Who hasn’t heard of big names like Warren Buffett and Elon Musk in entrepreneurship? It’s because they have strong personal brands that their names are recognisable to every aspiring entrepreneur. And people like Oprah and Ellen have built such powerful personal brands that they are recognised by their first names alone.
Although these examples are a bit far-fetched, they give you an idea of just how effective personal branding can be. They are considered among themost successful people在世界上。无论您是想找到理想的工作还是希望获得更多的品牌合作伙伴关系，您的个人品牌都可能是使您与其他选择区分开的决定因素。
But what exactly goes into the personal branding process? It’s similar to product branding in which you are the product. It involves a lot of competitor research to identify what makes you unique so you can stand out from the crowd.
Here are some of the initial steps you can take to effectively brand yourself:
Step One: Determine the Purpose of Personal Branding
Why do you want to build a personal brand? What do you want to achieve? What goals and objectives do you hope to accomplish through personal branding?
Perhaps you want to land that dream job at your favorite company. Maybe you want to strengthen your influence and get more partnership opportunities from relevant brands.
Whatever your aspirations may be, you need to have a clear vision so you can understand why you need a personal brand. This can help you lay the foundation for the rest of the personal branding process.
Step Two: Conduct Research
一旦你有你的目的和目标,you can start looking for people who have achieved them. Make a list of some people who have managed to successfully get where you want to be through successful personal branding. This could be anyone from your biggest idol to your top competitor. It’s best if you clearly write this down so you can keep track of your findings.
After compiling your list, you should thoroughly look at their journeys to see what they did to achieve their goals. What can you learn from them that will help you through your own journey? Did they make any mistakes along the way that you should learn to avoid? What do you have that they don’t that can help make you stand out?
You might be able to find interviews and other content that can help you with your research. Some of them may even have blogs or vlogs that explain their journeys and provide useful tips and advice for others who want to follow in their footsteps.
For example, let’s say Ramit Sethi is one of the people who has gotten to where you want to be. You can conduct Google searches for “Ramit Sethi interview,” “Ramit Sethi life story,” “Ramit Sethi success story,” etc. Or you can even check outhis blogwhere he’s published tons of valuable content based on his experiences.
第三步：概述您理想的品牌属性
One of the most important steps in personal branding is to determine what attributes you want to associate with your personal brand. First, consider your expertise, your skills, and your best qualities. What do you do and what are you good at? What is your profession and what are your hobbies aside from your regular job?
Based on this, you can consider the niche in which you specialise or have an interest in. By clearly understanding your niche, you will have a better idea of what your brand attributes should be.
Perhaps you’re a full-time mom who enjoys baking and crafting. So your niche could be parenting, cooking, arts and crafts, and lifestyle.
Once you’ve outlined these basics, you get to the most important part – what makes you unique? Your unique identity or value proposition is what’s going to differentiate you from others in your niche. It will be the essence of your personal brand.
理想情况下，它应该是您个性的代表。例如，也许您有很多书呆子的兴趣，并使用幽默来建立自己的品牌声音。这可以使您看起来更加相关，因此更加讨人喜欢。
For parenting blogger, Chantal, (popularly known as Nerdy Mamma), she differentiates herself by sharing the “fun side of parenting.” Being nerdy and humorous is part of her brand identity, which differentiates her from most other parenting bloggers.
现在想想您要使用的形容词来定义品牌。您想被认为可靠和负责吗？还是您想被认为是高效且可靠的？也许像有趣和创意这样的词对您来说更准确。
This will give you a clear idea of what you want your brand to be and how you should present yourself. It will also give you a better sense of what kind of content to create if you’re an influencer or entrepreneur. Better yet, you can even use these adjectives to come up with your personal brand statement.
A personal brand statement is basically a statement that explains what your brand is about and what it stands for. It could outline what you’re good at, who you help, what your values are, etc.
它类似于品牌口号，因此需要清晰和吸引人。尽管其他人对他们的品牌报表更具描述性，但如果您的品牌声明简洁，那么人们可以轻松地记住它。
Food blogger Anjali, also known as “The Picky Eater,” has a short and catchy band statement – eating your way to a healthy life. She’s managed to easily sum up what her personal brand is about in a few simple words.
Step Four: Have a Clear Idea of Where You’re At
Before you can successfully build your personal brand, you need to have a clear understanding of where you’re currently at. Assess your current state and try to determine how far you are from reaching your goals.
Perhaps you have a few hundred loyal followers already but you want togrow your influenceand gain at least 5,000 followers so brands can start noticing you.
Understanding your current state can help you get a better idea of what you need to do to reach your goals and how to measure your progress. What changes do you need to make – whether it’s in the way you present yourself, the content that you create, or how you interact with people? All of this can help you come up with a solid strategy to reach your personal branding goals.
Step Five: Take Action
Now you have all of the information you need to come up with a plan of action to build and grow your personal brand. Your game plan may differ according to your exact goals and your current state, but it will typically involve the following:
Build an Online Presence
Almost everything is digital today. So you need to build your presence online instead of solely focusing on your offline presence. This means creating a profile on the right social media platforms andoptimising it增长您的追随者。您需要使用这些社交媒体渠道来吸引和吸引相关受众，并提供有价值的内容和信息。
Rebekah Radice, for instance, is an entrepreneur who’s successfully built a massive following on social media. She has optimised her Twitter bio with keywords that are relevant to her niche such as CMO, SaaS, Marketing, Branding, etc. And she shares highly valuable information that her followers may appreciate.
Aside from your social media presence, you might want to create a website and/or a blog as well.
来源：twitter.com
Create Valuable Content
As mentioned earlier, you need to create valuable content to grow your social media presence. Plus, you’ll also need content for your blog and/or website.
This content should be relevant to your niche and useful to your audience. Although you’re free to share bits and pieces of your personal life and opinions from time to time, the majority of the content you produce should have value.
If you’re a marketer, for instance, you can create videos or blog posts that talk about marketing tips or trends. If you’re a gamer, you can create walk-through and gameplay videos that your followers will not only find useful but entertaining. Based on your niche and expertise, you’ll have a fair idea of what kind of content you need to create to establish and grow your personal brand.
Tina Haupert is a lifestyle influencer and is a perfect example of someone who creates highly valuable content to build a personal brand. She regularly produces useful and actionable content related to fitness and nutrition.
Network
Networking is crucial for anyone who wants to grow their personal brand. It helps you connect with an audience that is likely to be interested in what you have to say.
You could network with fellow influencers through social media and influencer networks and events. Or you could network with fellow entrepreneurs through industry events and social media groups.
Additionally, you could leverage the power of guest posts to connect with your peers and target audiences alike. You could try to get your guest posts published by industry blogs and reputable publications such as Inc.com, Forbes, Entrepreneur.com, etc. This will help you tap into the established readership of these publications, gain visibility, and drive traffic to your site.
Entrepreneurs likeSean Wise在众多企业家分享他们的年代吗tories and expertise through guest posting. His guest posts have been published on Forbes, CNBC, and Inc.com.
Image Source:inc.com
Conclusion
These are some of the initial steps for successful personal branding. If you want to see results, make sure you don’t skip any of them because they’re all equally important. Now it’s time to get started with these steps and discover the answers to why you want to build a personal brand.
