Personal branding is the process of creating a brand around a person, and is most commonly used to establish someone as the leading authority in their industry. Rand Fishkin of Moz is an excellent example of personal branding done the right way as he has successfully established himself as one of the leading authorities in the SEO industry.
Personal branding is becoming increasingly important in today’s connected world as people are going to search for you using your name before hiring you, going on a date with you, entering a business partnership with you, and most importantly, if they want to research about you and the company you run.
What is Personal Branding?
Personal branding refers to establishing your unique personal identity along with things such as beliefs and values which you stand for and promoting it to a pre-defined audience. A personal brand can successfully communicate your unique experience, skills and can differentiate you from the competition.
How Personal SEO affects your Personal Branding?
Personal SEO refers to the practice of using search engine optimization or SEO tactics to establish a person’s online identity. Personal SEO is most often used for getting a higher rank in search engine result pages or SERPs. This is done because a personal website promoting an individual is of no good use if no one can find it within organic search results.
More and more people are using search engines nowadays to search for people before hiring a candidate for a position or business partnership. Some studies suggest that almost 45% of people dropped the plan to partner with someone, subscribe to a service, or avail a product once they came across negative information about them in search engine results.
This is because people trust organic search results more than paid advertising and other methods used for promotion and branding. Personal SEO is essential for any personal branding strategy as often these two don’t work without the other due to the trust placed by people in organic search results.
Here are the Ways on How You Can Start Branding Yourself Online
Social Media:
Social media is one of the best ways to create a personal brand as people tend to trust recommendations of their friends and other acquaintances more than traditional marketing. Social media allows you to use this to your advantage and combine the word of mouth marketing with the viral effect of social media platforms.
Brand yourself using your face:
People tend to trust faces as we are biologically wired to trust other humans. Several studies have shown that using smiling faces in branding and marketing material tends to increase the chances of a consumer buying from you. You must always use a beautiful picture of your face while building your personal brand as this is the easiest way to create a brand centered around your face.
Differentiate yourself:
Perhaps we can never ever overestimate the importance of differentiating yourself from your competitors. Customers need a reason to buy from you as no matter what industry you are in; there are already hundreds of people and companies selling exactly similar goods and services.
You need to find your unique selling proposition or USP and use it for branding as this allows you to communicate the value which you provide to the consumer and differentiates you from the competition.
Use valuable content for personal branding:
Content is the backbone of any good branding campaign, and this is especially true in today’s world of digital marketing where users are exposed to a wide variety of content in the form of infographics, eBooks, brochures, videos, and podcasts.
Build a personal branding strategy centered around content, and this ensures your success in the long run as customers are attracted to valuable content which provides solutions to their problems.
Optimize your website and social media profiles for keywords:
Keywords play an essential role in personal SEO, and can also be used for personal branding purposes as a person is more likely to consider you an expert in your domain if he has come across other material where you were mentioned as an expert.
You can identify your main target keywords and use these in a wide variety of content, including the content on your website, landing pages, and social media profiles.
Manage how others perceive you:
Perception is often the most crucial things in branding and marketing. How others see you is often more important than who you really are. So, try to manage the perception of others using strategically created content and promotional material.
Conclusion
These are some of the ways how you can build a personal brand. Although, due to the vastness of the subject, there is no one-size-fits-all formula when it comes to personal branding. There are undoubtedly several other equally valid ways in which you can create a personal brand which you are free to use and explore.
Want to start creating your personal brand online, but don’t know where to start? Get the help of our personal branding expert, Qamar Zaman, and start boosting your authority and credibility online. A solid personal brand doesn’t only establish you a good reputation, it also helps you gain people’s trust, thus helping your grow your business. Contact him at 972.437.8942 for a free consultation.
