your free guide today and you’ll be on your way to sharing a compelling, consistent personal brand that will advance your business.
