How to Build and Maintain Your Personal Brand in 4 Simple Steps

Personal branding is a great way to enhance your presence, both online and offline. Building your own message and professional image can open doors to opportunities you may have never considered.

Helping audiences understand more about you and what you do, adds great marketing value to your personal brand, fosters trust in you and your services, and makes you look professional and organized. And we all know those elements are highly essential in any industry.

Most importantly, personal branding gives you a chance to differentiate yourself by positioning your expertise for your specific audience.

There are many misconceptions about branding, and sometimes we don’t take full advantage of this powerful tool when thinking about marketing ourselves or our services.

Some people wrongly assume that personal branding means creating a fake version of yourself to appeal to audiences by telling people what they want to hear.

The truth is, personal branding is about acknowledging all your greatest attributes and building a quality message around them, which, in turn, builds your exposure and enhances the image others have about you.

Having a dedicated space for your professional self, allows you the freedom to express yourself and your personality. And this is the kind of content that audiences value the most. You will often see that personal posts on social media get the most engagement, as you create a forum for people to join the conversation.

Another upside of having personal social media profiles and websites? They give you more places to promote other services that you offer or content you create, such as public speaking or books and podcasts.

Here are a few steps you can follow to start building your personal brand.

Step #1: Define Your Goal

Take some time to understand what it is that you want to achieve through personal branding. Do you want to be known for doing something unique? Gain recognition from your peers or audience? Promote your books and other publications? Sell your products? Be hired for speaking engagements? Become an influencer or YouTuber?

This is a crucial step that will allow you to understand your why. Understanding your why will allow you to come up with a solid plan and keep your focus on the strategies ahead.

Step #2: Research

Research what other top professionals are doing. Inspiration can come from a professional you admire, a mentor, or even your top competitor. Make a list of all the tactics you find interesting that have worked for others and that resonate with the public. Then, adapt those tactics to your brand and find ways to make them better: more compelling, more credible, and more resonant to your audience.

At this stage, you will also need to have a strong sense of who you are. Specifically, recognize your strengths and the unique products or services you offer. Evaluate the methods and words you are currently using to deliver your messages and the results they have gotten you. Take in the good and make it even better.

Step #3: Choose your purpose and words

It’s time to determine what you want your brand to be associated with. Now that you’ve had time to understand your purpose, recognize your unique attributes and strengths, and research your competition, it’s time to develop concepts you would like to build around your brand and make a list based on those concepts. This step will help you create strategies to achieve your goal.

If you want to be associated with trust, you may consider building a message around transparency and the systems you use to guarantee information and data safety or share any product certifications or awards you have.

If it’s innovation, perhaps promote your unique approach, that groundbreaking method you use to make your clients’ lives better. Find ways to talk about that state-of-the-art software or product you offer that no one else is offering.

If you wish to focus on experience, you could create guides and tutorials for your clients, volunteer to speak at events, start a new podcast, or change the dynamic of an existing podcast.

Once you have that list of attributes, it’s time to create your unique brand statement. A brand statement is a short description of what you do, what you are good at, or, simply, your values. The secret to writing a memorable brand statement? Make it your own. Let your personality show!

Step #4: Nurture

Now that you’ve laid the foundation and core values of your personal brand, it’s time to start building it up. Embrace this opportunity to start creating original content. Showcase your personality, views, and expertise in any way you can. This doesn’t necessarily mean you need to produce extensive publications. Sometimes the most personal forms of micro-content can inspire powerful conversations and build your relationships with ideal audiences.

This last step is where it starts getting complicated for some.

Marketing is not usually a “build it, and they will come” tool, and it will take consistent effort to do it right. There has been a shift in the way businesses, professionals, and brands communicate with their clients.

Business success is not accomplished entirely by your numbers anymore. Another crucial component to that success is building lasting relationships with your ideal audiences, positioning yourself and your business as a leader in your industry, and listening to what your audiences really care about.

Building your influence through personal branding can take some time. But it is, without a doubt, one of the most rewarding and important investments you can make in your career.