Personal Branding Roles

The Many Important Roles of Your Personal Brand [Infographic]

Your personal brand is probably the most important and powerful member of your team.  It can jump-start your career or take your existing career to new heights! But, ignoring your personal brand and not giving it the time it is worth can potential harm your career, or at the very least leave it a bit stagnant. By focusing on it and having a clear personal branding strategy your it will always have your back. Continue reading

Personal Branding tools

11 Tools for Managing and Growing Your Personal Brand

You could easily spend hours upon hours a day working to grow and manage your personal brand online and offline. But you won’t have to spend such a large amount of time if you are use the right tools. I commonly receive the question about what tools I use to more efficiently manage my personal brand. Below is a list of some of my favorite apps, websites, and tools that I use to build my personal brand and managing market efforts in general. However, while these are my favorites, there is not a one-size-fits-all solution. It is important to try out different tools to figure out what works best for you and your goals; whether that is to grow your community, land your dream job, increase your client base, establish yourself as a thought leader, etc. Continue reading

personal branding

A Marketer’s Guide to Getting Started with Personal Branding

A brand is not only a company, logo, or trademark; it is anything that identifies or differentiates one thing from another. That could be one company from another, such as Coca-cola and Pepsi, or  one person from another.  As marketers in the digital space it has become more critical than ever to develop and grow our personal brands. A strong personal brand shows that you know how to successfully market yourself, your skills, and your brand, giving you the credibility needed to land your first job, first client, dream job, or dream client. Continue reading

How to Create Your Own WordPress Blog: A Video Tutorial

We all know that content is king, and its empire is growing by the minute. This is more true now more than ever since Google’s Hummingbird algorithm update. One of the best ways to add content to your website is to create and maintain a blog focused around topics relevant to your company’s industry. A blog is also a great way for professionals to build their personal brand by writing about industry topics and trends.  Continue reading

5 Steps to Optimizing Your LinkedIn Profile

LinkedIn Networking

LinkedIn profiles are one of the best tools available for professionals to start developing their personal brand. Think of it as your online resume for both future employers and industry leaders to learn more about you. However, to grow your professional network, you need to optimize your profile so that industry professionals can find you. The following are five steps to increasing the visibility of your LinkedIn profile and highlighting your personal brand. Continue reading

7 Tips on Becoming Wildly Successful

I recently read a great blog post by Maren Kate on how to build a successful company or personal brand strategy. While this article was written in 2009, all the tips she shares are as relevant now as they were then.

  1. Be Your Own Groupie. Know what your business core, strengths, and niche are, and make it who you are, not just part of you. Love your business idea and your industry; love it so much that it is all you want to talk about. When you love want you do for a living, it no longer feels like work. Become your own biggest fan, and then people will become big fans, as well.
  2. Know Your Story. Figure out why you started loving the type of business you are in, since it is the basis of your brand. Turn the story into what your brand stands for.
  3. Be Seen. You may be the best in your industry or have the most potential, but if no one knows who you are, it does not change anything. Even if you are shy in your everyday life, make the commitment to be bold and outgoing when talking about business and your brand (especially your personal brand). However, remember that there is a difference between being outgoing and talking too much. Make sure that you listen to the people you network with just as much as you share your story and passion.
  4. Fill the gap. Find your niche in the market. Maren explains that “often what is behind the hip brands is not the actual products but instead it is the people who consist of the brand and the companies’ image.” Be open with your customers, do not try to be perfect, be honest, and admit your flaws, this will help create to a loyal customer base.
  5. Build relationships with talkers. What better way to spread the word about your brand than to build relationships with people who love to talk, blog, and tweet? Build relationships with talkers, real relationships not “one-night stand” relationships. Talkers already love to network, they are good at it, so build relationships with them, and they will spread the good word. On the same note, they know how to network so they can sniff out when someone is just using them, so do not just try to use them for their connections.
  6. Do not feed the dinosaurs. If you try and try to reach your audience through a platform and your do not have any success…you have already tried and tried, please do not try again. Try your luck with another channel, go where your customers already are. They probably are not waiting to see your newest commercial; rather they are either fast forwarding through the commercials or checking Facebook while they wait for their show to come back on. Cut the television budget and switch your efforts to social media and online marketing.
  7. Raising a freaky cow. “To survive and thrive in a post traditional marketing world you must have a strong brand built upon a well crafted story that resonates and connects with your target market.” This statement is definitely true; it is all about buzz marketing. Do not be generic, be unique.