What does branding yourself mean?
From creating action plans to developing a clear and consistent personal brand message, here are 14 answers to the question, “What is one way to “brand” yourself?”
- Develop a Clear and Consistent Personal Brand Message
- Be Known for Something Specific
- Create Action Plans and Goals
- Create Impactful Content that Aligns With Your Vision
- Own Your Personal Brand
- Use a Specific Color Scheme, Logo, and Design Elements
- Find Your Voice, Then Be Authentic and Consistent
- Be Visible and Active in Your Field
- Establish a Strong Online Presence.
- Share Your Unique Story and Experiences
- What I’m Not
- Ask Rebellious Questions that Shake the Status Quo
- Turn to Social Media
- Connect Your Work to a Mission
Develop a Clear and Consistent Personal Brand Message
One way to “brand” yourself is to develop a clear and consistent personal brand message that communicates your unique value proposition, strengths, and areas of expertise. This can include creating a professional website or online portfolio that showcases your work and experience, establishing a strong presence on social media and professional networking sites, and building a reputation as a thought leader in your industry through creating videos, writing articles, giving presentations, or participating in industry events.
Additionally, it’s important to make sure that all elements of your personal brand, from your resume to your social media profiles to your email signature, are consistent and professional.
Sanket Shah, CEO, InVideo
Be Known for Something Specific
The most important step to branding yourself is to be known for something specific and memorable. For example, I am known as “the legal guy for online knowledge businesses.” The goal of this “branding” isn’t to be cute, so ditch any cutesy or creative names. Instead, focus on a simple statement that immediately conveys the role you can play in people’s lives. The goal is for people to immediately think of you when they face a problem you can help them solve.
Bobby Klinck, Founder, BobbyKlinck.com
Create Action Plans and Goals
Personal branding is crucial to help us show our authenticity, credibility, and create connections with others. One way to begin is by creating goals that are short-, medium-, and long-term, and creating action plans based on your goals. For example, think about how you want to be seen in one year. What about the next five years and ten years?
Start by defining what your passion, skills, and expertise are in order to create the right brand for yourself and align the action plans with it. If you want to be known as an expert in travel, you can create a goal to own a travel blog or a travel account with a minimum of 100,000 followers that you grow organically. The actions that you have to take to reach the goal can be to post one video or image every day, and one useful travel blog post every day. This is applicable to any field that you want to delve deeper into.
Georgi Todorov, Founder, ThriveMyWay
Create Impactful Content that Aligns With Your Vision
Creating original content gives you a chance to shine a light on your expertise, thoughts, ideas, goals, and visions. Whether you’re building a brand for professional or personal reasons, the content you create says a lot about who you are and what’s important to you. Be consistent about the type of content you create and make sure it ties back to the things you want to be known for. Good branding is all about consistency; it allows others to get to know you even if they’ve never met you in person.
Alli Hill, Founder and Director, Fleurish Freelance
Own Your Personal Brand
“Your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room.” – Jeff Bezos Branding starts with understanding who you are and what makes you noteworthy. Self-awareness is critical to acknowledge where you are today and where you want to go in the future. When you know what you are good at, you can work on highlighting your strengths while managing your weaknesses.
Consider what you have done in the past that was exceptional, and make a list of your strengths to reference. Another exercise to discover your strengths is asking 5-10 people in your personal and professional network to tell you your strengths from their perspective. This will help you increase your self-awareness of how others perceive you.
Once you’ve identified your strengths, decide on the ones that make sense for you to move forward with and that you want to tie into your brand. Knowing what you do better than most people will help lay out your unique brand.
Bernice Chao, Author, The Visibility Mindset
Use a Specific Color Scheme, Logo, and Design Elements
One way to “brand” yourself is to consistently use a specific color scheme, logo, and design elements across all of your online and offline platforms, such as your website, social media, and business cards. This creates a visual recognition and association with your brand and helps to differentiate you from your competitors.
Additionally, having a clear and consistent message, tone, and voice across all of your platforms will also help to establish your personal brand.
Will Gill, Event Entertainer, DJ Will Gill
Find Your Voice, Then Be Authentic and Consistent
The best way to “brand” yourself is to be yourself; you should always come from a place of authenticity. First, if you haven’t already, you should do a personal assessment.
Make a list of topics you are truly passionate about that are relevant to your life and work experiences. From there, ask yourself, “What do I want to share with the world and how can I help others?” Once you find your authentic voice, you can then amplify it by sharing your experiences, connecting with audiences in various ways, and remaining consistent across the board.
The more value you add to others, and the more coherent you are as a thought leader, the more your personal and professional “brands” will grow.
Chris B., PR Rep, Minuteman Press International
Establish a Strong Online Presence.
One way to “brand” yourself is to establish a strong online presence through social media platforms such as LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. By creating a consistent and professional profile, you can showcase your skills, experiences, and personal brand to potential employers, clients, and networking contacts.
Additionally, you can use these platforms to share relevant content, engage in industry discussions, and connect with influencers in your field. By creating a personal brand that is both authentic and aligned with your career goals, you can differentiate yourself from others in your industry and establish yourself as a thought leader. Furthermore, building a personal website or blog is another way to showcase your skills and create a strong online identity.
By regularly updating your website with relevant content, you can establish yourself as an authority in your field and attract potential employers or clients to your site.
Brian Clark, Founder, United Medical Education
Share Your Unique Story and Experiences
By sharing your unique story and experiences, potential employers will get a better idea of who you are and what makes you stand out from the rest. This will help you stand out from the crowd and become more memorable as people can relate. Your personal brand should reflect your unique voice, values, and experiences. Something else you can do is to communicate and demonstrate your unique value proposition. That way you will begin to establish yourself as a thought leader and expert in your field, and you will set yourself apart from your competitors.
Luciano Colos, Founder and CEO, PitchGrade
What I’m Not
While consistency of self and message is key, also inform others of what you’re not. Don’t try to pass yourself off as an expert if you aren’t, or a public speaker if you’ve never done so. Often a competent persona can lead others to believe you can do anything. But if you can’t (and you can’t), let them know first before it goes any further. You actually risk compromising your brand if you’re not forthright. Don’t let your desire to be the best be your downfall.
Temoer Terry, Partner, Mommy Care Kit
Ask Rebellious Questions that Shake the Status Quo
There are over 7.8 billion people on Earth already, and a few more will be added tonight as you read this. Now, billions among this mass would follow a templated approach to life. They will carefully tow traditions and norms.
They will be good, but risk ending up as just okay. This is because, since they are templated, there is likely an exponential pool of already existing like-for-like substitutes for them. Now, in basic economics, when supply outstrips demand, the value falls, and these individuals commonly slide into obscurity. But when you brand yourself as radical and disruptive, people readily notice you because of how well you deviate from the accepted paradigm.
Ask rebellious questions that shake the status quo. This divergence from the conventional school of thought illuminates you from the crowd, giving you a potentially money-spinning notoriety. Hate or like him, Elon Musk is notorious (and unscripted) enough to move the stock market.
Lotus Felix, CEO, Lotusbrains Studio
Turn to Social Media
Turn to social media and create a personal brand. Build your own aesthetic around your imagery and your captions, and be consistent throughout your feed. This allows you to capture your interests in a creative outlet that you can showcase during interviews. For example, a social media role may require you to build a content strategy, and your Instagram feed is the perfect example.
Lindsay Malu Kido, CEO, Empower Pleasure
Connect Your Work to a Mission
One of the most effective ways to brand yourself in the age of social media is to link your work with a mission and tell a story about it. Branding yourself today is about having a unique story and mission that your target audience can relate to and find meaning in following or supporting. By connecting your work with a mission, for example, if you are a writer and branding yourself as a storyteller for minorities affected by climate change, you give meaning to your brand as a writer and a feasible mission that is relatable.
Alvin Wei, Co-founder and CMO, SEOAnt
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