How to create a personal brand

The biggest difficulty in creating a personal brand is the attitude of keeping a low profile. Besides, there are other behavioral patterns that we got from our parents, or the school nurtured in us: keep your head down, be like everyone else. Many people still keep them in mind. You should beat them.

What a personal brand is

A personal brand is about your uniqueness and what you tell about yourself. It is cool if you understand something more than other people! Don’t be afraid of showing yourself!

But don’t be misdirected: if you have 100,000 followers on Instagram, it does not mean you have a personal brand. It just means that you are a public figure. A personal brand doesn’t consist only of your followers.

You might not be famous or popular at all. If you deal with tenders, and there are around 100 people in this field who know about but you have a high reputation, then you don’t even need 100 000 followers on Instagram. You don’t have to be a celebrity or a superstar, you need to be well-known in your field, and that would be enough. In this case, you get a strong personal brand.

Therefore, forget about giveaways on Instagram or buying bots because it doesn’t help in any way with making a real, cool, strong, and high reputable personal brand.

Where to start building a personal brand

A personal brand starts with you, not your audience. Because the personal brand is a game with a long-term perspective. You won’t be able to create the content for a long time if you don’t understand yourself and don’t enjoy what you do. So, first of all, there are two questions you should ask yourself:

1. Is what I am doing now the thing I really want to do?
2. Am I going to do the same thing in 3-5 years?

Start with answering these questions, and then you can start thinking of the audience, Instagram, YouTube, and social media activity.

Start with yourself. Try to understand what kind of personal brand you would like to create. What are you interested in and what can you do for a long time? Don’t choose popular fields with a large audience and which you are not interested in.

What a personal brand consists of

Reach and reputation

Your reach and reputation must be high. If you have a high reach but a bad reputation, then you will get no results.

For example, you participated in a TV show on a field in which you do not have a high reputation. As a result, you have boosted your each, but it hasn’t changed anything for your brand.

Here’s another example. Here’s another example. You are an excellent professional in your department, which consists of five employees. But the large audience knows nothing about you. In this case, the power of your brand doesn’t mean anything.

That’s why your main goal is to achieve a good reputation and a high reach — these two components make a personal brand.

Legacy and relevance

Legacy is your professional background. It includes the number of projects, budgets, brands, and big companies you cooperated with or worked for.

It can be your sports achievements as well. It doesn’t have to relate to your current professional experience. If you are a Candidate for Master of sports in table tennis, it is also a part of your legacy. Legacy consists of all your professional achievements and success.

For example, in 1985 you created an amazing project – it is a part of your legacy. However, you should also have relevant achievements.

Your popularity in your professional field, conferences you attend, speeches you make in public, recent publications in mass media, blogs that you run on social media – all these things shape your relevance.

You can agree on cooperation with mass media and get your articles related to your professional occupation published. This is how you can develop your legacy. To become better - known on mass media, you should get your article published at least once. Nevertheless, there are several things you should do regularly. For example, to update your Instagram or YouTube account, if it is relevant for you. Or you can speak in public – in this way you will be strengthening the relevance of a personal brand.