Personal branding is a great way to build a professional social network and ultimately, make a name for yourself within your industry. Whether your goal is to share knowledge or secure your next opportunity, building a personal brand is never going to be a waste!
Here are our top 5 Dos and Don’ts of personal branding, helping you to avoid common mistakes!
DO: Understand what your audience is interested in
Doing a bit of research and getting an in-depth understanding of what resonates with your audience is crucial when building your personal brand. You want to think of it as 50% of the things you’re interested in talking about and 50% of what your audience will enjoy hearing about. You won’t always strike the perfect balance, but doing market research and looking at others' personal brands can help you with this.
DO: Take the time to plan and schedule your content
Having a personal brand doesn’t mean that you need to be consistently active every single day. If you can make the time (and schedule your content in advance) so that you post once a week regularly, this can work wonders for your engagement. If you don’t post on a public platform and want to grow your personal brand through a group on Slack, Discord, or WhatsApp, make sure that you set aside time to be actively involved in these groups and make your presence known.
DO: Ask for opinions and feedback
Without feedback, you won’t know how to improve. Don’t assume that your content is perfect or because your engagement is good that you’re automatically absolved from feedback. Take the time to understand what people want from you!
DO: Stay true to yourself
Authenticity is your superpower when building a personal brand. Don’t sacrifice your views or opinions for likes and comments or to seem “relatable”. Unfortunately, a lot of people can fall into the trap of creating clickbait content or content that doesn’t have much substance because they simply want vanity metrics. Stay true to the topics that you want to talk about, be consistent, and your personal brand will grow.
DO: Post pictures and videos
Word smithing is difficult - and not everybody is naturally good at writing. Use pictures and videos to your advantage. Whether it’s your content or you’re crediting someone else, use multiple forms of media when building your personal brand.
DON’T: Copy others online or follow the crowd
Just because your competitor is talking about a specific topic, doesn’t mean that you need to get involved. Equally, if a topic has gone viral (especially if it is political or sensationalised) think carefully before attaching yourself to it. Your online footprint in some instances is forever, so don’t be a sheep.
DON’T: Measure your success with vanity metrics
Just because a post received 50 likes, doesn’t mean that you are qualified to talk on that topic for the end of time. The metrics you should be looking at are the results that happen behind closed doors.
Did someone reach out to you privately saying that your post resonated with them? Did you get a networking opportunity from it? These are all tangibles that show your success far more than likes or comments on a post.
DON’T: Be impatient
Building a personal brand takes time, and by time - we mean years. Don’t expect to see groundbreaking results in three weeks, or even three months. Use the first 12 months as your foundation to find the topics you like and carve out a key audience, then, use the next 12 months (and every year thereafter) to build on it.
DON’T: Forget to use a spellchecker
Even great writers use spell-checkers! Always put your written content through a grammar checker before posting online, it’s simply good practice.
DON’T: Underestimate the power of showing your personality
People buy from people. People are also very invested (slash nosy) about others' lives. Don’t be afraid to show your personality and what makes you, you. Funny stories, anecdotes, learnings, and advice - these are all key building blocks for your personal brand!
