You have a personal brand whether you ever intended to do so or not. A brand is simply the story that people tell about a person, product, or organization. If you’re in any kind of public-facing business at all, a story circulates about you. Branding is simply the act of framing that story as positively as possible rather than leaving it to chance.
It’s more than marketing (spreading the word) and sales (closing the deal). Your personal brand is the foundation upon which most of your business relationships are going to be built.
According to a recent article by Tamilore Oladipo, Content Writer at Buffer,
The term personal brand means different things to different people – this is especially clear in the series of interviews for our series on the topic, Social Proof. To Steph Smith, it means intentionally pursuing projects that shape how people perceive her. And to Katelyn Bourgoin, it means sharing the lessons from her daily work in relatable ways for her audience.
The common thread is that all these people put a concerted effort towards letting people know what they were working on, usually in an effort to build expertise and visibility in their respective industries.
Tamilor put together a fantastic overview of what a personal brand can look like as well as giving a simple framework for your brand’s development. Her five steps are:
- Pinpoint, or identity what makes you, you.
- Build, or define the system that powers your personal brand.
- Project, or put yourself out there.
- Boost, or take your sharing from passive to active.
- Judge, or review and refine your personal brand.