One thing most marketeers are taught is brand development. We are told to build brands. We must define the brand, declare their purposes, demonstrate what they can do, and differentiate them from others.
But, before we can develop someone else’s brand, we have to build our own. A personal brand is a fabulous way to differentiate yourself from others in the job market and to show companies that you know how to build, develop, and take care of a brand — Your brand.
There are so many ways to build your own brand. PWC has a great brand workbook that I’ve taken some ideas from www.pwc.com. For now, I’ve listed 4 ways that I think are extremely important to building your brand.
1. Define Yourself. Maybe this one seems obvious, but you can’t start your brand until you define it. Your brand is you. So defining your brand is defining yourself. Who are you? What are you passionate about? What makes you tick? These questions seem simple enough to answer, but you must answer them to begin your brand.
2. Declare Your Purpose. Your purpose is the reason you create a brand. Are you trying to get a job? Are you wanting to develop your own freelancer brand? Think about why you are branding yourself and it makes it much easier for you to build up your brand. It also makes your brand clearer to any business looking to hire you or for any customer to purchase your personal merchandise.
3. Demonstrate Your Abilities. All brands demonstrate what they can do. Big brands and small brands have done this from the start. Apple showed the world the Mac, the iPhone, and more. In order for people to buy their technologies, Apple needed to show what it could do. They still do this during the keynote reveals.
You also need to demonstrate your abilities. Show people why they should buy into you. Show businesses what you can do and why they should hire you. Are you a designer, a writer, or are you great at social media? Your skill sets are the abilities you need to demonstrate.
4. Differentiate Yourself. Once you have demonstrated what you can do, show how you can do it differently. Big brands must differentiate themselves from the competition. You need to differentiate yourself as well. What makes you better than all the other candidates? Are you more experienced? Do you have examples of your work? There are hundreds of ways to differentiate yourself, you just need to know what your competition is doing and show how you can do it better or do it different. Remember, it’s a relative market. You just need to be better than the other guy, not everyone.