Improving your personal brand

First things first, if you want to get anywhere in the world, we need to see who you are. In this sense, (an) image is critical.

 You may have privacy concerns but you may need to accept the fact in today’s digitised-everything that one’s personal information is arguably available for anyone to access, if they really want to access it. The internet is a powerful and helpful resource. Don’t share what you don’t want to be accessed but realise that an brand identity may need a name behind it.

A brand needs the help of an image, to let people create a picture (a strong, favourable and unique association) of you or what you are.

This may include a profile picture, an ‘about me’ story, a logo, a slogan – anything which can identify you as being you.  Make sure these are relevant to what you are saying.

Studies have shown that people accept, trust and prefer authors of online web content who have a profile photo – whether on Twitter, Facebook or your blog – which makes sense, as most human-beings are more stimulated by visual information – something tangible and credible we can believe in.

 Secondly. Decide on why exactly your brand is meaningful and stick to it. I suggest deciding on a theme, whether sport, travel, your company, your art etc. hardly all of them in the same space.

Furthermore, if you’re looking to attract a certain following for example, women drivers aged 25-33 – make sure that they find you continuously interesting and relevant.

Conversely – keep your ideas fresh and always allow customer response via some medium (email, blog comments etc.) so that you can constantly refine and improve your value proposition.

 What is harmful/helpful to your brand?

 Think of yourself as your own publicist or image consultant (look at it from your desired audience’s eyes…)

1) Step back and look at what you do that makes you both valued and valuable – what you’re good at, what interests you and what conforms to your values.

This is the brand you should be nurturing and marketing.

2) Establish SMART goals for your brand (Goals that are…)

3) Step back and identify which of your behaviours facilitate/obstruct the actualisation of these goals.

4) Establish/understand the intentions driving these behaviours, and actively set about changing harmful behaviours and maximising or emphasising helpful behaviours.

 “Google never forgets.” – I agree with Seth Godin on the fact that if someone googles your name they shouldn’t see anything that would contradict your brand.

Not that he’s implying being a saint, rather just full your name’s search terms with brand goal actualisers.

5) Constantly evaluate.

Step back and see what your audience is seeing – google yourself; then refresh stale ideas/mediums to make sure the associations you’re creating are the most congruent with your brand’s identity.

Lastly, Intellectual Rights Protection:

Let people distribute your brand property, but make sure that it’s linked to your brand.

Read more?

 Blecher, S. 2010. Personal Branding: Posting your Photo Increases your Twitter Following. [Online]. 6^th April.

<http://www.brandchannel.com/home/post/2010/04/06/Personal-Branding-Posting-Your-Photo-Increases-Your-Twitter-Following.aspx> [6th Jul 2010]

 Universal Events. 2010. What is NLP. Universal Events [Online]

<http://www.universalevents.com.au/nlp-what-is> [7th July 2010]

Godin, S. 2009. Personal branding in the age of Google. Seth’s Blog [Online]. 28^th February.

<http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/02/personal-branding-in-the-age-of-google.html> [6th Jul 2010]

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