How do you introduce yourself to a stranger?

Defining who you are and what you do are the first things you need when building your personal brand.

Ask yourself, what do you want to be known for? What is your purpose? What do you want to be?

Answering these questions will help you identify who you are and what you do.

You need a defined identity to be more consistent and loyal to your branding. You also have to make it strong enough that when anyone hears your name, they know exactly what to expect from you.

What you need to do is..

• Formulate a unique personal brand and give value to everyone.
• You don’t need to come up with a made-up persona – you just need to be you! Tell your story, and follow what your brand is.
• Keep in mind that your personal brand is an extension of expressing the things you love to do while having a purpose to help others achieve theirs.

But of course, you’ll get lost if you don’t know where to start.

Let’s have a look at the Top 5 Must-Haves To Build A Strong Personal Branding, plus a few bonus tips!

#1 Brand Persona

Everything starts with you being able to define your brand personality – your tone, your voice, your attitude, and behavior. Have unique key traits that are easily recognizable. Even if you’re “just being yourself”, you still need to define who you are to be more precise about what you want to convey.

#2 Visual Identity

How do you want people to see you? What do you want to look like? You should have a face. Use your own portrait, but you should have consistent color, feel, and emotion so people can identify you in the crowd even at one glance.

#3 Define Your Audience

Deliver your message to the people that matter the most. Define who your audience is, their problem, what they need, and what solution you can offer. This way, you’ll have a baseline on what story to tell to make yourself relatable to them.

#4 Social Assets

Now that you have defined who you are, you need to spread your content to where your audience is. Create a profile on major social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter to start delivering your content and spreading awareness about your personal brand.

Make your approach more personal – once in a while, share your lifestyle and life event – in the first place, you’ll be on social media not just to connect with your audience, but to also socialize with them.

#5 Content Strategy

Weekly and bi-monthly content planning will help you keep on track. It will also keep you from the hassle of not knowing what to do today and save you from creative block. Let me remind you though, you are telling a story, so don’t forget to showcase empathy and always be certain with what you share. Always make it sound like what you are sharing happens to you (based on experience), so you offer a solution to them.

Bonus

• As promised, my bonus tips when building strong personal branding is to have an optimized presence. People will connect to a personal brand that shows trustworthiness.
• Having personal branding will make you more authentic and much more human, rather than speaking as a brand, so optimize it in that way.

Lastly, consistency is the major key to success in building your personal brand. BE LOYAL to your branding.