Personal branding tips for beginners

Personal branding is the process of crafting and perfecting the image of yourself that you want to represent yourself. It’s a process that goes behind just, for example, posting photos of your social media pages. I use Instagram a lot, and I do end up sometimes on influencer pages that feel like a copy paste of the same content. Although it’s clear that the content creator has put hours and hours of work in curating their online presence, it doesn’t feel unique, in the sense that when opening one of their photos or videos the first thing that comes to my mind is not “ah, such a XYZ thing to do”.

A successful process of personal branding will allow you to stand as an individual and to create a reputation, imagine and a stark presence in the market. What makes you special? That’s for you to decide, whether it is your history, skills or experiences. Establishing a strong personal brand can help you get noticed by potential employers, clients, or customers. You’ll be able to advance your career or start it from the bottom up, if you’re new to the game.

It might not be easy for everyone though, “just promote yourself better” is quite reductive advice in light of the many difficulties one might meet. Defining yourself and your work can be a very challenging process, self reflection and self evaluation are not easy tasks. And evaluating your strengths and weaknesses might leave a bad taste in your mouth. Competition and the fear of self promotion are aspects to take into consideration too, as well as the need to find the right balance between authenticity and professionalism. How much is too much, and how little is too little?

1. Identify your assets

My first advice is to use a mix of self analysis and intuition to determine what sets you apart from the rest of the content creators. What are your skills? How is your history unique and how will your experience affect “your offer” in terms of content?

2. Define your target

Are you a beauty guru? Do you like gardening? Or are you into stock trading? After defining what you do and why you do it it will be easier to understand who you want to reach and how to tailor your message accordingly. Study the industry you have chosen for your brand to understand the demographics and psychographics of your target audience, such as their age, education, interests, and values. People interested in growing tomatoes won’t care much for your blog if half of your content revolves around bitcoin and finance, and finance driven viewers might not be interested in reading how to protect zucchini plants from pests.

3. Network

I know it might not be easy, especially if you don’t live in a big city or if you’re just getting started. But networking and building strong professional relationships with other people in your industry might be one of the most important things when growing a channel. If you can’t physically be there you could try online meetings or to attend Webinars and other sorts of online conventions.

4. Be authentic

Not too authentic though, as we saw before there is a fine line between authenticity and professionalism that you should try not to stray away from. Acting impulsively and unfiltered online might get you a huge viewcount, but if you ever want to “progress” and make it a career people might think twice before signing contracts with someone who made throwing bananas from the bus window his to go move.

5. Look for feedback

Don’t be afraid to ask peers and colleagues for feedback, as hurtful as it might be. There can’t be much improvement if you don’t know what you’re doing wrong.

6. Be consistent

Make sure your messaging, visuals, and tone are consistent across all platforms. It might be very difficult to keep up with a busy schedule and to upload weekly if not weekly, if your channels get big enough you might want to invest in hiring someone part-time to care for them.

7. Create a strong online presence

Using social media might not be enough if you’re trying to make it big. Consider investing on a domain and developing a professional looking website with a blog that reflects your personal brand.

Competition on social media is ruthless, if you want to stay on top of your game you’ll first have to define what your game is. Try not to be discouraged by the massive amount of content creators and internet personalities. We all have something to bring to the table, whether we know it or not.