What is personal Branding ? Where should I start ?

Hi Gabriela.

It is a great question and I agree with everything that Ulrike outlines in her post.

I would add that the people I know who have the best personal brands have tied their brand to their work and used it to create a niche for themselves in their professional worlds. First, make sure whatever you are doing is what you love. It's much easier to completely embrace your professional niche if you are doing what you love.

Here are some concrete suggestions about branding yourself:

1. Start with Social Media Sites LinkedIn and Twitter - Use that to begin crafting your on-line image. Build as big a network as you can by providing content and sharing things that your connections will find useful or interesting. There are lots of resources on-line to help you make those profiles really shine. Join LinkedIn groups that share your professional interest/niche.


2. Write Articles - Begin writing posts and articles and sharing them on-line on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, etc.


3. Start a Blog - The best branders I know have a blog that serves as a sort of focal point for their brand. For example, here is a great article about Kristin Addis who writes a travel blog "Be My Travel Muse." She loves to travel and now travels the world writing about her adventures. Her niche is solo adventure travel for women. She does it brilliantly. Here is a link to an article about her:(http://www.businessinsider.com/build-a-business-while-traveling-the-world-2016-12)


4. Start Speaking at Conferences, Meetups and Other Events - Your niche can't be too narrow because you need to people, an industry, etc., to have interest in your brand/specialty. If you pick the right niche, there will be conferences, Meetups, and trade organizations that cater to that industry. You can begin speaking at those events, on panels, and even on TV. Leave your written materials behind and engage with people after your talk.


5. Write a Book - This is the big tamale of branding. If you can write a book, you can use that as your calling card for years. It can even be an ebook that's 75 pages long. Books still carry tremendous clout in the world and if you can write one, it gives you massive amounts of credibility.


6. Start a Youtube Channel - Video is incredibly popular and powerful. You can quickly create short videos about the topic(s) you are passionate about people will respond. Google "video branding" and you'll find a lot of people who have done it and they will show you how.

You don't have to do all these things. Do what you are comfortable with. If you like to write, do that. If you like to speak to groups, do that. If you like to be on camera, do video. But before you start writing or whatever, put a lot of thought into what your brand should be. Your writing, your blog, your videos, your LinkedIn page should all support that brand and work together.

Hi Gabriela,

this is a very good question. Branding is key as it is an authentic way of leaving a footprint. It is about who you are and what you stand for.

As the American Marketing Association puts it: "A brand is a name, term, sign, symbol or design, or a combination of them intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of other sellers".

Elements of a brand are: appearance, behavior, competencies and differentiation. So I recommend 4 steps for you to start with:
1) Be true to yourself
2) Get comfortable with who you are
3) Build your network
4) Target your audience and promote you brand

One tipp that helped me starting was reaching out to my friends and asking them how they see me. That did help a lot for me to understand myself and the way I am perceived.

Good luck, regards Ulrike

In the Portfolio classes that I teach, the audio production and film students are trying to figure out their branding on a personal or small company level. We start with simple things that might seem a little cliche..
- pick 2 favorite color(s) plus a background color/texture. You will use those colors when you create a logo/branding.
- pick 2 animals - look at animals metaphorically (like a cheetah represents speed, a fox is sly, etc.) Which one(s) do you find the most interesting? Start to clip pics or screen shots.
- font - look on line at sites like dafont.com and pick 2 favorites based on their style (retro, sci-fi, old school, etc.)
- research styles - google art styles like De Stijl https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Stijl or Art Movements like Impressionism, Cubism, Fauvism, Expressionism, Dadaism, Surrealism, Pop Art. The more you look at art styles, the more you will get a sense of which styles you want to make a part of your branding.
Create a Mood Board - an arrangement of images, materials, pieces of text, etc., intended to evoke or project a particular style or concept. You might have to do more than once, but it should help generate the beginnings of your branding search.

Those items that you pick from the above list can represent you or they could represent the person that you wish to convey within the chosen industry you are interested in going into.

best of luck!
Kevin

Gabriela,
Think of your brand as being the unique combination of your greatest strengths. Your strengths can span many areas: skills, knowledge, abilities, training and education, character, experience...this list can be as long as you'd like it. In order to follow the great advice you've already received from Ulrike and Matthew, you will need to create several sentences that describe your strengths, and at least one or two examples of how you have actually "backed up" what you're saying about yourself. To accomplish this, devote some time to self-exploration and reflection on what strengths you've used when you have succeeded, and then do your best to articulate your strengths and accomplishments in writing as well as verbally. Ultimately, you will have succeeded in articulating the messages that are central to your "personal brand".

As you continue to refine your work, your goal should be to integrate your most important strengths (and sometime accomplishments) into how you communicate about yourself in networking situations, on social media, on resumes, in meetings and in interviews. Each venue may require a little "tweaking" of your branding message depending upon the medium and the audience. Some people benefit from the assistance of a mentor or career counselor to assist in this process.

This process can take some time and practice, and thanks to technology any branding communications you develop for yourself can often be refined and changed as your life and career progress.

Over time, the more often you create opportunities for yourself to express different aspects of your brand through the mediums described by Matthew, you will become skillful and adept at fine tuning your branding messages and communications to a variety of audiences and a number of different situations.

Once you put in some time with these concepts, enjoy the ride!