Before unveiling your personal brand, you’ll need to make sure you’ve spent sufficient time defining who you are, identifying your key audience(s) and identifying your competitors.
It’s unlikely that everyone you reach out to will gravitate to your personal brand. It’s connecting with your specific target audience(s) that really matters.
Showcasing your personal brand need not involve an unrelenting effort to draw attention to yourself. Unless you are campaigning for political office, consistent relationship building over the long term versus ad hoc attempts to gain publicity in short bursts will boost your personal brand to levels that will surprise you. Effectively showcasing your personal brand involves providing quality information to your audiences via social media, public speaking, volunteer work or any other activity that lets people observe you in action.
Once you can define your personal brand, here are ten ways to help you better showcase it.
#1: Build a brand statement
This short summary essentially provides the what, why, where and how that supports your personal brand. It reflects how you present yourself to others in a professional capacity in terms of your goals, your values, and your outlook on the world. This is not to be confused with an ‘elevator pitch’, which is intended to focus more on the benefits of being associated with your personal brand and to encourage deeper engagement between you and the listener.
#2: Work up a communications plan
This is the foundation of your long term outreach strategy that will help you remain consistent in how you present yourself. It covers the nature and timing of the deployment of the tools and tactics you will use to increase your personal brand awareness, such as your website, social media content and channels, and public and media relations strategies.
#3: Manage your Google results
Your objective is to encourage visitors who have searched for you on Google to find out more about you and how you can help them, or someone they know. Depending on your web history, there are various approaches to consider.
If you have no web presence, you will be invisible to people searching your name and are well-served to start building your online presence as soon as possible. Be sure that your content is consistent with your brand statement and that you are posting material you will be proud of next month and for years to come.
Alternatively, if you already have a presence but you are not happy with what pops up in Google, then the challenge is to populate your channels with quality content consistently so it is easier to find out more about what it is you have to offer.
#4: Add value to your network
You can add value to your network via online strategies as well as more traditional face-to-face connection. In conversation, be sure to listen for opportunities to add intelligent insight that will benefit your conversational partner rather than steering the conversation to your needs constantly. Referrals go a long way to add value to your network as well and shows that you play well with others.
In terms of online value add, engage your audience through social media with content they value. Whether blogs and articles (yours or curated), short observations, or industry commentary, your content should be relevant to your audience.
#5: Use social media wisely
If you are trying to build a professional personal brand, you have to ensure you have a positive presence on social media that showcases what you stand for. Avoid posting inappropriate photos and language that don’t project your personal brand. At the very least, learn how to use LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter to help you showcase your personal brand at a professional level.
#6: Take into consideration the three A’s of personal branding daily:
Appearance –First impressions are cast in stone in seconds and are hard to change, no matter how intelligent you may be. Consider all aspects of your personal appearance from your shoes to your hair, the car you drive, and even the way you speak. You needn’t be the best-dressed person in the room but you will gain confidence with properly fitted, good quality clothes. Think quality, not quantity and when shopping for clothes look for those that you can easily adapt for both casual and more formal occasions.
Actions – Once you have made a good first impression, your personal actions (the way you carry and present yourself) is a key factor in establishing good relationships. How you behave around others is often affected by your connection with them, whether positive or negative. It can also be affected by how you think the other party perceives you. Understand the source of your behaviour and celebrate it, or fix it.
Agreeability – your ability to get along with others and help them remain receptive to you. Active listening when interacting with others will help to create stronger connections because you are taking a proactive approach to building relationships. Learning more about others will help you apply your own strengths to the development of each relationship.
This article was originally posted on LinkedIn.