How: Implementing your personal branding strategy
Implementing Your Personal Branding Stragety
The purpose of branding is not complex to understand. It is very easy in fact. For products and services, Branding seeks to establish a significant and differentiated presence of the product or service in the market.
Let’s break down some of the elements of branding and see how they will apply to you.
- A product: A product is manufactured by a company. A service is provided by an individual or company. As an individual seeking work, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT TO SERVE A SPECIFIC PURPOSE.
- Differentiated: What is unique about you? What do you have to offer? Is it a particular skill you have to offer to employers? Whatever it is, make sure you know how different what you have to offer is.
- A unique Name: What’s in a name? Everything. As an individual, you cannot really change the name everyone has known you by. However, your name and or your business name plays a critical role on the impact and success of your business.
- An image: How does your resume, LinkedIn profile, personal blog, Facebook or Twitter profile look like? What are you sharing on these platforms? How do these platforms represent you on and offline? When people look at your product do they say “Wow, I want to buy that product.” Similar to applying for work, when people look at your resume, do they say, “wow, let’s call this lady/guy in” or do they say “no, thanks”?
How to Create Value for Your Audience
You are either :
- A job seeker
- An entrepreneur
- A leader in your industry
The first thing you have to do is identify the audience to which you are going to create value for. If you are a job seeker, your target audience is an employer. If you are an entrepreneur your target audience is the public you intend to sell your product to and if you are a leader, your target audience is your peers and people in your organisation.
- Job seeker -----> audience ----> Employers
- Entrepreneur ----> audience ----> Customers
- Leader in your industry -----> audience ----> Peers, Employees and Followers
Tools
Once you have identified your audience, you need to determine which tools you are going to need to communicate your message. Again we can divide this up into categories :
- Job seeker ---> Resume ---> Cover letter ---> LinkedIn profile ---> Facebook ---> Twitter -------> Personal Blog
- Entrepreneur ---> Business website or blog ---> Business cards -->LinkedIn profile ---> Facebook ---> Twitter
- Leaders ---Personal Blog ---> LinkedIn profile ---> Facebook ---> Twitter ----> Books -----> Conferences
We are working and living in a fast-paced and technology-driven society where information travels much faster than it used to and the tools we used in the past have evolved, therefore online tools are cut crossing and apply to all categories. So get yourself online.
Share your resume together on your online platforms with your advisor for review and feedback.
Communication Strategy
Now that you know who your audience is and the tools to use to reach them, what is left is to work on a communication strategy. The doing part. Again this can be divided up into categories to make much more sense.
*Job seekers ---> Communicate to employers ---> Apply for jobs.
You should by now have a clear and killer resume to use. Your LinkedIn profile should be intact, even when you have just graduated and have little experience. Keep your Facebook and Twitter profile neat knowing that employers do check these platforms to see what you have been up to. You would be surprised how a well-done resume with no grammatical error can do for you.
*Entrepreneurs → Communicate to your customers ---> Sell your product
Create a clean website where customers can go to and read about your business and purchase your products. Knowing that everything is not about money, you can create a free website with WordPress and other platforms such as Squarespace. In some instances you can do well without a website, however in the long run, as you desire to grow, you might start to think about how people beyond your reach could access your products. Connect your website to your other social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Tumblr. The same applies to your business cards. It needs to be clean and reflecting images and the slogan on your website. There should be no confusion between the two.
Create content - Use your Facebook and Twitter accounts to update customers and followers on new services or products, as well as special offers. Share success stories. Ask your customers to tell their friends about your business with a simple share button.
*Leaders ---> Communicate to your peers ---> Influence ideas
Create a personal website or blog. Be a contributor on platforms that enhance your work and moves others forward. Use your LinkedIn profile as well as your Facebook and Twitter profiles to communicate your work with those in the same industry as you. As you engage in offline activities and events, come back online and share with a larger audience what you have been working on. If you have written books, do a review of each one of them on your blog and share with your network. Create with others by attending conferences and seminars. Just do a simple search on Google to see what is happening around you this year, where you can participate or contribute.