Personal Branding

Whether you accept it or not, you have a brand.

A personal brand is the unique combination of personality traits, life-view, beliefs, skills and experiences that make you who you are. It is how you present yourself to the world. Effective personal branding will differentiate you, set you apart and enable you to build trust with your network and audience. People naturally gravitate towards what they identify with in life and also in business. 

A personal brand for the purposes of this site will be broken down to 3 major components:

1) YOUR PERSONA :

“the aspect of someone’s character that is presented to or perceived by others. – Oxford Languages” The character that you present has to be clear and an authentic representation of who you are, especially online so that who you are in person and the persona you project is not disjointed. Your online persona is what prospective clients, employers, partners, investors, donors, sponsors and any stakeholders use to make important decisions that can open new opportunities, or drop you before they get involved.

The importance of projecting a persona consistent with who you are can never be over emphasised. The coming on of social media has not made it easy for some because of the desire to be freely “social”. That can never be further from the truth – social is not as social as you believe. As a digital marketing strategist, I have been requested to do ethical online background checks for businesses considering someone a job. Anything you associate with, empathise with, create as content, like or comment on, adds to your online persona( personal brand).

Your persona has to do with:

i) Who you want to be known as.

ii) Who you want to be known by.

iii) What you want to be known for.

2) PERSONAL BRANDING TOOLS

The branding tools covers the technical bit about your personal brand. This is what you use to authentically communicate your brand. This includes areas like the media you use, logo, brand pallete, content creation, digital channels you utilise and even how to use the online profiling features to stand and be memorable.

3) PERSONAL IMAGE

Your personal image is how people perceive you at a glance. It’s the way you dress, the way you look, the way you behave, the way you communicate, etc. It has a lot to do with your appearance. You can build an amazing online brand that people go gaga for, but as long as the persona online does not match who you are in person, people will constantly feel duped, scammed, underwhelmed and disappointed by meeting you in person. 

This should not be the case because it casts a bad light on you. We cannot seperate the physical you from the online person. The Digital Age has made it such that the digital persona is a strong reflection and extension of who you are. Yes, in this area we will talk about grooming, etiquette and netiquette (socially acceptable online manners).