Branding is a popular word that’s frequently thrown around in the business and entrepreneurship world. Building your personal brand is essential to the success of your career or online business. Most articles focus on building your business’s brand, but personal branding is just as important to focus on.
- What Exactly is Personal Branding?
Personal branding is essentially creating an image or persona of yourself for your audience. It’s the way you communicate about your goals, beliefs, purpose, and value. It shows who you are as a person and what you want to share with the world. Most brands create images for themselves because they want their brand portrayed in a specific way. Usually, this involves some sort of social media or online presence.
For example, when you think of big brands like H&M, you immediately associate them with clothing. That’s because brands have spent time and money on advertising to create an image of their company. Personal branding works the same way. It’s essentially like creating an advertisement for yourself.
- Great Networking Tool
When you build up your personal brand, you’ll start to make connections with other people who believe the same things as you or people in similar lines of business. This is a great way to create connections and partnerships because you’re already displaying who you are and what you do, so you can find people who will naturally connect well with your image. Creating relationships can help build your career or naturally promote any products or services you offer.
- Establishes Your Credibility
By building a personal brand for yourself, it builds credibility and trust. People want to connect with people, not a faceless, nameless brand. It lets people know who you are and why they should trust you. You can build your credibility by posting information that teaches your audience or establishes your knowledge in a particular subject. You’re creating proof that you’re a credible resource and that others can trust you.
- Gain Confidence
The more you work on your personal brand, the more confident you will start to feel in yourself. By showing off what makes you unique, you will understand your strengths and values. This creates confidence, which will help you further your career aspirations or business venture.
- Creates an Audience
Building an audience is very important because it can help sell your brand, sell yourself, and connect with other people. People will follow you because they like what you talk about and how you portray yourself. Your audience can have a powerful impact on your business because they can choose and support your endeavors. You can directly promote your own business and create a human connection between what you do and who you are.
The positives of personal branding are endless. A powerful personal brand can positively impact the opportunities available in your personal life, business, and career. If you haven’t already, start today to grow your personal brand. Whether that means updating your LinkedIn Page, or creating an Instagram account, start doing the work to develop your image. If you’re new to the branding world, consider contacting a professional to help you reach your branding goals.
