A Step by Step Guide to Build Your Personal Brand
Anyone can create a new profile on Instagram in less than 3 minutes and start collecting what should potentially become an audience to which to sell a certain product or service.
But how many of these people will be able to survive in this competitive digital world without first bothering to build their own personal brand?
Personal brand is that trait that distinguishes us from everyone else and allows us to be remembered when someone mentions us in a conversation.
(Realities or characters with a strong Personal Brand are Freeda, Leandra Medine Cohen of Man Repeller and Kayla Itsines for example).
Even if your project should evolve and grow, your personal brand will remain with you: it characterizes you, identifies you and frames you. Don't take it off.
The idea of building a personal brand could make someone turn their noses up.
But if you don't build this important element now, you may not only miss out on a lot of opportunities but also risk being misinterpreted by someone else.
But how do we build our brand in order to create something that represents us and at same time that is capable of generating engagement, digital presence or sales?
Focus on your authenticity
We are not talking about what you would like to be, we’re talking about who you really are, in a totally unfiltered way, just you.
It would be unthinkable and counter productive to create a character or alter reality.
Take 5 minutes to get a clear results from this simple exercise that will help you to find your core authenticity: only after having spent some time to define who you really are, you will be able to identify the fundamental pillars on which to build the foundations of your brand.
Failing this step could result in a totally off brand, which crumbles at the first breath of wind.
2. Who do you want to talk to?
Having in mind who you want to help, encourage, elevate or sell to is a huge advantage.
Don't try to talk to everyone, you will end up not talking to anyone!
It starts by asking yourself how old they are, what work they do and where they live, what kind of education they have and if they work, in what field, how much they earn.
You continue by asking yourself what dreams and what fears they have: what do they think before falling asleep? What do they dream of becoming?
And then try to answer questions like: what is their struggle? (That is, why might they need you?). Why are they unable to achieve what they wanted?
3. Create your offer (and stand out!)
We understood who you are and who the others are. Well.
Now we need to try to identify what commercial you and these people have in common.
And create an offer. But not just any offer, we want to create an offer that is different, more attractive, potentially able to grow and be easily scalable.
Your authentic essence + What you do best + What your audience is looking for = Your offer
4. Work on your online presence
Maybe it’s obvious but at this point it will be necessary to work on designing and building up your website and profiles through which your audience will find you.
If you have no intention of buying a website or if you don't think it's something fundamental to this stage, at least consider creating a landing page (completely free with Mail Chimp).
Some fundamental elements that you cannot underestimate on your website:
A. A professional logo. Don't mess with odd proposals or names, but get straight to the point.
B. Your value proposition: what do you do, who do you do it for, how do you do it?
C. High quality images: if you don't want to rely on a photographer, consider that there are a lot of platforms where you can take images and graphics besides Unsplash.
D: Call to action - what do you want your visitors to do? How do you want to convert them?
5. Content Strategy
Creating free content for your audience is the easiest and most immediate way to convince them that you can help them!
It is important to take care of the list of topics you want to talk about or that you want to cover but it is equally important to understand what type of content you are going to create:
Articles
Podcast
Video (IG Stories, Youtube Video)
Online Courses
Checklist
Samples to download
Quality and not quantity is the fundamental rule.