Personal Branding

Please read my report on personal branding, it’s importance and how to use it on social media.

What is Personal Branding?

Personal branding is the process of creating and influencing the public perception of an individual or a company¹^,². It involves presenting unique experience, knowledge, and expertise³, as well as a consistent look, message, and presence⁴, to set oneself apart from the competitors and establish authority and influence^2,3. The purpose of personal branding is to advance one’s career, increase one’s circle of influence, and have a larger impact².

Why is personal branding important?

Personal branding allows you as an individual (or a business) to stand out from the crowd. It’s an opportunity for you to show your potential customers why they should choose you in what is potentially a very crowded marketplace. It allows you to truly connect with the people that you want to reach and start to build a good business base. It should be a reflection on who you are and what you stand for. It should highlight your skills, values, beliefs and passions to allow others to identify with you. By being authentic it allows you to earn the trust of the people you want to influence and in so doing it increases your credibility.

How to use social media for personal branding

Social media platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook are excellent tools for establishing and growing a personal brand because it allows you to reach more of your target audience. It also allows you to control your brand’s narrative, so when others look you up, you know exactly what they will find⁵.

Social media allows you to reach a larger audience than ever before. When establishing your personal brand it’s important that you have a consistent look and feel regardless of the social media platform that you choose to use – use the same imagery, tone, language etc. This ensures you are not confusing the audience as to what you are about. You need to post regular content that is relevant and of interest to your audience that helps to establish your brand. You don’t want to post too often so as not to bombard everyone with information. It’s also important to post regularly to retain interest in your personal brand and so you should have a content schedule for doing so⁶.

You should also vary your content to keep it interesting for your audience – you can use videos, articles, imagery to gain attention and engage with your audience in order to gather valuable insights.

Good examples of using social media for personal branding

Mark Manson is an author and creator – his branding is consistent – he uses the same profile picture across all social media platforms, the same tagline (5 minutes that could change your life), same colour palettes – there is no confusion and it’s clear that all these accounts are from the same person. He uses a good mix of articles and imagery and doesn’t seem to bombard followers with too many posts.

Mark Manson (@IAmMarkManson) / Twitter

Mark Manson | Facebook

(50) Mark Manson | LinkedIn

Mark Manson – Life Advice that Doesn’t Suck

Bill Gates is another great example of personal branding on social media. Like Mark the profile picture is consistent, the bio is similar and the imagery used as the background is consistent – leaving the follower in no doubt that these accounts are all linked.

Bill Gates | Facebook

Bill Gates (@BillGates) / Twitter

(48) Bill Gates | LinkedIn

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