7 Tips on Creating and Growing Your Personal Brand

culled from:http://marketing.about.com

1. Build your platform.  If you are going to have a personal brand you will need a website in order to create your virtual platform.  Your website should be your name.  You will also need social media accounts that represent your brand.  You will use these platforms to share your voice.
    
2. Identify your uniqueness and your strengths.  Think about the characteristics and strengths you’ve built in your career.  If you are stuck think about that “one thing” that everyone says you rock at.  Still stuck?  Ask others.
    
3. Own your space. Once you’ve identified your uniqueness and strengths – perfect it.  Learn all that you can and become the expert in that area.  You can never stop learning.  Read, absorb and teach.
    
4. Share your knowledge.  It’s not enough to learn it, you have to teach it and share your knowledge by helping others.  Do this through videos, social media, writing both online and offline.   This is where you prove you know your stuff and gain exposure from doing so.
    
5. Be yourself.  Find your own style.  You don’t have to do what everyone else is doing and just follow the crowd.  Use your style and uniqueness to attract the jobs and clientele that you desire.  When I think of this tip I’m always reminded of Gary Vaynerchuk and how he build is brand by doing videos sharing wine reviews and tips.  No one else was doing and now look around hundreds of people are following in his footsteps.   Find your own style and create  new set of footprints for others to follow in.

6. Identify your values and set your priorities.  It’s important to have a clear picture of your personal and professional goals, both short and long term. This will help you in not only identifying the most important things to spend your time on, but will also have something to align new projects with.    Use your values and priorities as a compass that guides you both in action and your decision-making process.   This will ensure you stay on track.
    
7. Craft your personal brand persona.  This will help in creating your brand.   Your persona can be created by identifying three things:
    
   • Your emotional appeal.  What are your personality features?  This can be as easy as saying you have a crazy sense of humor or that you are obsessively organized.  Take a few moments, why do you think people are attracted to the brand of you?
   • Describe yourself.  When it comes to your brand who are you and why do people enjoy working with you?
   • Identify your specialty.  What do you do and what do people want you to do for them?
     
     Use these three questions to create a strong personal brand persona that you can always refer to when it comes to creating materials that support your brand.

Building a personal brand takes time and effort, but it’s worth it.   The need for a personal brand will continue to increase.  It’s the one thing that no one can take away from you and it can follow you throughout your career.   It’s a leadership requirement that lets people know who you are and what you stand for.