Why do you need a personal brand?
Every entrepreneur and business executive has principles that define and drive them, whether or not they’ve been articulated well. When your team, your present and future customers and also your family, present and future, look to see what you stood for, what will they find? Will your personal and professional values be present, particularly in a way that can inspire others? Underneath are 3 C’s which may help in developing a personal brand.
- Connections
The first thing you need is an audience. These are your connections. The greater the audience, the bigger your personal brand will become if you follow this process. If you don’t have many connections right now set a goal. After realising that I had never been a good at networking, a few years back, I set a goal to have 3000 twitter followers, and then beef up LinkedIn connections, as well as my Facebook page last year.
- Channel
You need a channel to communicate with your audience to build your brand. There are many channels such as Twitter, Facebook, etc. I primarily use LinkedIn, mainly because it’s the largest global business network in the world. Here are some keys to using LinkedIn:
- Photo should be professional (preferably done by a professional photographer)
- Write a story about yourself, your passion and values
- Show your strengths, differentiating factors, skills, and references if you have any
- Treat this as your online CV, and keep it up to date
- Link your work (if you have any) – books, videos etc.
- Communicate
The first key to any relationship is communication. What you are doing is building a relationship with people. So how will you communicate with these people? For me, it was through writing. I wanted to write posts, blogs, articles as well as produce video content for training etc.
In conclusion begin to work on your connects, channels and communications. Make it a goal in 2017 to be about building a strong Personal Brand.
Leave a Reply