Building a personal brand from scratch may seem like a huge task. Your mind is inundated with thoughts like how do I start? What do I present? What will people say? Will they accept me? and so on. Pause and take a deep breath. Consider the game changers you see online, the influencers, marketers, coaches, and so on, including the ones you follow and are subscribed to. They started from somewhere, and if you know just how to, you will soon get listed among the big names in your niche. This article explores how to build a personal brand from scratch using the appropriate strategies, tools, and necessary skills.
Personal brand overview
Your personal brand is who you are and what you stand for. When people think of you, what comes to their mind and what they remember about you is your personal brand. A personal brand is necessary to thrive in the online and offline business space. A rich combination of personal values, reputation, and skills will make a great personal brand. In your field of expertise, your personal brand will strengthen your market presence if it is well built. Here is why you need a personal brand:
It helps you connect with your target audience. It will draw clients to the value you have to offer. People like to relate with a human being more than an organization, even if they have a healthy reputation. This is why customer relations is an essential aspect of any organization as it helps businesses establish their footprints in their niche market.
It builds trust. Along with connection comes trust. Having a personal brand will help you gain the trust of your target audience. If people know your qualities, what you stand for, and your skills, they will trust whatever service you have to offer.
It makes you unique. People are interested when they see someone who stands out from the crowd. Having a voice and a persona that is true to you will establish you in the mind of your audience.
Strategies for building a personal brand from scratch
You can imbibe some strategies to successfully build your personal brand from scratch, including:
Define your focus
You can effectively build a personal brand if you have a focus on what you do. You cannot be everywhere at the same time and you cannot be the solution to everyone’s needs. You will have a niche and even a niche in that niche. Focusing on a niche will help you build a force around your style and make your message authoritative. It makes it easier for your target audience to define you and what you represent. it aids your consistency. Consistently creating content within a niche will establish your voice. People will commit your message and what you stand for to memory if you are consistent. You will serve a group of people better than you would the general public. To have a niche, you have to consider:
- Your expertise. What are you good at? You could have acquired this skill through education, practice, taking courses, or nurturing your natural abilities.
- Your passion. You must be interested in something and passionate about it enough to build a career in it.
- Your value. From the knowledge you have acquired and things you are interested in, what value can you bring to the table?
- Who needs your services? This is your target audience.
Be authentic
Building a personal brand involves creating an image of yourself and your services. Being authentic is essential to sustaining this image. Being authentic means you do not have to mimic another brand. Your target audience will appreciate it if you come clean and be real. It is always advisable not to fake things. Creating a path for yourself is often rewarding in the long run. This is one area where most creatives stand out. Your personal brand is who you are and what you represent. So, faking things will get tiring and you will soon slip. Being authentic helps you keep in touch with yourself and sustain your image.
Know your target audience
The essence of a personal brand is to draw the ideal people, your audience. Who do you want to serve? Are they children, youths, adults, or both? Where can you find them? As a social media influencer, digital marketer, brand strategist, and so on, the people you need are mostly online. They use social media often. What do they like? Know what they want and master the art of giving it to them. You sure want to present yourself as an expert in your niche.
Master your art
Whatever it is you stand for, whether you are an influencer, marketer, branding strategist, or whatever needs you meet, you need to master your art to make your personal branding effective. Constantly delivering value in a niche will improve your mastery and make you an authority in that area. There will be nothing to bring to the table if you have not already had something in you.
Tell your story
There is often a reason why you venture into certain areas of business. As an influencer, you might be motivated by the desire to help businesses grow their visibility and conversion rate. So you use products and services to draw attention to them and contribute to a business' ambition and goals. But why did you choose to go this way? Answering the why question helps authenticated your brand, connects you to your audience, and seals you in their heart. People connect to stories. Telling your story makes you more human and to be honest, people want to connect to the person behind a brand.
Make the necessary changes
As you grow your personal brand, changes might be necessary. You may want to make one or two adjustments here and there to get it right eventually. Oprah Winfrey did not start as the authoritative brand she is known for today. there were some adjustments and repetitions on small shows before the Oprah we know today emerged. So where changes are necessary, make them. The goal is to portray a persona that is true to you and that you are comfortable with. In finding your voice, refining your character, portraying your belief, and accentuating your image generally, avoid presenting a persona that you cannot keep up with.
Always put yourself out there
Personal branding involves always showing up. Putting yourself out there will help you connect with your TA, gain visibility, and stay recognized. Always make your voice heard. As an influencer, for instance, your voice needs to be heard constantly in the areas that interest you. Your TA sees you as a voice in that area and you need to always speak up. Showing up helps you establish and sustain your social influence in your niche.
Growing your personal brand
Having done your homework well, it is time for you to market your brand. This is where you work on putting yourself out there for all to see. You have chosen your niche, you have known your target audience, and you have tons of value to offer, then start dishing it out. Here are some tools that will help you promote your personal brand effectively:
Have a website
You need a website to grow your visibility and reiterate your presence. As an affiliate marketer, designer, writer, speaker, and any other creative, your website is an embodiment of who are you and what you stand for. You need a website that will foreground your services and establish your presence. The website will provide all the necessary information about you, including your services, licenses, experiences, reviews, contacts, CTA, and other necessities.
Every aspect of your website has to reflect your personal brand and what you stand for. For example, as a lifestyle influencer or entrepreneur, your website should reflect the products, services, values, etc you promote. Take note of these areas:
Your image
Remember that people like to connect with humans and this is essential for personal branding. Your website should have a unique headshot. If a picture is professionally done to the detail, it reflects you and your brand in a good light. It goes further to foreground your professionalism in your niche. People can build a connection with the picture, get to know the person behind the product or service.
Get a top-notch landing page
As an online marketer, your landing page should be compelling enough to keep your visitors and speed up your conversion rate. It should be well-organized with minimal activities. You do not want to overwhelm your visitors. Your landing page should meet your audience's needs and should be mobile-friendly.
Dish out content regularly
The content you dish out on your website regularly is an essential way to promote your personal brand. The content will establish your expertise in that niche. It will also enhance your TA's trust. Your content should be informative and helpful to your readers. The headlines should grab your readers' attention and reflect the main content. Here are some content you can develop to enhance your self-marketing:
Blog posts
Your blog post can be personalized to reflect your values, interest, beliefs, and lifestyle. People are interested in knowing who you are and what you stand for. This blog post will accentuate your personality and establish a connection between you and your TA.
Your blog post can also reflect your service. This kind of article can show your expertise in your niche and establish your voice as an authority in that area. You must not focus on being everyone's solution, but you can focus on helping people meet their needs in your niche. As an affiliate marketer, for example, you can create contents that are centered around the products and services you promote.
Articles
Articles are a good way to promote your personal brand as they give you an avenue to showcase your authority in your niche. This is where you talk about the products or services you render. If you are a graphics designer, photographer, affiliate marketer, or you render any other service, you can write how-to, what-for, and other kinds of content. Your content should address trending topics. Create contents that address audiences' different levels of awareness.
Guest blog/articles
You can create content on other websites to expand your reach and visibility. This can expand your target audience and establish your authority in your niche.
Videos
Videos are a great way to get personal with your TA. It is an effective way to communicate your values and if you are a personal trainer, for example, videos of you doing workouts and discussing topics around these services are a great way to establish a relationship with your clients. Besides, people prefer visual content to texts.
Images
Images are effective tools of communication. Images help to make consuming the information you have to share easier. Punctuating the text with images helps to push your information across effectively.
Podcast
Podcasts are effective ways to stay in touch with your target audience. This way, your audience can listen to your information on the go.
Interviews
Why developing your personal brand, granting interviews is a great way to market yourself. Interviews that focus on who you are, what you offer, your services, and your target audience help to expose you to the world. This will also give rich content to your followers as well as foreground your relevance. It shows you belong to a community and are a part of a larger body. This can also spur your audience's trust.
Webinars
Organizing webinars for your target audience where you explain your product and services and dish out valuable content to meet their needs also pushes your personal brand. As a marketer, webinars are lucrative tools for enhancing your visibility and driving sales.
Harness the social media
Your personal branding will grow in leaps if you harness the power of social media. Your target audience is most likely on social media. Social media will give you a wider reach to your audience and grow your visibility fast. It is also a means to connect with your TA. Social media is a great tool for driving traffic to your website. Some social media platforms to explore include:
This is one of the best social media platforms to grow your personal brand. It is a place to enhance your professionalism and build your credibility. To effectively tell your story via this platform, you need to harness these hacks:
Create a compelling profile. From your profile picture to every other information, you have to be intentional and detailed. Ensure your headlines is catchy and professional, your summary should be on point, and your job description should be detailed. Ensure your profile is complete. It says a lot about you and your character.
Regularly update your records. Always update your accomplishments on the social platform. Keep a track record of your achievements and timelines in your journey. It also makes you more visible to clients and helps you build your followership.
Creating content on Instagram is a great way to promote your personal brand. While pictures and videos thrive on this platform, you can also create written contents that meet your audience's needs. For example as a lifestyle influencer, you can create content that the everyday person can relate to. This content can be entertaining, educative, and so on. For example, if your niche is on family life, you can create content that highlights how mums solve certain challenges that people can relate to in their everyday lives. The aim is to create value.
You can promote your personal brand on Twitter with hashtags that draw attention to your area of specialty. Make your bio stand out reflect your brand. Following up on stories that relate to your niche and retweeting are strategies to stay visible and active.
On Facebook, you can promote your personal brand through written content, videos, images, and even ads.
TiK Tok
Millennial social media influencers and marketers often find this space a thriving platform for growing their brands in long strides. You can interact with a large number of your target audience on this platform and even other professionals and organizations.
Other social media platforms you can harness include Snapchat, Pinterest, and Reddit.
Skills to help you build your personal brand
There are some skills you must have if you want to build your personal brand. They will help you grow credibility and establish your authority in your chosen area. They include:
Communication
What you say and how you say it is essential when you are building your personal brand. Your communication prowess come to bear in your content. Your articles and blog posts will reflect whether you are formal, informal, friendly, or otherwise. Your tone matters in your verbal conversations. Your videos and audio content will reflect your communication skills, too. In communicating with your audience through messages, comments, and other means, you have to be polite, respectful, very importantly, portray who you are and what you stand for.
Presentation
Your presentation skills can impact your growth level. When you meet with industry experts, clients, and even on your website, how you present your ideas and yourself will reflect your brand.
Development mindset
Your mindset will show through your words and actions. Having a development mindset is essential to thrive and grow your personal brand. Not giving in to challenges and exploring every opportunity to showcase yourself is essential to effectively marketing yourself.
Pro tips to help you build your personal brand
Having laid a solid foundation for your personal brand and improving your visibility, you need some tips to help make your efforts worthwhile. Here are some pro tips to note:
- Always network. Building your personal brand from scratch requires hard work. However, it can be easier when you are in a community. Networking with people in your field and successful brands you admire will help you gain insights and tips that will help you grow in leaps.
- Know what others are doing. Every area you have chosen for yourself, be it affiliate marketing, social media influencer, or design, has some big names. Know what they are doing and do it better. Knowing what your competitors are doing will keep you ahead of the game.
- Do not go MIA. You need to stay where the action is. Attending events that are centered on your niche and never missing in action is a great way to stay connected with your competitors as well as your audience. This will help you expand your reach and create awareness in the essential quarters.
- Arm yourself with an elevator pitch. Wherever you find yourself in an opportunity to pitch your brand. Being prepared ahead of time and delivering it aptly will present you as a professional and help you build authority fast.
- Think long-term. Thinking long-term will help you stay true to yourself, build relationships and connections, and uphold your values as you build your personal brand.
- Stay consistent and patient. When building a personal brand from scratch, you have to be patient because you may not see the result the next day. Consistency will deliver the results at the right time.
Summary
Building a personal brand from scratch is not out of the world if you are properly guided. Although there are no straitjacket rules to adhere to, following the steps outlined here is following the path to success. Having a focus and picking a niche, being authentic, knowing your target audience, and mastering your art are helpful strategies to imbibe. It also helps to tell your story, always show up, and make necessary adjustments as you grow. You need to establish your presence through your website and social media platforms. Networking and effectively communicating with your competitors and audience is essential to growing your brand. You should be consistent in delivering value and be patient as you wait for the results. Ensure to create an image that reflects who you are and what you stand for.
