So much talk about personal branding, but how can you as a non-business person understand it and use it?
It’s not all about saying you are a company these days. Many people try to emphasise that fact every time they talk about what they do, they mention it a hundred times on their website, like “Contact us”, “we are pleased…” and “we, as a company, strive to…”, even though there is, sometimes, only one person behind it. Like they are trying to tell the world they are not a freelancer, or just any group of people, but that they are “serious”. Yes, you are a business, a company, but emphasising that fact is not what people will be interested in reading or knowing; it goes without saying.
You can have a business under one name, and still push your personal brand if you are doing more then one thing. So, it’s not always about one or the other. Personal brands are great for people who have, or intend to do, video blogs and shows (talking about their passion). Any medium can be good for building your personal brand; some are just more congruent with what you’re doing or more popular at a time.
Search engines remember everything; whatever you do, write, create, say on your blog or in an interview, tweet, will show up under search results for your name. If you want to create a personal brand, you can influence what comes up in search results by focusing on certain things, doing really great stuff, creating your business persona through your own voice.
If you want to grow your business from a one-man band to a group of people who are equal to you, then you shouldn’t use a personal brand for your business. You should use a different name and focus on what you are trying to achieve and on your story. The important thing here is to think about the future, where do you see your micro business going and then decide what you are going to do accordingly.
Creating a personal brand is all about being the person people go to, think of or are reffered to as an expert in the field. Personal brands are still scarse because we have made a quick transition from big companies and brand names to the online world. Up until recently, personal branding was only usually reserved for family businesses (craftsmen), private medical practices and maybe local lawyers. I’m not talking about people seeing you as a walking brand, but being recognizable for what you do and appreciated, being their go-to person.
When we think about micro brands locally vs. micro brands glabally, personal brands work on both levels. Depending on the business, you can choose whether you want to be the best cake baker in the city or you want to run your own online show about soccer to which people can tune in from all over the world.
But I have to say that the brand name doesn’t promise you everything, or anything for that matter. It doesn’t promise you your customers or potential clients will read your emails over somebody else’s, it doesn’t promise you they will even choose you. Who stands behind the brand, or better said, who the brand is about, what kind of a person you are, how approachable you are, whether they can get to know you before they meet you in person are the factors they will subconsciously use whenever they are making their choice to learn more from you, to be entertained or to hire you. If they like what they see and hear, they will come to you even if you don’t know everything.
You should take two lessons from this:
1) you don’t need to know absolutely everything to become an expert and to have a popular personal brand
2) if you are not likable and approachable, your personal brand means nothing
Any brand means nothing in the internet age if you are not constantly communicating, giving your fans more and more, if you don’t have something they like. Did you notice that facebook changed the button “Become a fan” to “Like” for fanpages? Did you notice that YouTube has, too, changed their “Favourite” button to “Like”? It’s not a competition, it’s a way to sort through an increasing amount of information (which is good), it’s about personalization and getter targeting for providers and about people telling you whether you are likable or not; what they think is great, what you need to work on, and whether they want to see more from you.
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photo courtesy vanderwal
