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Ever heard of coca cola? How about Ferrari? Tata? I am sure these names have widespread recognition in their own respective industries due to their superior traits these are what you would call brands or rather corporate brands the other side of this coin will be what we call personal brands.
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Shahrukh Khan, Tony Robbins, Gary Vaynerchuk are just a few to name these people are brands in themselves but then the question arises how did they do it is it possible for a layman to become a brand? And the answer to that is yes and I will show you how you can do personal branding to be successful in your industry.
Image: Personal branding
Just like the corporate branding focuses on creating an image based on the unique selling points and standards of the said company so that they can use that image to communicate with their potential clients through advertising and marketing. Personal branding is the same process but it focuses on one individual rather than a whole organization at large.
Now you may be wondering why you need to do personal branding well the answer is quite simple to get more business. Let me explain with an example if you were sick and you wanted to get treated who would you rather go to a well-known doctor or a shady medicine man.
Personal branding is as important if not more so then corporate branding it helps in establishing you as a trusted figure in your industry which helps a lot when you are trying to secure new clients.
To a layman, the task of creating his own personal brand may seem a little daunting but that’s why this article is here to help you out in this endeavor so here are the best.
Let’s get one thing clear there is a ton of competition out there so you have to think out of the box, what is unique about you? What is your niche? Let’s say you are a digital marketer and you want to become a personal brand. But digital marketing is such a vast field to cover here you have to find out that one thing that you are better than anybody else it can be social media marketing, search engine optimization, Google Ads the one field that you choose will be your niche this will be the focus of all your activities.
There is no substitute to plain old blogging and noting gets more love than a well-researched, well-written blog both from Google and the users. After you have figured out what niche you are going to work in you need to start putting out blogs. I recommend at least write one blog per week but it should be fresh and industry relevant.
But wait a minute how would I know what topics to write about? Don’t worry I got you covered just head out to a nifty tool called BuzzSumo put in your keyword and it will give you all the top content related to it. Another way to go about it is that you can use SEMrush or any other similar tool to do a competitor backlink analysis than just filter the results by the blogs with the least number of backlinks. These are your ticket Just write better more fresh content full of facts and statistics and you are set.
So, you have started to blog but as a new blog, you don’t get as much traffic as you want. Guest blogging or featured article is a great way to remedy this situation. Guest blogging is when you write a blog or article but for someone else’s website. Now guest blogging does have its disadvantages because you are essentially writing content for another website that will bring more traffic to that website and also improve their page ranking.
But they fail to see that by guest blogging they will reach a new audience that they previously had no access to. Secondly, guest posting will help tremendously with building good quality backlinks to your blog which will help a lot in ranking.
The second natural question will be where to guest post? And how to approach someone else to ask them if they will be interested in your guest posting on their blog. Approach people who are leaders in your niche or industry. People whose blog you admire a lot as a reader and that by writing on their blog you can boost your reputation in the industry through association.
In today’s digital age if someone wants to know about someone else the first thing that they would probably do is Google him/her. This is why building your own website is imperative. Remember this is your own website so you have all the creative freedom you want. Use your best content, search engine optimization practices and other website techniques to make it more appealing to the users.
Now I want you to do something just go on and Google Gary Vaynerchuk. Now notice the top right snippet with his pictures and bio impressive correct? this brings me to my next point dedicated a whole page on your website just for yourself.
Image: Optimize your own website
You have to create an awesome about.me page with a professional looking picture, full bio, achievements, listing of services offered and a specific business location. What this does is first secure you an awesome snippet at the top of the page and secondly, it makes you more approachable for your clients. Just like your blog update your website regularly with new information.
Social media is important because it can drive a huge amount of traffic towards you. Every major personal brand is very active and organized on their social media accounts also, these platforms drive relevant users who are either from your niche are at least interested in it.
If you are able to project a good image in your follower’s eyes on these platforms then you can get recognition as an expert in your industry very fast.
In addition, if you are just starting out social media platforms are a great way to connect to your peers and also, the leaders in your respective niche who can offer valuable insights which can help you a lot in developing your personal brand.
LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter are currently the big three of social media as far as SEO and personal branding are concerned.
Obviously, most of the netizens have a profile on all three of them but only creating a profile is not enough. You have to maintain them and optimize them for maximum benefit.
There is a term called online reputation management it’s a vast topic and deserves an article of its own but to summarize things.
Let me give you an example- imagine you posted a not so flattering drunk night picture of yours on Facebook two year back. Now if someone Googles you right now and sees that’s a picture of you it really doesn’t create the ideal image does it?
So, to avoid that you must remove all pictures, tweets, posts, which do not align with the image that you want to project for your personal brand. Now, this doesn’t mean be someone else it just means be a better version of yourself on the internet. Apart from the big three,
You have to make sure that all of these social media platforms must be interlinked with each other and all of them must have a link to your own personal website. This will benefit you because even if you are not active on a platform there will be other ways to contact you.
Image: Linkedin profile
There is a reason that LinkedIn is considered so essential when it comes to personal branding because it mostly connects you to the people who can be your future clients and that’s why it ranks mostly first when someone Googles your name.
You can optimize LinkedIn by putting relevant keywords like your name and your profession in title, summary, experience and your skills and also optimize content accordingly. Plus, your LinkedIn should have all the data on the companies you worked for some salient achievements and all your professional life data.
Also, try that your public profile name includes your name and your profile is visible to the public.
Image: Twitter profile
Tweet about relevant topics of your niche/industry this will help you attract a following of relevant users. Interacting with your community is very important to win their trust one advantage of personal branding is that it makes you more humane and so if you involve yourself with the community and interact with them on a regular basis you can easily win their trust and trust is very important as it increases your network and reaches.
Please tweet responsibly and use hashtags in your profile that people may use to find you. like LinkedIn, your profile should be completely filled out and you must include a permanent business address even if you want international reach, not including a permanent business address is a very common mistake and finally,
use pin this tweet feature to highlight your greatest hits.
You are less likely to connect with a corporate brand like Pepsi then you can to Gary Vaynerchuk or Tony Robbins because people see corporates as a machine.
On the other hand, when you see personal brans it’s easy to connect as they seem more humane more relatable. People love real stories but if you are only using blogging to tell yours then you are making a mistake.
According to a study people’s number, one fear was public speaking while death ranked at the fourth spot. Imagine that people would rather die than speak in front of a crowd.
So, it seems obvious why not many of us are not too eager to go on that stage but believe me if you are not speaking at conferences you are doing yourself a big disservice.
People need to see you out there telling your story straight to their face it establishes trust. So, for starters just try to do four to five seminars a year just that. As you progress you will automatically increase the frequency.
Image: Conference speaking
There are a lot of communities that consist of members who only form a particular niche. These communities can be found on various platforms like Quora. You need to seek these niche communities and join them to find top authority figures and try to build up strong connections with them.
This way you can gain a lot of useful insight at no cost and a lot of people with some groundbreaking advice to further your knowledge and personal brand. You need to always be active on these platforms and available to answer questions or for discussions.
Videos are right now the most viral way of communicating a message. From small vines like advertisement videos to full speeches and seminars video content have taken the game to a whole new level. Now Google loves educational based videos meaning if you are a former police officer and make a video in which you advise the viewers on how they can avoid theft this is an educational video.
From art to technical educational videos have a vast reach and if you want to develop your personal brand these videos can be your most powerful medium of content creation.
Now YouTube is a Google subsidiary that why you Google anything and videos related to it will appear in the video snippet. Videos are interesting to watch less time consuming and contains a personal touch. For starters just create one educational video in a week or month depending on your capability you can get a text transcript just under 200 bucks.
Personal branding always has been important and luckily people have started to acknowledge its importance. The digital age has added a new dimension to this term and also made it a lot easy process.
Now the most important and last bit of advice on personal branding
Ready?
You need to have patience and understand that personal brands weren’t built in a day. It takes hard work and consistency to create a personal brand.
Those SEO twerks will take time to show their results you just have to remain consistent with your posts, videos. Maintain your profiles with latest updates in your niche and be as involved as you can be. Your followers and build a strong community around you who believe in you as much as you do.
That’s what personal branding is all about.
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