6 tips for building a personal brand online

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Choose the right style of communication with your audience, don't be afraid to be yourself and make the results of your work speak for themselves.

It is not at all necessary to strive to reach the heights of Elon Musk in order to think about the need for a personal brand. You can be anyone - an artist, a doctor, a manicurist, a nanny, a financial advisor, a travel guide - but unless you have a personal brand, you are just a professional.

This attribute is a kind of quality mark and what sets you apart from other people. A person with a strong personal brand does not need to be fully represented - after all, he is “the one”.

It is “the very ones” that are always snapped up in the professional market, their expertise has an “added value”, and the name guarantees that the result of their activities at least deserves attention.

In general, people who have a strong personal brand win a priori. Now let's tell you what you need to do in order to adequately present yourself on the Internet.

1. Choose the method and tone of communication

Decide with the help of which platforms and how you will communicate with your audience: through letters or pictures, in a business style or colloquially, touch on exclusively professional topics or talk about personal ones.

Write down the communication channels you need and decide which ones to prioritize - you will probably find that seven tweets a day about politics on the topic of your self-brand is not at all useful.

Define your strengths honestly: you may be good at writing, but you have absolutely no way of keeping in front of the camera - then it makes sense to postpone the creation of a YouTube channel.

Try to communicate with your audience in an easier way, even if you are talking about difficult things. At the same time, you should not get the impression that you are addressing people of low intellectual development.

2. Present yourself in the most accessible way

Ask yourself simple questions: what should my audience know about me and what do I want to get from it?

Let's say you are a choreographer and create a personal website. You have three higher educations, victories in competitions, you are proud of each of your students and you can find a common language even with the most disobedient child.

You don't need to tell your audience about all of this. You need to create a site that will be understandable and easy to navigate, and on it present information not about yourself, but about how you can be useful. Talk about what your audience will get as a result of your interaction. Give examples of your work, but not all, but only the best.

Anyone who meets you online should be very clear about what you are offering and why you should be trusted.

3. Stand out from the crowd, but be real

When creating a personal brand, many make common mistakes, and here we are talking about two extremes. Someone comes up with a whole legend about themselves, which has nothing to do with a real person. Others, on the contrary, are so afraid to stand out that they prefer to simply copy what someone has already created.

The problem with the legend image is that sooner or later (most likely early) your audience will feel that something is wrong in this story. And then it turns out like in Andersen's fairy tale: "the king is naked."

If you go to the other extreme - create a resume using standard templates, use templates for presentations, or insert pictures into an already prepared clip - just keep in mind: all this is not about a personal brand.

Therefore, be your true self. This is the only strategy that works in the long run. Be honest about both your successes and failures - remember that the person who does not make mistakes seems suspicious.

Try to create a brand image that matches you in real life. If you are a true introvert by psychotype, you should not seem incredibly open to communication just for the sake of the audience loving you.

4. Make your work speak for itself

Learn to share your accomplishments. Create a platform where you can clearly demonstrate what you can do and how well you do it. This way your potential clients, employers or partners will be able to quickly understand how much you need each other. Do it everywhere: on your own website, on your profile on the freelance exchange, and on social media.

A portfolio is necessary not only for a photographer or a makeup artist. If you write or translate texts, collect the best ones in one place. If you provide legal support, please describe successful cases from your practice.

Organize the structure: divide works / cases thematically or chronologically (preferably in reverse order, that is, starting with the newest).

Remember: in the world of brands, you are what you do.

5. Work on creating a personal style

Visual self-presentation and style are important. Determine how it is acceptable for you to look in public, whether you allow outrageousness in the image.

Think about how you present yourself in the digital space: what fonts, colors and illustrations you use on the site, how much it corresponds to what you do.

Avoid anything that is "too": too bright, contrasting, too many acid colors, or too much emoji - all this creates a sense of clutter.

Strive for organicness. A person who carries out serious negotiations every day in a business suit must have a business card of a businessman and a corresponding profile on the social network.

6. Change and be unique

A clearly defined "I" in your brand picture does not mean at all that you should stop being a person with vital sinusoids peculiar to any of us.

Tom Peters, creator of the bestselling brand Make Yourself a Brand! Writes that “now is the time for weirdos,” and worst of all, to ossify. Go to lunch with the same people, read from the same sources, and only get to work when you know what to do. Not changing at all means depriving yourself of the opportunity to fully compete with other self-brands.

So try it. Being unique means being alive, having different hobbies and interests, and giving yourself the opportunity to doubt, change, and make mistakes.

Nobody says building a personal brand is easy. But this is undoubtedly interesting. Working on creating a personal brand means that you are on the path of constant self-development, which means that you learn to look at different aspects of your life through a magnifying glass, leaving the necessary and filtering out the unnecessary. And most importantly, by doing so, you expand the range of your career opportunities. Therefore, if you are just taking this path, take a bold step to become "the one who …".